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blog

Will An Airbnb Tax For Rio Olympics Aid Brazil's Limping Economy?

Two years after hosting a costly FIFA World Cup, Brazil will once again be on the world sporting stage next summer at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. But now, with the Brazilian economy facing a deepening crisis, the government has an idea for some help from a pillar of the "sharing economy": an Airbnb tax.

José Gayoso, an official at Embratur, Brazil's state-owned tourist board, vowed that it will be "a fair tax that will not be passed on to consumers or ruin the business," Brazilian national daily O Globo reports.

Gayoso says the San Francisco-based start-up is actually open to the idea, as it's looking to reinforce its presence in Brazil ahead of the much-awaited Summer Games. In fact, O Globo explains that Airbnb has already officially agreed to provide 20,000 rooms to host tourists during the Olympics.

The bill is still in its early stages, and lawmakers still need to decide what level of taxation they'll impose and whether the tax will be collected by the federal government or instead by local authorities as is done in San Francisco, Washington, Paris and Amsterdam.

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Society

Influencer Union? The Next Labor Rights Battle May Be For Social Media Creators

With the end of the Hollywood writers and actors strikes, the creator economy is the next frontier for organized labor.

​photograph of a smartphone on a selfie stick

Smartphone on a selfie stick

Steve Gale/Unsplash
David Craig and Stuart Cunningham

Hollywood writers and actors recently proved that they could go toe-to-toe with powerful media conglomerates. After going on strike in the summer of 2023, they secured better pay, more transparency from streaming services and safeguards from having their work exploited or replaced by artificial intelligence.

But the future of entertainment extends well beyond Hollywood. Social media creators – otherwise known as influencers, YouTubers, TikTokers, vloggers and live streamers – entertain and inform a vast portion of the planet.

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For the past decade, we’ve mapped the contours and dimensions of the global social media entertainment industry. Unlike their Hollywood counterparts, these creators struggle to be seen as entertainers worthy of basic labor protections.

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