Racism has no place on Nextdoor.

Our Community Guidelines are the foundation of Nextdoor and set the standards for interacting on the platform in a productive and civil manner. These guidelines explicitly forbid racism, and we use both human moderators and proprietary technology to make sure that rule is enforced.

Additionally, we train our content moderators to recognize racial bias and respond quickly and effectively. This training includes an online anti-bias course as well as tools and resources for inclusive moderation. To develop these materials and ensure they’re effective, Nextdoor partnered with The New Quo – a leadership consultancy that uses science to build more inclusive communities. After completing the course, >95% of participants indicated they would take action when they encounter scenarios of tone policing, racial profiling, and coded language. Find more about our inclusive moderation resources and our moderating biased posts toolkit.

As a company, Nextdoor supports the Black Lives Matter movement. All Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter content is explicitly prohibited when used to undermine racial equality or the Black Lives Matter movement. Support for White Lives Matter is prohibited on Nextdoor. Learn more about our commitment to support Black neighbors.

Since 2015, we have partnered with Dr. Jennifer L. Eberhardt, a social psychologist and the author of Biased, to better understand how Nextdoor can mitigate implicit bias – i.e. unconscious forms of prejudice that influence our actions. We found that adding some friction to the posting process helps slow people down and consider their own implicit bias. We also developed a new feature called the kindness reminder, which automatically flags offensive or hurtful comments and encourages the author to be more kind and thoughtful when they post. Ultimately, these tactics have led to a 75% decrease in racial profiling on the app.

We took this one step further with the launch of the anti-racism notification that detects language that could be specifically discriminatory to people of color. The notification detects potentially racist phrases such as “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter,” and prompts the author to consider editing their post or comment before it goes live. The anti-racism notification aims to make people aware of language that may violate our policy against discrimination and the harm that can be caused by the use of these phrases.

We also removed our ‘Forward to Police’ feature, which allowed neighbors to forward their safety posts to local law enforcement agencies. We believe this will help make our platform a place where all feel welcome.