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Social Networks Education

Is Misinformation on Nextdoor Impacting Local Politics? (medium.com) 87

Was Nextdoor's impact on the world exemplified by a crucial funding referendum for the Christina School District of Newark, Delaware? Medium's tech site OneZero reports: As the 2019 referendum approached, I saw Nextdoor posts claiming that the district was squandering money, that its administrators were corrupt, and that it already spent more money per student than certain other districts with higher test scores. The last of those was true — but left out the context that Christina hosts both the state's school for the deaf and its largest autism program. District advocates told me later that they had wanted to post counterarguments to the platform, but were hindered by Nextdoor's decentralized structure. Some district officers, for instance, couldn't even access the posts and discussions happening in the city of Newark, because they were only visible to other Newark residents, and they lived outside the city's borders. (The district's headquarters are actually in nearby Wilmington.) After the referendum failed, some pointed to misinformation on Nextdoor as a factor in its defeat....

A month after the failed Christina School District referendum in 2019 the school board voted 4-3 to eliminate 63 jobs, with the alternative being bankruptcy and a bid for a state bailout. Some parents gave up hope; a neighbor of mine who had been among the district's staunch supporters abruptly sold her house and moved her family to suburban Pennsylvania, where public schools are better-funded. Others who could afford it moved their children to private schools, furthering one of the trends that had put the district in tough shape to begin with. The district and its backers started planning another referendum campaign for 2020, with the stakes now desperate...

This time, their strategy included arming supporters with facts and counter-arguments to post whenever they encountered criticism on their respective Nextdoor networks around the district... On election day, June 9, polling places had lines out the door — a rarity for a single-issue local election. Turnout was unprecedented, nearly doubling that of 2019. And the result was a landslide: Some 70% of voters approved all four funding requests, with more people voting "yes" than the total number who had voted the year before. Suddenly, the district's future looked hopeful again.

Exactly what role Nextdoor played in that dramatic turnaround is hard to disentangle. The option to vote by mail due to Covid-19 may have helped; the sense of urgency for the district certainly did. Claire O'Neal [a parent who won appointment to the school board later that year], believes the informal Nextdoor information campaign made a difference. "I do think it was a factor in its passing," she told me. The lesson for the district, and other public agencies, she believes, is that they can no longer win the battle of public opinion on their own. They have to actively enlist advocates in the community to wage it on their behalf on Nextdoor and other hyperlocal online networks.

"It just requires more of individual citizens," the schoolboard member added. "It's a lot more work because there's just so much information out there, and it's up to you to decide what's right and what's wrong.

"There's a part of that that's beautiful, and there's a part of that that's really scary."
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Is Misinformation on Nextdoor Impacting Local Politics?

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  • They get people to join by mailing postcards in the USPS mail asking victims/neighbors to sign up for their neighborhood forum group. I throw them away as just more junk mail. But then I am not on any social media, so have no reason to be on Nextdoor.

    So how much data does Nextdoor collect from it's subscribers? Is it censor ridden? And how do they discourage the uppity members of the neighborhood from ganging up on others?
    • So how much data does Nextdoor collect from it's subscribers?

      They know my name, address, and email.

      They also know that I don't like the neighborhood cats pooping in my son's sandbox.

      Is it censor ridden?

      Not that I can see. They allowed me to use the word "poop".

      And how do they discourage the uppity members of the neighborhood from ganging up on others?

      They don't. Why should they?

      • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Sunday January 31, 2021 @03:31PM (#61012904)

        So how much data does Nextdoor collect from it's subscribers?

        They know my name, address, and email.

        They also know that I don't like the neighborhood cats pooping in my son's sandbox.

        Is it censor ridden?

        Not that I can see. They allowed me to use the word "poop".

        And how do they discourage the uppity members of the neighborhood from ganging up on others?

        They don't. Why should they?

        Read the article. Problem with social media is the tragedy of the commons. IT is inevitibly taken over by the worst of the worst.

        Now I must admit, it's a great and productive way to screw up people's lives. And has been doing it pretty well this past decade. Anyone who believes anything posted on those type sites is pehaps less than smart.

        • by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

          My mayor posts to it. It's a good way for him to communicate with residents. It's certainly better than how the other city officials operate, which is radio silence except during the month before election. And it's infinitely better than Twitter, where people who don't live in my city can completely derail the conversation.

          • by pnutjam ( 523990 )
            I personally object to officials using various social media platforms to communicate. This year, I got official school announcements after my daughter saw them on twitter. This really incenses me.


            They should be required to use official communication channels.
            • by pbasch ( 1974106 )
              Yes, you're right. But "official communication channels" would cost TAX MONEY!

              I found that NextDoor ranged between trivial and toxic. Never useful. I canceled. I suppose your mileage might vary. And some people like to know when a neighbor sees a scary black man in a hoodie so they, too, can feel victimized by minorities. Whatever floats your boat.
        • And how do they discourage the uppity members of the neighborhood from ganging up on others?

          They don't. Why should they?

          Nonsense. Nextdoor is watched over by admins. My wife is one.
          They monitor and handle anything that approaches incivility or bullying.
          Nextdoor "behavior" may be more a function of the quality of admins and the neighborhoods themselves.
          But Nextdoor itself is pretty decent.

          • And how do they discourage the uppity members of the neighborhood from ganging up on others?

            They don't. Why should they?

            Nonsense. Nextdoor is watched over by admins. My wife is one. They monitor and handle anything that approaches incivility or bullying. Nextdoor "behavior" may be more a function of the quality of admins and the neighborhoods themselves. But Nextdoor itself is pretty decent.

            So the entire story is incorrect? The people who are claimed to have been posting misinformation did not post misinformation, but 100 percent truth? Get your wife to confirm that the story is 100 percent untrue, and damaging the good name of Nextdoor.

            So anyhow - get her to confirm that the story here is 100 percent fake. This will be a real bombshell report - and your wife can confirm it.

    • They get people to join by mailing postcards in the USPS mail asking victims/neighbors to sign up for their neighborhood forum group. I throw them away as just more junk mail. But then I am not on any social media, so have no reason to be on Nextdoor.

      I signed up and then filtered all their email into the trash. I don't get the postcards anymore either.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      So how much data does Nextdoor collect from its subscribers? Is it censor ridden? And how do they discourage the uppity members of the neighborhood from ganging up on others?

      I can still post there even though they know I'm a Republican, so it's not censored. Some national politics creeps in, but fundamentally it's a neighborhood social connector and comment board. It's where you go to ask for recommendations on dentists, plumbers, handymen, and repair garages. I even used it to find a chimney sweep, and got a really good one.

      It's for crowdsourcing the identity of the snake you found under the barbecue, or for asking which hiking trails are less muddy after it snows. There is a

      • The primary function of next door is to report lost and found pets. At least here in my area.
      • by pbasch ( 1974106 )
        "They" know you're Republican? Who, NextDoor? How do they know? I mean, did you post calls for violence against elected officials? Did you post that COVID is no worse than the flu and that mask wearing is just a way to control the sheeple? Did you post that vaccines have microchips? Did you post that the election was fraudulent?

        Or did you just post that you're a Republican and that you hoped Trump would win the election?

        The last wouldn't provoke any violation of NextDoor's user agreement. The rest, I d
        • I'm talking about the distinction between Nextdoor and FaceTwit. On Nextdoor, most politics reflects the values and lifestyles of each neighborhood, so you don't have the problem of being attacked by someone swoooping in from the national level.

  • by Arzaboa ( 2804779 ) on Sunday January 31, 2021 @01:47PM (#61012630)

    When I first started using Nextdoor, years ago, it was a decent place. Local neighbors doing neighborly things.

    Then about 2 years ago, as it became popular, it became a cesspool of Karen issues. Put a couch on a corner for a neighbor? You're turning the neighborhood into a ghetto. Call the place a ghetto? Neighbors coming down on you. Ring doorbells pushed that over the edge. Soon everyone used it for "crime" searching; posting videos of "suspicious people."

    Before long people convinced themselves that our local parks weren't safe as one lady had her purse stolen one day. Now everyone thinks our little town, with virtually no crime, is a cesspool of crime.

    Last year I began to see a new trend. These folks would jump on, fire up some political attack on people. If folks enjoyed the attack, they would leave the posts up. If the community didn't like it, they would remove the posts. In essence what they were able to do was to prime the community on these issues, gauge support, and create division.

    Nextdoor has somehow made it under the radar, but for me, I'm now convinced that it is as bad, if not worse, than Facebook. What Facebook did to our country, Nextdoor has done to my little town.

    --
    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      It's just another technology that pays its users off in attention. This is the golden-age of attention-seeking, if you can call an age that caters to self-righteous, self-serving social deviants "golden".

      • by Sloppy ( 14984 )

        This is the golden age of communication and among the first mainstream uses of communication are attention-seeking, deception, etc. Was I really the only kid who made prank phone calls?

        I wouldn't say communication is bad, though, or at least it's not really any worse than the people doing the communicating. And I think that happens to apply very well to young Sloppy and his prank phone calls. I could have also easily written prank letters instead, but phones are so much less effort. And now everyone is in t

        • by hey! ( 33014 )

          It's not the communication that's the problem. It's the operant conditioning mechanisms built into social media which distort the kinds of communication people do.

        • Was I really the only kid who made prank phone calls?

          Don't know. Got to admit that it never occurred to me growing up. I expect that if it HAD occurred to me, someone would have recognized my voice sooner or later, and my father would have tanned my hide....

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      I don't know about Nextdoor. But this stuff has been going on since long before Al Gore invented the Internet. They were called bridge clubs or quilting bees. People would get together for some sort of communal activity. One or two busybodies would attempt to spread shit about neighbors they didn't like. Most people would see through the attempt and ignore them. The few that went along were labeled gullible fools and generally discredited by the rest of the community.

      The Internet has amplified this effect.

      • Does Nextdoor display the Trust Score next to your name? If not, the impact of these lists is not proportional to the social media megaphone.

        • by PPH ( 736903 )

          Does Nextdoor display the Trust Score

          That is tracked across multiple web sites. And is available for an extra fee.

          • So you have to go to a third party and through a paywall? Definitely doesn't have the same reach as the social media algorithms that pry your eyelids open and insert the most inflammatory... I mean addictive... I mean engaging content directly to your retina.

      • Facebook had a pseudoscience category [reuters.com] you could use to target people. Somehow I think the Qanon people are probably getting a lot of ads for gold.

    • emselves that our local parks weren't safe as one lady had her purse stolen one day. Now everyone thinks our little town, with virtually no crime

      You're not making your case very convincingly here. Why are people stealing purses? I am sure you have less crime than Compton or San Francisco, but it doesn't sound like "virtually no crime."

      • GP told a story about one purse being stolen, now you've turned it into multiple purses. It's a textbook example of the amplifying power of social media on rumor. People think crime has increased because people literally like you are spreading deceptive information.

    • When I first started using Nextdoor, years ago, it was a decent place. Local neighbors doing neighborly things.

      Then about 2 years ago, as it became popular, it became a cesspool of Karen issues.

      Textbook tragedy of the commons, an open area that is destroyed by the worst people taking it over.

      People can effectually ruin other people's lives via that crap. Wait until the accusations of sexual misconduct start.

      • People can effectually ruin other people's lives via that crap. Wait until the accusations of sexual misconduct start.

        In the 80's I remember accusations (from church members) of satanism because a teacher somewhere in the district played D&D. People really wanted her to lose her job because of that, and we watched a cringey movie at church that I think depicted a LARPing group accidentally? murdering one of their players, this was supposed to represent the role playing/satanism threat. I was too young to understand whatever shenanigans played out at the school board level from all that.

        Then there was the stories of c

        • People can effectually ruin other people's lives via that crap. Wait until the accusations of sexual misconduct start.

          All kinds of stupid, and now it's all evolved, and amplified on places like Facebook and Nextdoor. That's all a sick joke.

          Sexual misconduct is not a joke. Accusing a teacher of messing with a student is serious, and should be investigated.

          "Stranger Danger meets Safety Culture. A nasty mess that ends up with social paralysis.

          This is why Social media needs a lot of adjustment. Everything has become amped up. Conspiracy prone people end up in a state of freeze (note a number of Qanon people seeking psychiatric help as they end up not believing anything. And it's not just far right wing, I see the algorithms on facebook trying to pull me one way or the other. My lady friend going QAnon, and some others going into a weird liberal spiral. I've

    • Then about 2 years ago, as it became popular, it became a cesspool of Karen issues. Put a couch on a corner for a neighbor? You're turning the neighborhood into a ghetto. Call the place a ghetto? Neighbors coming down on you. Ring doorbells pushed that over the edge. Soon everyone used it for "crime" searching; posting videos of "suspicious people."

      You need to move out of California.

    • I get a lot of “any loud noise is automatically gunshots”. Fireworks? Gunshots. Thunder? Gunshots. Transformer blows? Gunshots. It’s become completely useless for reporting any real problem due to the amount of wolf-criers (though you should generally be bringing that to the police, not a social network anyway).
    • I'm outside the US and we have an equivalent which, thankfully, seems to have stabilised at a point worse than it started at but not much worse, so it's still mostly "can anyone recommend a good plumber in X area" rather than a bunch of Karens. Worst thing we get is people who think it's free eBay and spam their junk out to half the neighbourhood because they're too cheap to pay a tiny fee to eBay when they sell something.
    • Nextdoor is a hot mess but around here it's a hot mess on both sides of the equation.

      Crime has definitely spiked around here, whether it's a headline-grabbing armed carjacking in a neighborhood where jaywalking was the biggest crime 2 years ago, or whether it's a major uptick in nuisance crimes -- cars rifled, garages rifles, catalytic converters cut out or package thefts.

      So you get these Ring videos posted of these events. About half the posts are pretty reactionary, chiding the mayor and council. If I h

    • I completely agree. The plurality of posts I see on ND are on some of the most inane topics I could conceive of. "Does anyone have the personal contact info for a police officer? I want to talk to them about how to deal with the violence in the coming months.", "Suspicious person walking down the street at 2 AM this morning!", "Where can I find information on how to get vaccinated?", "Why do trains have to keep honking their horns at the crossings? They are scaring my dogs!"

      ND is good for one thing and that

  • The web was intended to give everyone a "voice". Publishing for the common man. They even used words like community and democratization for the masses.

    Apparently, no one considered the risk of giving drooling morons their voice via the web's various printing presses. Worse, they seem to have failed to consider how VASTLY outnumbered they are by drooling morons.

    While others are taking up the fight against ignorance on these platforms and the platforms themselves, I am embracing the existence of these platfor

    • Since you believe this has no effect on your government or product availability, it seems you're one of them.

    • Re:Irony of The Web (Score:5, Interesting)

      by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Sunday January 31, 2021 @02:19PM (#61012714) Homepage Journal

      Apparently, no one considered the risk of giving drooling morons their voice via the web's various printing presses.

      It's not that, though. There's a reason social media is the threat and not news groups or chat rooms or any of the older ways of using the web to speak. The problem isn't people being given a voice: the problem is the way the platforms pick which voices to amplify.

      Social media has been explicitly designed to exploit human psychology with the goal of getting people to "engage" more. The problem is that it turns out the best way to get people to "engage" more is with disinformation and campaigns designed to make them angry. (Obligatory xkcd cartoon: someone is wrong on the Internet [xkcd.com].)

      What happens is that the algorithms look for posts that are causing "engagement" and then spread them to other people it thinks are likely to "engage" with them. They create profiles to ensure that posts likely to cause "engagement" with one group are shown to that group but not another. You end up creating an algorithmic echo chamber that just continually amplifies the extreme voices.

      The problem was never giving drooling morons a place to speak, the problem was with ensuring that their voices were the only voices heard because their voices "drive engagement."

      Since I do not participate in any such platforms, except the Slashdot cesspool, I can easily avoid dealing with these drooling mouth-breathers.

      Except you can't avoid dealing with the people they put in power, which was kind of the point of the article and recent elections.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      I don't think it's just that social media gives a soapbox to pre-existing blockheads, although that happens. I think it makes people worse, or at least appeals to the worst in people: the conformist; the attention-seeker; the bandwagon jumper; the self-righteous tub thumper.

    • Misinformation has ALWAYS been a problem in public debate. The "problem" here is that there is a class of people who are used to being able to limit the spread of misinformation which goes against their preferred outcome while making sure that most people consumed the misinformation which supported their preferred outcome. The way to combat misinformation is for people in positions of "authority" to stop trying to mislead people in order to get their way.
  • | sed "s/Nextdoor/$( grep -i --perl '[a-z]{3-10}' /dev/random )/"

    • If you have a US residence in your name chances are good you received a Nextdoor postcard asking you to join. Multiple times.

      Unclear if apartments are included. Maybe, maybe not.
  • Everything against us is now misinformation. Everyone against us; a nasty name. If what we want doesn't happen, we must censor. Our old tools of manufacturing consent are no longer viable. By no means should people be able to form their own opinions. What we say is true and right, while anyone opposed is automatically wrong.

  • Class Action (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nkwe ( 604125 ) on Sunday January 31, 2021 @02:16PM (#61012704)
    Perhaps all the parents of the kids who will not get a better education due to the school referendum failing should sue the posters of misinformation for the cumulative life's lost wages and lower economic outcome of all the students impacted. The 63 employees losing their jobs could also be members of the class.

    Nextdoor is probably isolated from liability due to EULA and TOS agreements, but I doubt that individual posters are isolated. Nextdoor has a "real name" policy with at least a minor level of verification, so most posters should be identifiable.

    Is this a realistic suggestion? Probably not. But... I think the real solution to most of the issues with social media is to find a way to hold people accountable for the (mis)information that they post. If there were real penalties for online defamation, social media would be less of a cesspool and a lot more useful.
    • The damage caused by misinformation is impossible to determine and highly speculative, so much so that it doesnâ€(TM)t create a legit cause of action. How do you define misinformation anyway? In many cases itâ€(TM)s two different people acting in good faith interpreting data differently. How will you draw that line?
    • by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

      I think the real solution to most of the issues with social media is to find a way to hold people accountable for the (mis)information that they post. If there were real penalties for online defamation, social media would be less of a cesspool and a lot more useful.

      You might be able to try that in other countries, but the First Amendment prevents that in the US.

      Besides censorship, the only way to combat lies is with the truth. If you see someone lying all the time, you can follow up their posts with a link to a page where you document all of the falsehoods they told. Then other people can decide for themselves whether they should believe that person.

      • by Nkwe ( 604125 )

        I think the real solution to most of the issues with social media is to find a way to hold people accountable for the (mis)information that they post. If there were real penalties for online defamation, social media would be less of a cesspool and a lot more useful.

        You might be able to try that in other countries, but the First Amendment prevents that in the US.

        The First Amendment [cornell.edu] prevents the government from preventing you from speaking. It doesn't absolve you of the responsibility [cornell.edu] for what happens as a result of your speech. The First Amendment also does not apply to private citizens or companies from preventing you from speaking, it only applies to the government (specifically "Congress").

        Now is it practical to start using defamation laws to clamp down on social media? Unknown, I am not a lawyer. I don't however, think our constitution prevents it. The classic

  • Betteridge (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bu11etmagnet ( 1071376 ) on Sunday January 31, 2021 @04:40PM (#61013114)

    Betteridge ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) is very busy lately.

  • I can look at the fact that the state of Delaware is spending an average of 15,302 per student in public schools and say â€oethatâ€(TM)s enough†over the incessant shrieking that â€oepublic schools need MORE money†without accountability. I wonder how much of that money goes to pensions over instruction?

    What all the wailing and hand wringing about misinformation and needing context has done is encourage people t
  • Every time some rubes blather on about misinformation and disinformation, the CIA and NSA exchange high five's for their propaganda about propaganda working.

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