Nextdoor

Local information

While allowing for "civil debate", the platform prohibits canvassing for votes on forums. The service does, however allow separate forums just for political discussions. According to The New York Times, these discussions are "separated from [a user's regular] neighborhood feeds". The company had established these separate forums in 12 markets by 2018.

In a 2014 study of three neighborhoods in Atlanta, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology found that Nextdoor users from the study tended to be highly engaged with their respective neighborhoods outside of their participation on Nextdoor. For these users, Nextdoor provided a means of communication with individuals in a geographic area, instead of the topic-specific focuses of mailing lists, Facebook groups, and Craigslist posts. Study participants described Nextdoor discussions as civil, and stated that the website's address verification requirement increases trust among users while also raising privacy concerns associated with disclosing one's location to the neighborhood.[32]

Buy and sell goods

Nextdoor has a section called For Sale & Free for users to buy, sell, or give away items. The Marketplace is based on geographic location and no payments take place on the app. Since Nextdoor vets the identity of its users,[33] facilitating pickup and payment of items has been considered more secure than platforms like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist.[34] In 2021, the network reported that one-fourth of items listed are free stuff.[35]

Crime and safety

Users can post on Nextdoor about crime and safety in their community.[36] Starting in 2015, media outlets have reported some Nextdoor users have been racially profiling people of color in neighborhoods across the United States.[37][38] In 2016, Nextdoor announced that users would be asked to submit identifying characteristics other than race when posting warnings about individuals or events in the neighborhood.[38]

Law enforcement officials in Oakland, California, who had generally embraced Nextdoor as a means to connect with local residents, were wary of being seen as endorsing or associating with a website that critics argue enables racial profiling.[38] Nextdoor changed its user interface, saying the purpose was to make it harder for users to create race-based posts.[39] After the change, the Oakland Police Department said the changes made Nextdoor "more helpful" to the police department's work.[40] Cofounder Tolia claimed in a February 2017 interview with Wired that Nextdoor reduced racial profiling in its crime and safety reports by 75 percent through user interface changes.[41] A BuzzFeed News investigation indicated that racial profiling of people of color was still prevalent on Nextdoor as of May 2017, and that anti-discrimination measures previously announced by Nextdoor and proposed by Nextdoor's community members were incompletely implemented in Nextdoor's website and apps.[42]

The Atlantic discussed further concerns over hyperactive "crime and safety" sections of Seattle's private community pages on Nextdoor. According to The Atlantic, "Seattle Mayor Ed Murray derided an atmosphere of 'paranoid hysteria' he'd witnessed on the message boards of some of Seattle's more upscale neighborhoods." The mayor said on KUOW-FM, the local NPR affiliate, that Seattle's wealthiest areas are some of the most active communities on Nextdoor.[43] "The neighborhoods where most of the social-media complaints are coming out of are not even the neighborhoods that have significant crime problems, which tend to be our communities of color in the south part of the city. If it's simply about creating a sense of paranoia or if it's about stigmatizing folks in our city that are struggling, then I have to think about why we're in that kind of partnership."

The Root described incidents in 2019 in which people of color and one transgender person claimed they were targeted by Nextdoor users with negative comments and "spook alerts" – racially charged accusations of criminal activity – when they were walking in their neighborhoods.[44]

In June 2020, The Verge reported that "Nextdoor has struggled to shed its reputation as a 'snitch' app, used by white and wealthy users to racially profile their neighbors and report them to the police", an issue that New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez termed the "Karen problem" in a rebuke of Nextdoor on Twitter.[45] During the George Floyd protests, many members of the National Leads Forum – a community of Nextdoor moderators – criticized Nextdoor's support of the Black Lives Matter movement and expressed a preference for All Lives Matter, a slogan that signifies opposition to BLM.[46] A number of Nextdoor users had their accounts suspended or their posts deleted by Nextdoor moderators after commenting in race-related discussions or mentioning BLM during the protests.[45][47] On June 11, Nextdoor explicitly instructed its moderators to allow discussions on the Movement for Black Lives, including BLM.[48] In a blog post, CEO Friar denounced "systemic racism in our nation" and pledged to provide its moderators with "resources and support".[49] Subsequently, Nextdoor discontinued its "forward to police" feature, which had, since 2016, let users send posts directly to local law enforcement.[50] The company said for several months it had been examining the feature as one aspect of its anti-racism efforts.[50]

Police departments

Nextdoor has invited police officers and government officials into its Public Agencies Advisory Council in exchange for a commitment to promote Nextdoor using blog posts and referrals. Members of the council participate in quarterly conference calls with Nextdoor employees and receive at least one trip to the company's headquarters in San Francisco, with all expenses reimbursed by Nextdoor. Nextdoor requires individuals who join the council to sign a non-disclosure agreement that restricts them from disclosing certain types of information about Nextdoor without the company's permission. Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation expressed concerns about the lack of transparency associated with Nextdoor's use of non-disclosure agreements.[51][52]

The police department in Seattle had been engaging with people through "town hall meetings" held on the platform, but in 2016 local journalist Erica C. Barnett reported the meeting's possible conflict with Washington's open meeting laws.[53]

COVID-19

Nextdoor partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and American Red Cross to help distribute information related to COVID-19 to local neighborhoods.[54] Nextdoor also partnered with Walmart to allow users at risk of COVID-19 complications to request shopping assistance during the pandemic.[55] Walmart locations and store hours were placed on a "Help Map" where users could post to offer help to others in their neighborhoods.[56] Nextdoor reported an 80% increase in user engagement during March 2020, especially in areas most seriously affected by the virus.[57]

Voting

Since 2018, Nextdoor has partnered with Vote.org to launch an interactive Vote Map during elections that mark local poll locations and allow users to share whether they have voted or plan to vote.[58]

The company exchanges services with government agencies such as the California Secretary of State's office and the District of Columbia Board of Elections. These public agencies collect and present voter-education information, such as voting locations and voter registration deadlines. This is offered as a link in the Nextdoor platform for members in those neighborhoods.[59]

Disaster relief

The platform reports increased activity during disasters.[60] In May 2017, the company offered its services to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to facilitate the delivery of geographically targeted "emergency and disaster preparedness" alerts through the platform.[61] A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration partnership allows Nextdoor to send out local-community alerts during extreme weather incidents.[62] A study on the role of social media in disaster recovery following Hurricane Harvey revealed that communities active on Nextdoor were likely to recover at a rate faster than communities that were less active.[63]