Worldwide Community Considered A Global Doubt

Worldwide community considered a global doubt
By Cristina Rodríguez
When on January of 2012 a woman, whose identity is now legally protected, from Kyoto denounced sexual assault from Cristiano deAngelis, a man she met through Couchsufing, it was a global response to question the efficiency of the site. Couchsurfing.com is a hospitality exchange website conceived on 1999 by Casey Fenton, andlaunched officially on 2004. Under the slogan of “Participate in creating a better world, one couch at a time”, it promotes the practice of temporarily staying at a stranger’s place for no charge,throwing for the name the parallelism of exploring places through couches as surfing through waves. Currently, there are more than four million members around more than 246 countries, from which more thanfive hundred members are Dominican.
The concept is simple. You create a profile in which you describe as much as you can of yourself, locate your next travel destination, and request several localsyou can find a place to bunk in for a few days. Free of charge, many in return cook meals for their hosts, or give them something unique from their country of origin, to thank the courtesy. For some,on the other hand, it is about taking the world to themselves. Caridad Robles, a freshman architecture student at Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, sees Couchsurfing more as this opportunity. “Iget little vacations and can’t travel much, so through Couchsurfing I get to see the world from my own place.”
Many, however, are hesitant about the nature of this website. In a society where wewere raised on the rule of not talking to strangers, it is contradictory to suddenly open doors to people you would not randomly meet any other way, let alone hosting them in your house. Safety is themain concern for those who are reluctant to Couchsurfing. To counteract their worries, the website offers three main mechanisms of safety: verification, in which you make a monetary donation in order...