Violent crime in the US is at its lowest rate in decades. But you wouldn’t know that from a crop of increasingly popular social media apps that are forming around crime.
Apps like Nextdoor, Citizen, and Amazon Ring’s Neighbors — all of which allow users to view local crime in real time and discuss it with people nearby — are some of the most downloaded social and news apps in the US, according to rankings from the App Store and Google Play.
Nextdoor bills itself as the “world’s largest social network for the neighborhood,” where you can ask for nearby restaurant recommendations, buy used furniture, or report a stolen bike. In practice, its “crime and safety” section has been a hotbed for racial stereotyping that’s forced the company to rewrite its software and policies.
These apps have become popular because of — and have aggravated — the false sense that danger is on the rise. Americans seem to think crime is getting worse, according to data from both Gallup and Pew Research Center. In fact, crime has fallen steeply in the last 25 years according to both the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Social Media is the perfect place to spread fear and hate. It has proven that people are far to willing to believe in many crackpot theories. It is amazing how in a single generation we’ve gone away from believing organized religion and psychic phenomenon to believing wind from windmills cause cancer and chemicals in the water turning the frogs gay.
I got something in the mail from NEXTDOOR and when I signed up I was denied. I emailed and they responded saying basically we weren’t welcome cause I’m an SO. So if this is a safety tool its not available to my family. I really don’t give a shit I live in a good area but I let them know I was gonna sue them if I get word their website is being used to slander me and boost awareness in a way that would cause my family danger. Basically one person trying to incite trouble by using someone not too bright to get worked up.
Good man! Give the idiots a piece of your mind.
All this technology is a bummer for everyone look at humanity and where we have come.
Come now, let’s not cloud the issue with facts! If the facts don’t support the agenda, they are dismissed as “fake news.”
I was hoping you would find/post this article.
It is a very well written piece.
Thank you!
We dig deep, Sc
I saw this in my news feed. I thought this might be good to share and you did.
So many times I have come across this problem with my homeowners saying the crime is terrible and I am like….no. One lady even said to me she didn’t care what the statistics are she knows better and demands we hire security guards for the community. This was several years ago and I tried to explain you are just exposed to more and quicker. She wouldn’t hear it. Something everyone here understands.
I listened to attorney Paul Dubbeling speak at a conference last year. He explained that the sex offender registry had a lot to do with cable news. Horrible things happened in the past and people were abused/abducted, etc. just as much decades ago as they are now, but with cable news everything became amplified. In the past, there was a half hour for TV news and a finite amount of space in the paper, so the news reported just that… news. Now, the network had 24 hours to fill with content. So when something happened, they talked about it incessantly so that it got to the point where people were afraid to leave their homes.
The sad thing is that politicians are the first to take advantage of such unfounded fears. The sex offender registries are based on such phony scare tactics. I have also noted on social media sites many instances where someone re-posts outdated criminal acts and Amber Alerts, frightening the local community needlessly. I try to correct them with links to updated reports, but people too often accept social media posts as fact without checking the source.