{"id":41891,"date":"2021-07-14T07:46:08","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T11:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=41891"},"modified":"2021-07-19T07:35:37","modified_gmt":"2021-07-19T11:35:37","slug":"nextdoor-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"How Nextdoor Tried to Fight Racism on Their App"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>How did racism develop on the Nextdoor app? What did the executives do to combat it? Did their efforts succeed or were they just an empty gesture? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Nextdoor app is basically a digital neighborhood bulletin board designed to keep neighborhoods safe and share local news. However, racism on Nextdoor was unchecked and many blacks were being wrongfully flagged as suspicious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn how the Nextdoor executives tackled the racism problem and whether it saved their app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Racism in the Nextdoor App<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In her book <em>Biased, <\/em>Jennifer Eberhardt argues that this unchecked bias is a particular problem for companies like Nextdoor, a social network specifically designed to connect people who live in the same physical neighborhoods. Nextdoor functions like a neighborhood bulletin board for the digital age where neighbors can ask for babysitter recommendations or spread the word about a lost dog. Its \u201ccrime and safety\u201d category, however, quickly became a hotbed for racial profiling. The speed of communication was so quick that users never stopped to think about why a person walking down the street or sitting in their car seemed so \u201csuspicious\u201d; they thought they were helping to keep their neighborhood safe, never realizing that their suspicions boiled down to racial profiling.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Nextdoor\u2019s founders became aware of the problem, they called on Eberhardt and other experts to weigh in on the best ways to reduce racism at Nexdoor. (Shortform note: Nextdoor executives were so impressed with what they learned about implicit bias that they now have <a href=\"https:\/\/go.us.nextdoor.com\/safety\/preventing-profiling-recognizing\">a whole webpage dedicated to it<\/a>.) They discovered that <strong>fear and speed are the two biggest factors contributing to racial profiling<\/strong>: People are most likely to let their biases go unchecked when they\u2019re afraid and they don\u2019t take time to stop and think before acting. Therefore, to combat racism, Nextdoor needed to add just enough friction to the posting process to force users to stop and think about their biases, but not enough that users would become frustrated and abandon the site entirely.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To slow down the process of posting in the \u201ccrime and safety\u201d category, Nextdoor implemented <a href=\"https:\/\/go.us.nextdoor.com\/safety\/preventing-profiling-approach\">a checklist that users have to click through before posting<\/a>. The checklist prompts users to get specific about what exactly makes someone \u201csuspicious\u201d by reminding them to focus on specific behaviors and give a detailed description of the person\u2019s clothing. Crucially, the checklist also explicitly mentions race: It prompts users to \u201cconsider unintended consequences\u201d if their description were to lead to an innocent person being stopped or arrested and reminds them not to \u201cassume criminality\u201d because of someone\u2019s race. That\u2019s important\u2014according to Eberhardt, research shows that explicitly talking about race (instead of just alluding to it) leads people to act more fairly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For technology companies, adding friction isn\u2019t a natural instinct because the entire point of technology is typically to make daily activities faster and easier. However, in this case, <strong>slowing the process down worked: Racial profiling on the site dropped by 75%, with no significant reduction in the total number of users. <\/strong>Nextdoor even created international versions of the checklist that reflect the dominant racial, ethnic, and religious biases in each country, with similar positive results worldwide.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Nextdoor\u2019s Racial Reckoning: Success Story or Empty Gesture?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Eberhardt speaks highly of Nextdoor\u2019s progress in combating racial profiling, but other commentators have raised serious concerns about the company\u2019s approach to racial issues. For example, moderators often <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/briannasacks\/nextdoor-says-it-supports-black-lives-matter-but-people-say\">remove posts advertising Black Lives Matter protests<\/a>, and the company still <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2020-05-21\/nextdoor-s-delicate-partnership-with-local-police\">actively recruits local police departments<\/a> to join the app.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The conversation escalated in 2020, when Nextdoor\u2019s official Twitter made <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nextdoor\/status\/1267212946679017472?lang=en\">a post in support of Black Lives Matter<\/a> one week after the killing of George Floyd. They faced immediate backlash from users who felt that, despite the company\u2019s efforts, the Nextdoor app was still riddled with racism. The conversation garnered so much public attention that even <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aoc\/status\/1268208807173410816\">Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez publicly called on the company <\/a>to take concrete action and \u201cdeal [with] their Karen problem\u201d instead of just tweeting a hashtag (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Karen_(pejorative)\">\u201cKaren\u201d is slang for an entitled, middle-aged, and often openly racist white woman<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To their credit, Nextdoor listened to these complaints and took further concrete steps to address the app\u2019s race problem. Nextdoor\u2019s CEO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/90560430\/inside-nextdoors-wild-2020-from-essential-service-to-a-reckoning-on-racism\">accepted responsibility<\/a> for Black Lives Matter posts being deleted and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/90560430\/inside-nextdoors-wild-2020-from-essential-service-to-a-reckoning-on-racism\">promised to provide bias training<\/a> for the local \u201cneighborhood leads\u201d who serve as moderators on the app (previously, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/21283993\/nextdoor-app-racism-community-moderation-guidance-protests\">\u201cneighborhood leads\u201d received no training<\/a> or vetting). The company also created an <a href=\"https:\/\/about.nextdoor.com\/antiracism\/?_ga=2.55247275.140919696.1617304149-1920264509.1616004979\">antiracism resource page<\/a> on their site and is working to <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.nextdoor.com\/2020\/10\/27\/update-on-our-work-to-create-a-nextdoor-where-everyone-belongs-3\/\">diversify their mostly-white executive board<\/a>.&nbsp;<br>Like many companies, Nextdoor underwent significant upheaval in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread protests against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/shooting-of-terence-crutcher\/\">police brutality<\/a>. So far, it seems to be too soon to tell whether the changes they\u2019ve implemented will be enough to solve the problem, and no data is available. Whatever its next moves, the company will move forward with Dr. Eberhardt\u2019s guidance\u2014she\u2019s now an official member of their <a href=\"https:\/\/about.nextdoor.com\/team\/\">Neighborhood Vitality Advisory board<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How did racism develop on the Nextdoor app? What did the executives do to combat it? Did their efforts succeed or were they just an empty gesture? The Nextdoor app is basically a digital neighborhood bulletin board designed to keep neighborhoods safe and share local news. However, racism on Nextdoor was unchecked and many blacks were being wrongfully flagged as suspicious. Learn how the Nextdoor executives tackled the racism problem and whether it saved their app.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":41933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,20,39],"tags":[424],"class_list":["post-41891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-ethics","category-history","tag-biased","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Nextdoor Tried to Fight Racism on Their App - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After racism developed on the Nextdoor App, the executives tried to combat it with education and new policies. Find out if it worked.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Nextdoor Tried to Fight Racism on Their App\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After racism developed on the Nextdoor App, the executives tried to combat it with education and new policies. Find out if it worked.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-07-14T11:46:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-07-19T11:35:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/neighborhood.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"986\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"531\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hannah Aster\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hannah Aster\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Hannah Aster\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f39f52830e4f7039a16e45d12354542f\"},\"headline\":\"How Nextdoor Tried to Fight Racism on Their App\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-07-14T11:46:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-07-19T11:35:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/\"},\"wordCount\":849,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/neighborhood.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Biased\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Business\",\"Ethics\",\"History\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/\",\"name\":\"How Nextdoor Tried to Fight Racism on Their App - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/nextdoor-racism\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/neighborhood.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-07-14T11:46:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-07-19T11:35:37+00:00\",\"description\":\"After racism developed on the Nextdoor App, the executives tried to combat it with education and new policies. 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