Nextdoor Racism
How we describe real and perceived threats matters
About five years ago, I joined the online platform Nextdoor.
If you’re not familiar, it’s an app that serves as a neighborhood bulletin board and alerts you when subscribers report crimes or dangers in your area. One in every three households uses this app.
It's sort of a community-watch service, but online instead of walking around your neighborhood like we used to.
When I first joined, the app notifications ranged from “There’s a tall man in a white shirt on 8th Street taking packages off porches” to “A strange man in a blue hoodie is walking around the Crestwood area checking whether car doors are locked.”
It seemed like a good service.
The problem for me was even though I signed up only for my neighborhood; the app was pouring out notices for what seemed to be an entire four-square-mile radius. I’m sure it was my fault for not inputting the proper settings, but the Nextdoor notices on my iPhone were so frequent that it felt like I was in the thick of America’s biggest crime wave.
Gun shots heard, porch pirates, car theft, bike theft, strange person, you name it.
I actually ended up installing an alarm system with an entire system of cameras.
