Airbnb has a discrimination problem. Ask anyone who's tried to #Airbnbwhileblack.

If you've ever used Airbnb to rent an apartment for a few days, you may be familiar with the potential hurdles and pitfalls of staying in a stranger's home, thanks to past users' cautionary tales (which run the gamut from routine inconveniences to extreme horror stories).

But for some people, room-share troubles might begin before they even book their lodgings — especially if they happen to #AirbnbWhileBlack, as per the hashtag that recently went viral on Twitter.

The hashtag first appeared in July 2015, when a Twitter user named Quirtina Crittenden discovered she was constantly being declined as a potential guest while trying to rent various Airbnb properties:

Crittendon tried again and again to rental properties that were listed as available on their corresponding Airbnb calendars, but was repeatedly rejected and told they were booked — even though all the listings remained available for the dates she searched. She screengrabbed each rejection and tweeted them under the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack.

In April, NPR's Hidden Brain podcast interviewed Crittendon for a story about hidden bias and how it leads to racism on the website. Crittendon revealed that she ultimately had to shorten her first name from Quirtina to Tina and swap her profile photo — a selfie — for a generic shot of a cityscape before she stopped having trouble booking rooms.

She's not alone in her struggles to book lodging through Airbnb. As the NPR piece noted, a recent study from Harvard Business School determined that travelers with "distinctly African-American names" are 16 percent more likely to be rejected by Airbnb hosts than "identical guests with distinctly White names." A companion study found that guests also discriminate against black hosts, who earn less money on Airbnb than their white counterparts. The podcast's coverage of the topic reignited the hashtag, and seemed to validate what some Twitter users were already anecdotally aware of:

Crittendon's strategy of changing her name and profile photo in order to "game" the system is a common one.

On Wednesday, Twitter user Gregory Seldon, who is black, shared his experience with editing his profile to present himself as a white man and was promptly flooded with similar stories as his tweet went viral, spurring widespread interest in the hashtag.

Though the hashtag has mostly focused on the difficulty of booking a room while presenting as black, that isn't the only problem black Airbnb guests face. In some cases, black Airbnb users who've managed to successfully book a rental have gone on to experience discrimination during their stay:

Airbnb prohibits discrimination on its platform and encourages guests to use its instant booking feature in order to guarantee a room reservation — though this feature usually involves booking the reservation at a higher rental rate. And at a meetup for Airbnb hosts last fall, the company offered seminars and panel discussions on topics like unconscious bias and inclusion. The company told Vox it plans to expand this type of educational outreach to the larger Airbnb community.

Airbnb also recently hired a "Director of Diversity and Belonging," David King III. In an emailed statement, King told Vox that Airbnb "recognize[s] that bias and discrimination present significant challenges, and we are taking steps to address them … We welcome the opportunity to work with anyone that can help us reduce potential discrimination in the Airbnb community."

One solution that many Airbnb users have suggested is to remove profile photos from the website altogether; but King stressed that due to safety and security concerns that won't be happening: "Profile photos are an important part of our community and are one of the many tools that help hosts and guests connect with one another," he said.

That Airbnb is taking proactive steps to reduce discrimination within its community is a step in the right direction. But until the company has a more concrete solution in place, some guests may feel more comfortable patronizing a traditional hotel — an ironic situation for a company whose slogans emphasize "belonging" anywhere in the world.