Open Source: Nextdoor in the Triangle isn’t all copperheads
I’m Brian Gordon, tech reporter for The News & Observer, and this is Open Source, a weekly newsletter on business, labor and technology in North Carolina.
The social network Nextdoor is very popular in the North Carolina Triangle — and very polarizing.
Even if you don’t use it, you probably know someone who does. According to the company, the hyperlocal platform is now used by one in three U.S. households. There are 959 Nextdoor neighborhoods in Raleigh, 524 in Durham, 308 in Cary, and 202 in Chapel Hill.
People sign up by confirming their addresses and then have access to message boards on which people sound off about almost anything going on in their neighborhoods.
A local joke is that every Nextdoor post in North Carolina is about copperhead snakes. But it’s the non-snake posts that leave people split about the site (OK, the copperhead posts can be divisive, too. It is the internet.)
If you have experiences with Nextdoor, feel free to reach out to share your perspective. I’m working on a story about the platform’s local impact and welcome any additional insights.
A few weeks ago, I joined Nextdoor to see how it works. Already, I’ve came across a handful of posts in my Durtham townhouse community’s page that reflect what others say the social network is like at its best and worst. Here’s what I mean:
A few days ago, a neighbor named Johnny Clinton went on Nextdoor to offer a dozen bags of cat litter “if anyone needs it.” I have a cat, but I wouldn’t have normally entertained picking up copious amounts of litter from a random person. But Clinton was 30 seconds away. I messaged him and we met outside his house.
He confirmed what I had assumed: His cat had passed away.
As we loaded the bags into my trunk, we talked. He was a retired Army veteran involved in the local American Legion chapter. I told him I was a reporter, and he suggested a story. We swapped phone numbers. He told me about his cat.
I got to know my neighbor. I don’t have to buy litter for the rest of the year. If that’s all Nextdoor was, it would be the most pleasant social media network ever created.
But that’s not all the Nextdoor is. Among its major critiques, Nextdoor gets slammed for perpetuating racial profiling and unconfirmed crime speculation.
It’s a platform where every loud bang is a gunshot, critics say, and every unknown person a suspect. Nextdoor is aware this is an issue and recommends users take steps to minimize unconscious bias when reporting safety concerns.
Recent posts on my neighborhood page have included doorbell camera footage of two children looking under a parked car at night and another describing a “younger man” who was knocking on doors in a way the poster found suspicious.
There was no evidence the people depicted in these posts had bad intentions, but the language used by the posters insinuated they were threats. This distortion of reality can have tragic consequences said David Ewoldsen, a Michigan State University professor of media and information who researches Nextdoor and other social media platforms.
“When the car backfiring two blocks away all at once becomes a gun, at some point that means somebody’s going to be coming out with (their own) gun,” Ewoldsen said. “Then you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Duke students filed to unionize. What comes next?
Last Friday, Ph.D. students at Duke University petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to form a union.
On Monday, the school came out against the union efforts. “Ph.D. students are not admitted to do a job; they are selected because of their potential to be exceptional scholars,” wrote interim Provost Jennifer Francis in a letter to Duke doctoral students and faculty.
Many students (and former students) took umbrage with the “not admitted to do a job,” phrase, emphasizing their pay, work schedules and W-2s are signs they arrived to be employees as well as scholars.
An election is likely coming. When exactly — and how — is yet to be determined. The union has proposed the vote take place over the last three days of March, with students given the choice to cast ballots on campus or by mail.
The university can now propose its own election date and process. Duke can even challenge the bargaining unit the union proposed, which is all 2,500 doctoral students. The NLRB will decide. Both sides are scheduled to convene in Winston-Salem on March 27 for a representation hearing to get the next details sorted out.
Short Stuff: Epic + Lego, new NC jobs, VC funding recap
Lego is eyeing the metaverse. According to The Financial Times, the toy company will soon announce details about its digital experience partnership with Epic Games, the Cary-based creator of Fortnite.
Siemens Mobility and North Carolina announced a new passenger rail vehicle plant in the Piedmont city of Lexington.
- The facility promises to create 500 jobs by 2029.
- The German company has pledged to invest $220 million. State and local incentives for the project total around $32 million.
The local nonprofit Council for Economic Development released its overview of North Carolina venture capital funding in 2022:
- 246 companies raised funds in 2022, 25 more than the year prior.
- N.C. companies raised $4.2 billion in 2022, down from $4.6 billion raised in 2021. And last year’s total was swayed by a whopping $2 billion raised by Epic Games last April.
National Tech Happenings:
- Spotify is restyling the homescreen of its app, making it look more like Instagram and YouTube, The Verge writes.
- Twitter experienced a widespread outage Monday when every link or photo on the sight directed users to an error message. According to Platformer, the error was caused by a single engineer.
- Laid off and want an MBA? More than a dozen business schools have waived standardized testing requirements for tech workers who’ve had their jobs cut, Bloomberg’s Businessweek reports.
Thanks for reading!
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.
This story was originally published March 10, 2023 at 9:07 AM.
