A mob mentality on Nextdoor is silencing the voices social media should encourage
By Maina Cioni
President John F. Kennedy called on young people to “make the world safe for diversity,” but social media behaviors are threatening the opposite
The author graduated from Venice High School and is currently a junior at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Americans are trapped in echo chambers. Gone are the days when civility guided our discourse. The ever-increasing prominence of social media encourages us to excessively filter for content that matches our points of view — systematically silencing dissent and creating silos of intolerance.
We tend to justify closing ourselves off from others under the guise of needing space for our opinions. It’s one thing to seek temporary refuge from the noise of 24/7 public debate, but to board up your house and never leave damages our ability to think critically and compassionately.These are crucial skills for coexistence in a social landscape as diverse as Los Angeles.
Social media darling Nextdoor attempts to foster coexistence among diversity of opinion by allowing neighbors to communicate with each other about day-to-day life in their immediate neighborhoods. But simply creating an online platform for various opinions does not ensure all opinions will be heard. On the contrary, it can silence people whose perspectives conflict with the majority.
When conversation on a Nextdoor forum for the Del Rey neighborhood of West Los Angeles became focused on a homeless woman living in her car, the dialogue quickly deteriorated into a digital lynch mob.
Of the nearly 500 comments on this mid-November thread, only six comments were primary accounts — three reporting positive interactions and three reporting negative interactions; however, the dominant perspective promoted expelling her from the neighborhood at whatever cost. One particularly ugly post urged someone in the neighborhood to “kick her ass.”
The majority of neighbors were so averse to opposing views that they ridiculed and silenced dissenters. Some even urged retribution against contrarian voices urging a more compassionate response, with one commenter telling neighbors “there should be some measure of recourse against [the dissenter] personally.”
This is just one example of American society spiraling away from civil discourse in favor of knee-jerk calls for vengeance and malice. It’s not just Washington D.C. politics: Insulating our circles from responsible social discourse has eroded our ability to reason and empathize at the interpersonal level.
An article in the journal Scientific Reports concludes that discourse with like-minded people tends to negatively influence emotions and enforce group polarization, with social media user activity corresponding to the level of agreement with that community’s perspective. The article offered evidence that clearly false corroborative accounts are readily accepted, while opposing accounts are ignored and increase group polarization. Eventually, we begin to see people with opposing views as adversaries who must be defeated.
Too often, judgements are made narrowly; we ignore possible truths even if they are in front of our faces. These provincial mentalities not only undermine our thinking, they limit our progress. Valuable ideas are being lost to hostile competition in echo chambers. Instead of celebrating the diversity of ideas upheld by the First Amendment, we are now more and more likely to strike dissenters down.
In an interview appearing on Big Think (sort of a YouTube for ideas), “The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America” author and Harvard University professor Louis Menand argues that intellectual diversity is how good ideas take shape. Shutting down opposing views, on the other hand, closes off the potential for effective solutions to social problems — a losing outcome for both sides of any debate.
Without a competing marketplace of ideas, ideas become stagnant and progress is halted. We squander potential for growth and development.
President John F. Kennedy once urged us to “make the world safe for diversity.” Instead of cowardly trapping ourselves in digital echo chambers, we should challenge ourselves to deal with differences in constructive ways.
Humanity has progressed because we have appreciated diverse ideas. If we are willing to expand our bubbles, see through our bubbles and sometimes even pop them, limitless progress awaits us.
The older I grow, the fewer the number of things I can say with certainty, “I know.” I have learned that my opinion is just that: an opinion, not a fact. Before I am prepared to take a stand, I have learned to test my beliefs in dialogue with people who hold a considered opposite opinion. I am not interested in hearing from people who think I’m wrong, without sharing the basis for their own views. But to learn and grow, we must respectfully listen to other opinions than our own. I agree that Next Door is not the best forum for “reasoning together.” But we can all do our part on that forum by refraining from criticizing different viewpoints. As a mediator, one of my favorite sayings is, “Attack the problem, not the person.”
Great article by author Maina Cioni and comments by Ms Rothman.
Critical thought engages the process.
We are sorely missing this in our political & social landscapes, be they in Washington or in our virtual Nextdoor neighborhoods.
This article misses the bigger story. Councilmember Bonin’s supporters, including at least one of his very closest supporters, have been aggressively reporting Nextdoor posts and comments with fake claims of posting rule violations. With enough of their fake reports, Nextdoor will suspend the “violators” account, thus silencing opposing views.
Your response is a prime example of what the author is talking about.
I read the thread about the homeless woman on Del Rey NextDoor and it was horrible. Not an ounce of empathy for an obviously unwell woman. Thanks for printing this piece and I hope it will make people take a look in the mirror.
I saw that thread, and I was thankful for it. I’m glad various neighbors were able to compare notes and see that there were multiple restraining orders on the woman living in her RV.
When neighbors are getting their faces bashed in for no reason by a transient living in a vehicle, as was the case and why the cops were called in, it’s good that there’s something like Next Door exists.
Without it I think the hundreds of people commenting would have continued thinking it was just a case of an innocent woman down on her luck for a few weeks when it turned out to be someone very violent living on the same few streets for close to five years, circling between several vehicles she owned, terrorizing particular families and some with small children, and refusing to stay away from neighbors she had punched with no warning.
As a journalism student, I’d hope the author would take a deeper look at some of the corruption happening on NextDoor in the Venice neighborhood. I don’t mean the voices being supposedly silenced, I mean the political consultants paid for by local politicians like Mike Bonin who are targeting individual citizens that says negative things about him.
Why are paid consultants targeting anti Bonin comments and trying to get dozens of commentors removed from NextDoor just as the recall campaign is ramping up? That’s the kind of corruption and anti civil discourse that is worthy of being investigated.
great to see the diversity of responses on the Cionai article, a positive article worthy of evaluation, etc, which indicates a questionable evaluation of “mob mentality”. Look forward to further dialogue – especially regarding a neighborhood concern raised with possible a community/ public risk worthy of discussion – pro & con. – also a journalism student and Venice/USC graduate.