On December 14, a
older, mangy, meowing cat that I didn’t recognize wandered into our driveway while
my wife and I were in the garage. With the thought of the dozens of missing cat
flyers posted all over our neighborhood, and without the means to house the cat
with us until owners were found (if there were any), we did what we thought was
best in the moment and took the cat to the shelter. We also posted in Nextdoor
about finding the cat in hopes that someone would claim him or know to whom he
belonged. Ultimately, the cat was reunited with his owner the same day, and the
owner and I had a nice conversation: I apologized that he had to drive to the
shelter, and he thanked me for our concern for his beloved cat’s well-being.
All’s well that ends well, right? Wrong. Turns out that my wife and I are horrible people, according
to the users of Nextdoor, the social networking site for neighborhoods. Within
minutes of our post about the cat, a neighbor commented unhelpfully that what
we did was ridiculous and wrong. Over the course of the ensuing minutes and
hours, the post spiraled into a mess of accusatory, hateful, rage-filled
comments about how we were “evil,” waiting around to
“kidnap” cats to take them to be euthanized. Anyone who tried to jump
to our defense or add a comment that wasn’t in line with the hateful neighbor’s
point of view immediately found themselves under fire. The attacks continued
well into the evening, until my frustrated wife contacted Nexdoor to close the
thread.
According to Nextdoor’s Community Guidelines, which can be
found online on their Help Center page, the site wants “all neighbors to
feel welcome, safe, and respected when using Nextdoor … The crux of our
Guidelines can be boiled down to one simple statement: Everyone here is your
neighbor. Please treat each other with respect.” Unfortunately, Nextdoor
has fallen prey to the same fate as other social media sites such as Facebook:
It’s become a platform for argument. Like other social media sites, this one
allows users to freely take shots at each other in a way we would never do in
person. Hiding behind a computer screen emboldens us to spew whatever hate we
want without fear of repercussion, thanks to a veil of anonymity.