Airbnb Is Using Anti-Party Tech to Ruin Your New Year’s Eve

If you wanted to use Airbnb to host an NYE party instead of your own house for… obvious reasons, you’re out of luck. Airbnb says it has deployed “anti-party technology” across the globe in advance of New Year’s Eve to prevent homes from being rented out for parties. Whoever engineered this tech at Airbnb might want to keep that information off their LinkedIn—nobody wants to be known as the person who killed the fun.

According to a blog post, Airbnb says it is using machine learning and “a number of signals” to identify reservations made starting now that might be booked by guests intending to host a party, which is not allowed on the platform. Signals include the length of the trip, the type of listing, how far the listing is from the guest’s location, and when the reservation is being made. The restrictions seem to be focused primarily on rentals of entire homes, not just a single room. That makes sense: If you’re trying to book a large house down the street from your own on New Year’s Eve, there’s a good chance you’re trying to host a raucous party and Airbnb will try and stop it.

Airbnb has good reason to identify and thwart parties. The company in 2022 began offering hosts on its platform $1 million in liability insurance and another $1 million in damage protection to cover any damage by guests following high-profile incidents of homes being trashed by guests. And the service has faced scrutiny in the past after deadly shootings occurred at the locations of Airbnb rentals being used for parties. If the company wants ample supply of homes on its platform, it has to offer potential hosts assurance that it’s doing its best to make the service safe and reliable.

For this year’s New Year’s Eve in particular, Airbnb says it will block reservations for entire homes of one to three nights that overlap with the holiday. It will also require guests sign attestations acknowledging that they won’t host a party, and could be removed from the platform if found in violation.

The company has activated these restrictions around New Year’s Eve since 2020, and says last year alone it blocked almost 74,000 people from booking an entire home listing during that time.