Our community guidelines are the foundation of Nextdoor and set the standards for how to interact on the platform in a productive and civil manner. Community moderation is essential to our platform because we want neighborhoods on Nextdoor to reflect the nature of neighborhoods in the real world.
Our efforts to keep interactions on the platform safe and productive are a balance of human review and technology, both of which work to detect content that violates our guidelines. Our Head of Data, Information Systems, and Trust leads these efforts, which include:
- Product features that enable neighbors to report harmful content;
- Algorithms to proactively detect harmful content; and
- A Neighborhood Operations Team of trained specialists to review content that has been flagged and take appropriate action to support the neighbors involved.
Neighborhood Leads and Community Reviewers also play an important role in ensuring that Nextdoor remains constructive and kind. These volunteers, who have to apply, are active Nextdoor neighbors who have access to moderation tools to ensure the guidelines are being followed in their Nextdoor neighborhoods. When posts or comments are reported by a neighbor, Community Reviewers and Neighborhood Leads can vote on whether or not they think it violates Nextdoor’s community guidelines.
All reports of misinformation or racism are sent directly to and handled by our trained Neighborhood Operations team. Given that this content can be particularly sensitive, we rely on our internal agents who have special training to ensure consistent and objective outcomes. Finally, neighbors that are reported are always reviewed by our Neighborhood Operations team – Neighborhood Leads and Community Reviewers have no insight into neighbor reports, nor do they have any ability to take action on a neighbor’s account.
Our purpose is to cultivate a kinder world where everyone has a neighborhood to rely on. Ensuring that conversations and connections are healthy and productive on the platform is paramount to this work.