It's too bad, I think idea of organizing a social network based on proximity and centered around community information is a viable idea, It's just that NextDoor is doing that with our worst instincts.
[1] https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2020/06/fa...
[2] https://twitter.com/RandazzoTweets/status/126860852649191014...
I have only seen a little bit of NextDoor, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me to be more of how people are deciding to use the platform as opposed to NextDoor purposely promoting our worst instincts. Do you feel like they really are promoting the most inflammatory posts for the purpose of increasing engagement? (like so many of the other major platforms out there)
For me it is sad to see that there are so many people out there too quick to pass judgement on anyone that looks different in their neighborhood. But so far it feels like another example of how web platforms allow people to be more comfortable in expressing their true feelings, and while often disappointing, is a good reminder of the very different views people around us can hold.
On the other hand this is a neighborhood app and is used differently in different neighborhoods. Tenderloin vs Nob Hill.
It is crazy how much everyone assumes all these people are out to get them.
> reaction from an entire community, where they end up chasing a Hispanic family out of town
Is a drastic overstatement of what happened.
Or did I miss something? Are there really only four vehicles in the entire community of Forks?
My Nextdoor has none of the things people are complaining about. Here, the worst thing is arguments about whether we are taking COVID seriously enough or not, but I suppose that is a natural consequence of discussing which businesses are closed etc.
For example, when they were stopped at the store, the family is quoted as saying[1]:
> The family had shopped for camping supplies at Forks Outfitters and were confronted “by seven or eight carloads of people in the grocery store parking lot,” Anderson said they reported to deputies.
No one in the community is willing to come forward with the names of the guilty parties, however many of them were okay with spreading violent rumors about out-of-towners, both of which are levels of complicity in my book.
[1] https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/crime/family-harassed-in-...
I don't think it's necessarily intentional, but posts which foster fear (like "I saw a scary black person walking down the street") will naturally invite more engagement from users, and the site may respond to that by promoting those posts over less controversial content (like "my cat is missing").
A typical post:
"OMG Who Is This Suspicious Person!!!"
:: watches video, sees rather bored looking person, driving a UPS truck, wearing a UPS uniform, dropping off a package, then leaving ::
This was 90%+ of what the posts were like. The rest were 'political' screeds so disjointed they were essentially logorrhea. Something about how Nextdoor has shaped their posting methodologies has made even Facebook posts look sane in comparison, and that's saying something.
The added frustration is that real neighborhood watch needs exist. We had some professional thieves roll through our cul-de-sac a few days ago- dozens of people had their cars broken in to, and whatever was in easy reach stolen. The Ring Neighborhood system allowed those of us affected to find who had video of what, and forward it all to the police. That's a real benefit. But it has its own issues.
Social media is a hard problem.
"oh wow drug dealers in the best neighborhood in the city I can't believe it, but really, did you test the product for accuracy? let us know!"
NextDoor and Craigslist and Reddit's /r/{city} communities just prove that it may be viable but it's pretty undesirable. I think it's best to not give the most neurotic, ill people of your community the loudest voice, but these social networks also create this neuroticism and illness.
You also create a scenario (NextDoor especially) where all the sane people are driven out by the crazies. Back when NextDoor was new, after a year it would come up in conversation and sure enough, anyone normal would admit they tried it and had to delete it.
Social media is messing us up. I don't think we're missing some new take on it that's going to make it all better. I think the vestigially tribal parts of our brain make it a non-starter. We need to get back to the face-to-face -- it seems to be the only way we keep in mind that there's a human at the other end of the line, not some nebulous automaton that we craft into everything we hate in the world.
Haven’t seen any suspicious persons type posts, but we did coordinate the entire neighborhood to help the police after people broke into multiple cars in driveways in ours and the adjacent neighborhood.
It’s been mostly good with the occasional spammy business posting.
People say that it's the outliers but the reality is that in many cases, this is the silent majority driving the behavior.
Frankly I just don't think we can handle social media. We're trying to do this whole technological civilization thing and we've made progress that is absolutely mind bending, but it wasn't long ago that we were using fur and bones and would only meet 100 people our entire life. And our brains are still there mentally, lagging behind the rest of our progress.
You’ve just described Twitter perfectly.
how did this work?
also sounds like a pretty suburban place maybe?
I agree that the behavior being capitalized on here is pathological but using the terms "neuroticism", "illness", and "crazies" here unfairly and wrongly stigmatizes people with mental illness when in practice people with mental illness are more likely to be harmed by these suspicious posts and behavior nextdoor had been encouraging
Don't get me wrong though. Nextdoor's program to forward suspicions to the police is the wrong play. No one should be arrested and put at harm's way just because someone was a bit anxious one day.
I just think that we should be nurturing a high trust society, rather than moving to a low trust one where, on the surface everyone is tolerant/accepting but in reality they aren't really thinking about the other people in their community at all. "Not my problem." "Oh no, I can't let myself be bigoted. Who am I to judge the masked man walking around with a chainsaw at midnight? He might just be headed out to trim his garden?"
I still can’t reconcile just how wildly wrong i was. I didn’t appreciate that it’s not common to want to know truth, common is titillation and tribalism - which always existed anyway, it’s not that the internet increased it or made it more popular, it’s that i was a geek hacking away in my bedroom and didn’t see much of real society.
Although my biggest hangup contrasting then vs now is that Microsoft is my favourite tech company these days.
This is a fair point, and one I think is very important to consider. When I wrote the original quote, I was not thinking of another facebook, but rather a platform that would work on issues like providing access to local government meetings, and probably be closer to what we now think of as "journalism". Which the lack of is a major problem in many parts of the country due to the declining newspaper industry.
Small towns and rural America is in trouble, and although it's naive to say there are simple solutions, I am optimistic that it is possible for technology to solve some problems.
Also: I think a lot of people who complain about Nextdoor need to reflect on where they chose to live. My little city in KY was perfectly fine. People offering help, lost/found animals, events...standard stuff.
The oft-repeated quote of "ND is just Tinder for old racists" makes it sound so lovely.
It’s a neighborhood in a suburb of upstate SC.
Another problem is that such means of inflicting harm on people exist for Nextdoor and it's users.
You weren't wrong. Sharing knowledge freely absolutely solved many of society's problems.
It uh... created a few more too...
Wouldn't be so hard on your past self.
Almost all the fear type nextdoor posts in the areas I've lived in have involved animals and not humans.
Fox, random dog, raccoons and the extremely unlikely but reported none the less....bear sightings.
There is never any conflict that I can tell of and there certainly aren't dubious posts about "suspicious" characters.
I am trying to share my observation, and express my disappointment that a company has created a skinner-box engagement loop based on fear and neuroticism. People will always be afraid, but technology should be used to bring out the best qualities in humans, not amplify the worst.
Lately some these guys have a post history in /r/Seattle too, talking about CHAZ or whatever.
It's obnoxious, there's enough going on locally in NYC without a bunch of racists jumping in to defend stop and frisk or whatever.
Shameless plug: We are exactly working on this and want to bring better community information app without other distractions. Currently only in Denmark.Will be updating the details soon.
However, I agree that the way NextDoor is handling community interactions is really disturbing.
It's not something you see in subreddits for smaller or less popular cities with similar demographics. Subreddits for these tend to be actually useful.