
NextDoor Says Users Who Share Posts with Reporters Could Be Kicked Off the Site - danso
http://www.wweek.com/news/2017/10/08/nextdoor-says-users-who-share-posts-with-reporters-could-be-kicked-off-the-site/
======
krinchan
To be fair, at least in the Southeastern US, NextDoor is more...RacistDoor.

I've seen people ask the best way to report black people to the cops so
they'll be kept from driving through "our safe neighborhood." It's so full of
dog whistles my neighbors dogs bark when I open the app.

The only reason NextDoor is freaking out is because they know there's enough
of that sort of material to really cause a mass exodus if it ever escaped the
neighborhoods it's posted in.

That said...it's...a weird issue, to be sure. NextDoor tried to encourage an
expectation of privacy but like...who actually expects that? Really. Anyone
with a credit card matching the address they key in can get in. It's not the
post card only thing any more.

I could easily change my billing address on my credit card, sign up for some
neighborhood on the west coast, and then change my CC address back. Done.

NextDoor has done nothing to actually secure the neighborhood, so it's not
like it means anything to say this to the customers. If anything, the
neighborhood members could possibly sue NextDoor for overstating the privacy
of their posts.

I guess the conclusion is: I'm not just throwing my hands up and saying, "Oh
well it's online no privacy!" I'm more saying this is probably the absolute
worst hill to choose to fight that battle on.

~~~
Cyranix
I hear about racist behavior in NextDoor Seattle as well. The Stranger (local
alt weekly publication) has covered it at least once before, as have some
other publications. From what I gather, the situation is a microcosm of what
we see on a national scale: people who live in neighborhoods with low racial
diversity are irrationally afraid of people of color, and NextDoor is their
platform of choice. If you don't live in Capitol Hill or Pioneer Square (which
face issues of rapid gentrification and homelessness), the local crime stats
show that you are vanishingly unlikely to be facing even property crime. Now I
really wonder what NextDoor looks like in my (predominantly black, including
African immigrants) neighborhood...

I'm sure The Stranger will have a field day if anyone actually gets kicked off
because of this "don't share with the media" position. And if NextDoor think
that media folks aren't already embedded, in every neighborhood group, so they
can have access to the kinda-racist goings-on of the platform, they are surely
mistaken!

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Don’t even get me started on NextDoor, Seattle, Capitol Hill, and
homelessness. Also, don’t forget that a lot of people from the stranger and
CHS are Capitol Hill residents and undoubtedly see this content just by virtue
of being our neighbors!

~~~
aaronbrethorst
(also, if you happen to be a Capitol Hill resident, please consider kicking in
$10/month to help support the CHS blog, which just officially restarted today:
[https://www.patreon.com/jseattle](https://www.patreon.com/jseattle))

------
donatj
Interesting. I am a NextDoor Lead and recently had a user throw a fit over
another user who had committed the unforgivable sin of correcting his grammar.
He was _demanding_ he be _banned_.

I told him essentially he needed to calm down and avoid conflict (this user is
always getting into fights) in addition to that it wasn't in my power as lead
to ban people. He said I was being "very unprofessional" and threatened to go
to the local newspaper about how we weren't taking his reports seriously - as
if they'd care. I explained that I don't work for NextDoor, I'm just one of
his neighbors with slightly more power than him.

He told me to "never contact him again" lol. OK. Good deal.

Anyway, I thought that struck kind of close to this.

~~~
randycupertino
> He was demanding he be banned banned.

They are ban happy there! I got banned for calling someone a NIMBY because
they were protesting a stop sign at an intersection two separate pedestrians
got hit at because "it fostered increased traffic and urbanization."

~~~
hehheh
Nextdoor forums sound like never-ending HOA meetings.

~~~
paxys
They are. Just a lot more racist due to the (perceived) anonymity.

~~~
donatj
Anonymity? Everyone’s real name is verified...

~~~
jimbo999
right... "verified"

there's definitely no way to get a pre-paid visa / giftcard and set an address
to it to use as verification for next-door

edit: next door recently asked it's own members to verify their neighbors...
because that's always reliable

~~~
Casseres
Don't know why you're being downvoted. I joined with a fake name just to read
about what's going on and figured there was no reason to use my real name
there.

------
chadd
This is timely for our community in Topanga, CA (between Malibu and Santa
Monica). We've got an ongoing issue with an Internet provider where about 10%
of packets are dropped. Nextdoor became a rallying point for hundreds of
customers who have been dealing with 'slow web pages' for months. Nextdoor is
at its best in these moments!

But, we need to be sharing what people are saying with the press as one of our
next steps. I noticed this problem with ND so we started blogging about the
issues separately and quoting folks without identifying details in Medium, so
that the press could quote Medium instead of Nextdoor. (edit:
[https://twitter.com/topangafrontier](https://twitter.com/topangafrontier) is
the best summary link)

------
legitster
I know in practice, Nextdoor is kind of a hangout for the worst types of
HOA/worry-wort/NIMBY type. But, I _kinda_ get this. The whole point of
Nextdoor is privacy. Like, there's a type of socialization that only works
based on geography (i.e. - my neighbors get to know my address, my comings and
goings, my possessions - stuff that should not be shared widely). If the
privacy thing is blown up, then there goes the last actual "social" network.

Also, what kind of journalist is going through _Nextdoor_ looking for stories?
That's like the laziest, most pedantic muckraking possible. Can you find no
one to get a quote from?

~~~
methodin
Except the same people that fret about privacy post sensitive information
about their neighbors at the drop of a hat. These people have no clue about
the ramifications of their actions.

~~~
dabockster
Or they don't care about anyone but themselves in this regard.

Private for them but everyone else can get rekt.

~~~
ryanb23
Yep, hypocrisy across the board in a policy like this.

------
ryandrake
The Internet is a public network. Regardless of any particular site's PR or
stated purpose, people need to learn that anything you post to the Internet is
public because it's _effectively_ public. The site may say it's private, have
terms and conditions that try to pretend it's private, or it might have
"privacy controls" that let you/them try to gate access to the content. But
once it's posted, the cat is out of the bag, and the content is one scraper or
security breach away from being public. Treat it as such.

~~~
ikeboy
Gmail?

~~~
ryandrake
I think it's wise to treat anything in one's Gmail as "one [however unlikely]
breach away from being public info" and use it accordingly.

~~~
prostoalex
That was actually my biggest surprise about the DNC hack.

People who live by the maxim "don't put anything in writing that you wouldn't
want people to see on the front page of the New York Times" apparently decided
archiving controversial internal party squabbles was a good idea, and acted
surprised when stuff showed up on the front page of the New York Times.

~~~
dragonwriter
> People who live by the maxim "don't put anything in writing that you
> wouldn't want people to see on the front page of the New York Times"

Almost nobody lives by that maxim; they might have a few decades ago, but the
utility of low-latency, asynchronous, low-ambiguity communications channels
now available, which inherently involved text or recorded content with the
same vulnerability, is so high that people who might have lived by that
maximizes when writing meant dead-tree memoranda and files no longer do.

But, even when it was more current, I suspect that was, as the saying goes,
always observed more in the breach than anything else.

~~~
prostoalex
Emmanuel Macron's campaign was hacked as well, but did not unleash any
extraordinary findings beyond gigabytes of boring meeting arrangements and
schedule confirmations.

Either the attackers expended less effort on Macron HQ vs DNC and never got to
the juicy stuff, or someone within Macron camp ran a tight ship on what can
and cannot go through insecure channels.

------
emerged
Good. That's sorta the whole point.

Not everything should be globalised and ripped apart from any private context.
Frankly this is a lesson we collectively need to learn IMO.

I get that nothing can anymore completely accomplish a total sort of privacy
or other perfect reduction of scope, but that as a theme does have value IMO.

~~~
phrh8
I think the global reach is the problem here: kind of like how phonebooks,
public records intended for the interest of the local population get scraped
and sold to ad businesses and credit bureaus.

I'm pretty sure that some of the content posted to Nextdoor could be of public
interest, and it would make sense that a local newspaper or TV station may
wish to report on it, just as they may report on the minutes of city council
meetings or organized events.

I think the issue here is when you combine a local newspaper with the global
reach of the Internet, and something that was meant for a small audience is
now being shared way outside of its original target audience. I sure hope
people don't go posting the minutia of my local neighborhood to BuzzFeed or
reddit.

Regardless, this is just for show. This sort of policy isn't going to make any
difference. We've seen these sorts of scraping issues in the past with other
walled gardens: site owners make a big deal about scraping, shut down their
APIs, etc. It hasn't stopped content from being scraped and reported on.
Reporters will continue to report; users will continue to make anonymous story
tips; and new accounts will sign up after old accounts get locked out.

------
anonacct37
I tried to join next door, but my neighborhood has carved my house out of
their boundaries. It kinds of sucks being a non-mormon in Utah sometimes.

~~~
WhitneyLand
I lived in a Utah city with one of the highest concentrations of Mormons and
on the whole people were incredibly gracious. Surely not all experiences are
equal, but for over three years my wife and I were made to feel welcome in the
community.

There were little inconveniences like no coffee provided at a lot of
workplaces and liquor restrictions, but if you love outdoor stuff that alone
can make it a pretty nice place to live.

~~~
metalliqaz
Wait, do Mormons have a problem with coffee?

~~~
blincoln
Yes. If you ever travel there for work, expect to find your hotel room well-
stocked with decaf only.

~~~
metalliqaz
Man, every time I learn something new about Mormons it makes them even
weirder.

~~~
WhitneyLand
I agree, but the thing is all religions have weird things. Moreover weird
people can be cool and make the world a more interesting place.

The real problem is when a religion becomes oppressive, dangerous, or...well
I’m sure you know the pitfalls we’ve learned of over 5000 years.

A fair number of people here are almost militantly against religion in all
forms. I happen to take the opinion that it’s not inherently evil, that some
good comes from it, and we should judge every situation on its own ethics
rather than alienate such a large class of people.

------
paxy
It is ridiculous that they are doubling down on their "private social network"
nonsense rather than admitting to users that whatever they post there is
ALWAYS going to be public.

~~~
pishpash
Agreed, that's stupid. That's not how digital content works. The only thing
that works is anonymity, which social networks of our age have forbidden on
principle.

That, along with maybe bot-generated fake posts to add deniability.

------
axaxs
I'm ok with this. Nextdoor is the only social media I use. Regardless of what
they do with collected data, I much appreciate posts and profiles being local
and reach user determined. I appreciate you can't use it to stalk people ala
Facebook. Users should not be sharing posts to a wider audience than the user
requested.

~~~
marak830
So what denotes a reporter? What if you share with a friend who works for a
newspaper? Or someone who works with a blogger.

It's a stupid rule, and imho only there to make the users feel like they are
in a unique clique. There is no real way to enforce it, nor any penalities.

So basically, just PR.

~~~
stale2002
> There is no real way to enforce it, nor any penalities

Sure there is. Break the rules and you get Permabanned!

> What if you share with a friend who works for a newspaper? Or someone who
> works with a blogger.

Permabanned!

> Insert other weird edge case here....

Again, Permabanned! No exceptions.

Don't think its fair? Well I don't care. It is their site, they don't have to
be fair.

Don't want to lose access to the hip neighborhood social network? Then don't
break go around making things public that were supposed to be private. Don't
toe the line with weird edge cases either.

Yeah, sure, you could go all secret agent and take all the precautions and not
get caught, or try and get around onerous multi-account protections that they
have in place. But that sounds like a lot of work that most people aren't
going to do. People are lazy, and you don't have to catch 100% of everybody in
order to make people afraid enough so that they mostly follow the rules.

~~~
amyjess
How does anyone know it was me? Reporters keep their sources confidential as a
matter of course.

It's unenforcable.

~~~
stale2002
People make mistakes. You might be able to get away with it or you might not.

Reporters reveal their sources all the time. For example, when they quote
someone. Maybe they'd think to protect you or maybe they will make a mistake.

Enforcement doesn't have to be 100% for it to be an effective deterrent. Maybe
they have access to your IP logs and can track your viewing history down. You
don't know what tools they do or do not have.

And even if it truly IS completely unenforceable, well who says that the
average user even knows that? They might just play it safe because they don't
want to get banned. That's how rules and enforcement works.

------
incongruity
Journalism has always been hard – most of the things worth reporting on don't
welcome the reporters in with open arms, all the time.

That having been said, it seems that as more _local_ community interaction
becomes digital and starts to fall within walled-gardens, many things,
including reporting get a bit trickier.

Thus far, we have no legal concept around the notion of a public digital
space, if there is such a thing, and what privacy rights do, or explicitly do
not exist.

I'd argue that things like NextDoor might push us into having to think about
the concept of just what is/could be viewed as having a reasonable expectation
for privacy.

I can't expect that my speech or even image is private if I go outside on the
public street, for example... so for sites like NextDoor, is there a threshold
where they become so dominant or so a part of our daily lives/community
interaction where we should start to see them as public spaces with certain
expectations around rights (or lack thereof)? When it's small, the private
club idea fits well – but if it becomes dominant and essential to community
life – do we need to rethink that idea?

~~~
jimktrains2
Why isn't it as simple as "if it's not on a computer you own, don't expect
privacy."

~~~
matt4077
Because that would preclude the internet from being useful for a rather large
portion of people's lives.

(Not that I believe you have a right to privacy when you organise as a
neighbourhood group and basically act like a tiny, kleptocratic, unelected
apartheid regime.)

~~~
jimktrains2
How so? The current state is that nothing is private if it's on someone else's
server. What I described is the current state. Just because you trust Google
not to publish all your email doesn't mean they're private.

------
ausjke
Nextdoor is quite popular here unless you want to talk about politics,
especially if the community LEAD is on the other side.

Nextdoor uses real name with real address etc, and it seems to be pretty
useful for the neighborhood news and events etc, I don't see other close
competitors.

But then, I hope there is an alternative.

[http://fortune.com/2017/05/21/nextdoor-
revenue/](http://fortune.com/2017/05/21/nextdoor-revenue/)

If very thing goes right, it could be another facebook, I'd be interested in
its IPO.

------
stmfreak
I had to quit NextDoor after my neighbors demonstrated all the vile hatred
we've come to expect from the anonymized Internet, but with the added benefit
that people know who you are and where you live.

~~~
beeskneecaps
Didn’t want to stick around to help solve the problem? It sounds like you
could have educated them!

~~~
shifter
I wonder if that’s possible. Being close minded and vitriolic about political
issues is a general personality trait.

------
loteck
If people are posting on the site under the express agreement that the group
is private and posts will not be reproduced in public, then what the reporter
did is unethical in the vast majority of cases, including this one.

We are on a march to losing our collective faith in journalism and leading the
way are careless reporters and editors who fancy themselves public advocates.

~~~
craftyguy
Nah, if you post shit online, it's public. Don't assume otherwise, else you're
going to have a bad time.

~~~
loteck
While that may be a valid view from the perspective of a privacy warrior, it
does not accurately reflect the ethics of journalism.

~~~
craftyguy
Wait, so the ethics of journalism require accepting TOS/EULAs? If that's the
case, then quite a lot of very important investigative journalism in the past
few decades is ruled invalid! (despite the touch of sarcasm, I'm also
genuinely curious)

~~~
loteck
Journalism ethics do contemplate situations where otherwise unreportable news
of crucial importance to the public should be published. Same for news about
things that happen in private but are related to public figures. There can
often be very serious consequences for the organization and reporter in these
cases.

Neither applies here.

------
TheAceOfHearts
I'm a bit surprised by all of this. For starters, I've never even heard of
this NextDoor site, but apparently there's plenty of users here.

Is it really correct to say NextDoor is a public forum? You can only access
the content if you live within the specified area and you agree to their terms
of service. What boundaries or factors are used when deciding if something is
considered private or public?

Why don't companies using online services suffer similar issues? If you leak
private company communications, that's usually going to be grounds for
termination. But what other legal action can they take against you? Normally
you'd sign an NDA to prevent communications from being leaked, however I'm not
sure what legal repercussions are available once it's broken. Would it be
technically feasible to create a social network that required signing an NDA
to join?

------
save_ferris
Just went to nextdoor.com to see what the app was all about after seeing this
and sure enough, there's a full-width banner on their front page of media
outlet logos, including NYT and WSJ. Oh the irony.

What's funny is that it doesn't explicitly say that they're endorsements from
these outlets, they're just there. I was always under the impression that this
isn't technically legal, but I'm no legal expert.

I know this is off-topic, but can anyone just add a banner of media outlet
logos to their site/blog? There's definitely an implied status claim being
made here. Why else would one company randomly post other corporate logos that
aren't paid for or explicitly endorsed?

------
acomjean
So if the poster doesn't own their posts, does NextDoor? Are they legally
responsible for what the poster has said?

This will be interesting.

------
vinhboy
This is an interesting conundrum. On the one hand, I hate the idea of sites
like FB using my posts as content for their marketing, but on the other hand,
having NextDoor restrict who can see my content is also upsetting.

I might even say that NextDoor's restriction on my content is more upsetting
because I expect everything I post on social media (which I do on purpose) to
be part of the public domain. The idea that I, or reporters, can't use it as
such, makes it seem like they are exercising ownership over my content.

~~~
true_religion
I am not certain how a private, closed, membership-only site with no public
accessibility implied"public domain".

NextDoor is restrictive by design---having your discussions be private is the
entirety of their upsell to use them instead of Facebook groups.

------
Readywater
There was a recent argument over gun ownership in my neighborhood's nextdoor,
which resulted in a bunch of gun owners outing themselves. Unfortunately, this
did this alongside their actual addresses, which isn't great for various
reasons. Users of Nextdoor seem to struggle more than most services around how
they represent their private and public lives on the site: it seems to give
many a false sense of anonymity, which is dangerous as hell when performed at
the neighborhood layer.

~~~
CodeWriter23
Imagine if the argument was over growing medical marijuana at one's home. A
string of burglaries, or worse, would ensue.

------
Animats
NextDoor - like Yik Yak, but for grownups. Same problems.

------
engi_nerd
Sad to hear about racism on Nextdoor, but I am not surprised. I am an admin
(Nextdoor calls this a "lead") on my neighborhood's Nextdoor and I have seen
and promptly deleted several racist posts over the year that I have been an
admin. It is up to the admins to apply the rules for their neighborhoods. If
you can prove that your admins are passive and not enforcing Nextdoor's rules,
they will act and remove lead privileges from the bad admins.

------
VonGuard
Wha.... what if you ARE a reporter?

~~~
ouid
then don't report on posts

~~~
ch4s3
Not to be facetious, but what if it's in the public interest?

~~~
kobeya
Oh you’re free to report on it. You’re just not free to keep using the site
afterwards. Their club, their rules.

~~~
RandVal30142
>You’re just not free to keep using the site afterwards.

Bring me to court about that one.

~~~
wyldfire
I think the court would have to thread the needle on whether:

(1) the function of the site is like a private club whose secrets are vital to
its continued existence,

(1a) the language in the ToS supports (1)

(2) the private news items shared there are in the public interest and likely
not reported on otherwise (at least the ones that were disclosed publicly).

No one likes chilled speech but there's plenty of examples of legitimate
agreements for non-disclosure. Those agreements provide mutual benefit and
could be threatened by a ruling in favor of a claimant against NextDoor.

~~~
kobeya
Their not claiming non disclosure. Just the right to kick you off their
service (out of their club) if they don’t like what you do. “We reserve the
right to refuse service to anyone.” That is, in fact, a legally protected
right in the United States. A constitutional right by some arguments.

See, for example, the Boy Scouts vs a long list of gays, atheists, and girls,
where this was affirmed numerous times by the Supreme Court.

------
hasteur
Part of my local NextDoor after I got a card in the mail.

Lots of "Where was that police car that went down my street headed?", "Escaped
Animal", "Flea Market swap", "Promoting my home researched Christian
eschatology book published on vanity press".

Occastionally there's useful information like City Council issues, major road
closures, etc. But As others have said a lot of NIMBYs, armchair patriots, and
thinly disguised racisim.

------
OliverJones
Yeah, well, in my northeast MA community, NextDoor is FakeNuzDoor. Wannabe
politicians spam it with scurrilous garbage about each other, and the rest of
it devolves into arguing about that.

I guess it's good having news media pick up this stuff violates the terms of
service.

It does have a "delete my account" feature. So it has at least one useful
feature.

~~~
shifter
Same thing in Cupertino. There’s even a scandalous blog that someone updates
to regularly attack various local politicians and school board members.

------
samstave
Huh... I don't use Nextdoor any longer, but when I used it in Alameda, it was
really great. I got someone to loan me a weedwhacker in like five minutes,
another gave me a table saw, another loaned me a sander... my experience was
pretty good...

There were crimes reported, and to be honest the most frequent posts I did see
were for moving boxes

------
konceptz
The interesting issue I find in this post is that nextdoor stated that this is
a “private network”. While probably not using a technical definition, it still
seems to overreach quite a bit. I haven’t heard of a forum claiming to be this
before. Maybe a strictly vetted user base but never a private network.

------
gruez
>And the site's administrators now warn that users who leak Nextdoor posts to
reporters could be kicked off the site.

...and what's preventing the reporters from creating new accounts?
journalistic integrity? threat of lawsuit (not sure what standing they have)?
also, how do they track down who the source is?

~~~
tspike
Nextdoor mails you a postcard for validation, and your address has to be
within the neighborhood.

~~~
gruez
I'm sure you can convince someone to "lend" their address to you for some $$
so you could create some accounts. Plus if you maintain good opsec with those
accounts + compare the posts between the two accounts (to make sure there
aren't any "watermarks" in the posts), it would be impossible for them to
catch you.

~~~
fma
You'd have to find a pretty stupid home owner to agree to let a stranger mail
stuff to their address...you know mailing contraband and all that.

Better idea is to find a home for sale without a tenant and claim that as your
address and hound the mailbox for the next few days.

I also don't think Nextdoor carss about duplicate accounts. I kept my account
from my old neighborhood and created a new one for my current home using
another email address. I don't try to hide it... Same name, I address etc.

------
intrasight
Never even heard of NextDoor before reading this. Is it just localized
discussion forums?

~~~
askafriend
It's like Facebook but for your neighborhood, along with verified identities
(people verify their addresses through a couple different methods) and groups
based on geo-boundaries (which try to reflect the physical real-world
neighborhoods).

You can communicate with people in your immediate neighborhood or with people
in nearby neighborhoods.

As you can imagine, what people talk about really depends on the character of
your real world neighborhood and the people who live there. That's why I would
hesitate to characterize the entire product based on any individual experience
with it. It really depends on the neighborhood.

I've personally found it to be a mix of extremely useful and meh, depending on
the use-case and context. There's definitely immense potential.

It's one of the more under the radar billion dollar companies:
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nextdoor](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nextdoor)

------
cat199
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

------
alexhektor
Why are there two articles from wilamette week on the front page at the same
time? Is it just me or does this look suspicious?

~~~
dsr_
Common pattern in HN: somebody finds an article from source X, a few thousand
people read the article. Of those, a hundred read linked articles. Pretty soon
one of those is submitted, and a thousand people read the article...

