Skip to main content

Nextdoor is trying to tamp down racial profiling on its site with new protocols

nextdoor racial profiling feed laptop
Image used with permission by copyright holder
It was supposed to help build community in neighborhoods. But despite all its good intentions, Nextdoor had a rather unintended consequence — one that comes pretty close to being the opposite of its goal of creating good neighborly vibes. According to a New York Times report, Nextdoor has inadvertently created situations of racial profiling, in which minority residents almost seem unwelcome in their own homes. But now, the site is trying to fix the issue with new protocols.

While reports note that racial profiling doesn’t run rampant on the neighborhood social network, it’s certainly not absent, either. The Times reports that it’s worst in Oakland, in which a third of households are active on Nextdoor. “What I saw was just shocking to me,” site user Monica Bien told the Times about the comments she saw.

Recommended Videos

“There is this automatic fear or suspicion of anyone different, and it was validated by all these neighbors,” she continued. “It was like the bias was so insidious, and somehow the online community allows them to say what they have been thinking all along but not saying.”

Posts include comments about “two young African-Americans, slim, baggy pants, early 20s,” or a “light-skinned black female” walking her dog while on her cellphone.

Nirav Tolia, Nextdoor’s co-founder and CEO, has had enough. “We have spent the last few months working on this challenging issue,” he writes in the blog post. “In that time, we’ve made a series of changes to our product, including: a new racial-profiling flag on posts, updates to our member guidelines, and a mandatory warning screen before posting in crime and safety.”

So now, in order to comment on Nextdoor, you have to use a form that employs “an entirely new ‘conversational’ approach to guide members through the posting process.” Tolia says that this new process will “require that members specify whether they are ‘reporting a crime,’ a ‘suspicious activity,’ or ‘other.'” This helps route the member through the correct prompts for more information.

Moreover, members will be guided through “a step-by-step form that requires complete descriptions of individuals and criminal activity.”

And finally, Nextdoor promises to help “educate members about the harms of racial profiling, and more broadly, what constitutes valid criminal and/or suspicious activity.”

Nextdoor plans to test this new form and reporting process in both the San Francisco Bay Area and Baltimore, and the company says that once it’s satisfied with results, it has “every intention to release these features to all 98,000 neighborhoods across the country that rely on Nextdoor.” In conclusion, Tolia says, “Thank you for helping us get this right.”

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
How to make a GIF from a YouTube video
woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Read more
I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened
An Instagram profile on an iPhone.

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.

Read more
Here’s how to delete your YouTube account on any device
How to delete your YouTube account

Wanting to get out of the YouTube business? If you want to delete your YouTube account, all you need to do is go to your YouTube Studio page, go to the Advanced Settings, and follow the section that will guide you to permanently delete your account. If you need help with these steps, or want to do so on a platform that isn't your computer, you can follow the steps below.

Note that the following steps will delete your YouTube channel, not your associated Google account.

Read more