No, Airbnb isn’t expecting government lockdowns June 6

A recent Facebook post warns of likely government lockdowns starting in a matter of weeks. The source? Supposedly, a short-term housing rental company. 

"BREAKING: AirBnB is expecting large-scale government actions and lockdowns to begin on June 6, 2024, according to a newly obtained email," reads an April 26 X post shared on Facebook. 

The post includes a screenshot of what looks like an email that says: "We’re updating our extenuating circumstances policy and changing its name to make it easier to understand. The revised major disruptive events policy will apply to all trips and experiences taking place on or after June 6, 2024, regardless of when they were booked. What’s changing in the policy? Foreseeable weather events at the reservation’s location are explicitly eligible for coverage if they result in another covered event, such as a government travel restriction or large-scale utility outage." 

What it doesn’t say: that Airbnb is expecting a large-scale government lockdown starting June 6.

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The company posted about its updated policy March 28, noting that it "provides cancellation and refund support for our guests when unexpected major events like natural disasters, government travel restrictions or weather events impact their ability to stay at a location."

The policy, also posted on Airbnb’s website, explains "government travel restrictions" as "mandatory travel restrictions imposed by a governmental agency, such as an evacuation order," which is common with weather events such as hurricanes. 

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Other events include declared public health emergencies and epidemics, military actions and other hostilities, and large-scale outages of essential utilities ("prolonged outages of essential utilities, such as heat, water and electricity, impacting the vast majority of homes in a given location").

Airbnb told PolitiFact in a statement that the claims in the post are "entirely false." 

We rate the claim that "Airbnb is expecting large-scale government actions and lockdowns to begin on June 6, 2024, according to a newly obtained email" False.