Nextdoor CEO Takes Blame for Censorship of Black Lives Matter Posts | Hacker News Reader

Nextdoor CEO Takes Blame for Censorship of Black Lives Matter Posts

npr.org

21 pointsjs218 comments

>Friar said they were deleting posts about Black Lives Matter because they were following outdated rules stating that national conversations have no place in neighborhood forums.

Is this wrong though? If you're talking about a local protest/activity, absolutely; but does generic black-square-style posting have a place on a hyperlocal community forum like ND?

It's not wrong, but the mob has come for him and having any contrarian or critical opinion of this movement is career suicide.

I suspect it's more a question of whether it was done evenhandedly - I agree with you, but if posts about Trump or whatever other national stuff stay up and BLM comes down, then it's an issue.

Those guidelines have now been revised to state that conversations about racial inequality and Black Lives Matter are allowed on Nextdoor

I'm not a Nextdoor user but the way I read it it seems like discussions were limited to only local events and proposals. Say, a post about a BLM protest at the local mall was ok, and a post proposing a possible future BLM protest at the mall was ok, but not a post promoting or criticizing BLM in general. The new guidelines appear to now grant a specific exception to the core concept.

I don't envy their position. Doing this opens the floodgates to rule exceptions for every special interest group on the planet and not doing it puts them in the crosshairs of a massive and popular social movement.

So, is there then an easy tool to report rogue community leads ? (mods) I don't think there is one specifically for that purpose.

Hah. I quit Nextdoor over all that racist BLM nonsense. We already have a Twitter. Good to know I made the right decision.

Nextdoor sounds like Stallman's worst nightmare and Stalin's dream startup idea. I wouldn't want to be the CEO of this company given the hole they have just dug themselves in.

Is she also going to take the blame for the rest of the blatant racism that happens constantly on nextdoor?

The CEO is a woman.

Thanks. I fixed it. Lol at me getting downvoted for pointing out the obvious "black person walking in the neighborhood" racism that's rampant on nextdoor though.

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. The platform is filled with racist Karen’s scared of a black person’s shadow. Embarrassing they don’t take more of stance against it.

Hey now. Don’t be sexist and forget to mention the Ken’s.

You also shouldn't be transphobic and assume their gender if some of 'them' are also transgender themselves for the sake of absolute 'inclusivity'. /s

Any measure they could take would likely just result in people posting the same drivel while leaving out the race of the person.

Is that not better? Serious question.

As long as the rule is not surface deep and people can't just turn to coded language where x_code_word always mean some_person_of_color. People will be forced to reconsider their language and hopefully their thinking.

Would depend on the form Nextdoor racism takes. If they talk needlessly about it after the initial report like about how they've been "seeing too many of those lately" it could work. If, however, Nextdoor racism is users just reporting black people who aren't doing anything suspicious, I suspect they'd just switch to specifying race for everyone except black people.

Perhaps it was because you were pointing the finger at others while manifesting obvious prejudice yourself. (The comment originally read "Is he also".)

Sorry for assuming a tech company CEO is a man. What was I thinking?

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