Nextdoor – Going Behind the Curtain

By Bear Howard

From time to time, I read the online community forum Nextdoor. Out of curiosity, I even took the time to review all their guidelines—both for users and the moderators who have the power to judge posts and comments, as well as the “members.” I have noticed that some familiar voices on the platform have suddenly disappeared. As it turns out, they had been kicked off. I’ve also seen posts with animated and colorful debates disappear and be removed. That led me to dig deeper. I wanted to learn more about Nextdoor—where it originated, how it operates, and where it might be headed. Here’s what I found. (And don’t miss the final comment on changes coming to the platform this summer at the end of this article.)

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Nextdoor – Going Behind the Curtain

In an era when the social contract increasingly plays out through screens, the idea of a “digital front porch” seems inviting—a space to meet your neighbors, borrow a ladder, post a lost dog, or sound the alarm on a break-in. It’s also a modern-day “soapbox.” Nextdoor, founded in 2008, built itself around that promise. It isn’t just another social network; it presents itself as a community utility. Unlike Facebook or Reddit, it stakes its legitimacy on trust, requiring verified real names and addresses.

This identity model and its hyperlocal design set it apart as a civic-oriented platform. But over time, cracks have appeared—not only in the structure, but in the foundation. These cracks have raised important and increasingly urgent questions: Is Nextdoor truly a platform for fair and constructive community discourse? Or is it a digital mirror reflecting the same biases, power imbalances, and opacity that plague broader society?

This essay examines that question by blending platform analysis, user experience, and the findings of professional journalists who have taken a deeper, more disciplined look at Nextdoor. The goal is not to vilify, nor to absolve—but to engage in an honest reckoning, one that any platform aspiring to mediate the public square must eventually face.

Nextdoor’s core model is built on trust—real people, verified homes, and neighborhoods defined by geography rather than ideology. On paper, this makes it a dream platform for civic engagement. Need a plumber? Post. Lost dog? Alert the neighbors? Worried about a suspicious car? Share the photo. Want to organize a block party, alert residents to a city council meeting, or raise money for a local nonprofit? It’s all possible.

The platform has implemented tools to minimize toxicity. Google’s Perspective API and built-in “Kindness Reminders” prompt users before posting something potentially harmful. The moderation system includes nearly 300,000 volunteer moderators as of 2024. According to Nextdoor’s transparency reports, about 90 percent of reported content is reviewed by a human within six hours. These numbers suggest an impressive infrastructure that supports both automation and human judgment at scale.

But statistics don’t always reflect lived experience. A closer look reveals growing discontent over how moderation decisions are made—and who is making them.

At the heart of Nextdoor’s fairness debate is its moderation model. Unlike other social platforms that hire trained professionals, Nextdoor relies on local-residents – so-called “Leads” and “Review Team” volunteers—to moderate their neighbors’ posts. These individuals are not trained journalists or civic officials. They are simply your neighbors. That sounds democratic, but in practice, it means that decisions about what is appropriate, or offensive, are deeply subjective.

The platform gives these neighborhood moderators broad powers but little oversight. There’s no mechanism for residents to vote moderators in or out. In some cases, users can’t even tell who the moderators are. And unlike traditional public institutions, there’s no clear appeals process, no ombudsman, and no outside review body.

Stories of arbitrary censorship abound. I read about a resident in Santa Clara, California, who reported being banned in 2020 after posting support for Black Lives Matter. That same year, journalists revealed that while posts expressing support for BLM were removed, racially charged content warning about “suspicious” people—usually people of color—was often allowed to remain. The company later acknowledged mishandling these cases and promised reforms. But the episode highlighted a deeper truth: Nextdoor was reflecting, and in some cases amplifying, societal biases under the guise of neighborly safety.

Journalists have not ignored this tension. In a 2025 report, the Associated Press described Nextdoor as having once been a “magnet for racists and cranks.” The platform had to remove its “Forward to Police” feature because it was disproportionately used to report people of color for trivial behaviors like walking a dog or sitting in a car. The AP noted that Nextdoor’s recent redesign—adding over 3,500 local news providers into the platform—was a clear effort to shift away from reactive moderation toward a more proactive, civically grounded content model.

That shift matters. Professional journalism operates under a distinct set of norms: verification, context, and fairness. It doesn’t just repeat what people say—it interrogates it. In bringing journalists into the fold, Nextdoor seems to be acknowledging that self-policing by volunteers, even well-meaning ones, is insufficient for true fairness. The platform now relies not just on neighbors, but on professionals, to stabilize the digital public square it created.

Academic research has backed up these observations. A 2024 study in APA Open found that user perceptions of fairness were critical to long-term engagement. When users believe they’ve been treated unfairly—regardless of whether rules were technically followed—they are more likely to disengage, retaliate, or abandon the platform altogether. In other words, a moderation policy is only as good as its public credibility.

Online forums like Reddit and neighborhood blogs offer further insight. Many users describe Nextdoor’s moderation as capricious, ideologically motivated, or just plain confusing. Complaints range from the trivial—posts about traffic tickets being deleted—to the serious—systematic suppression of minority viewpoints. The inability to form alternative “versions” of the same neighborhood or select different moderators means that unhappy users often have no recourse but to leave. This means the Sedona Nextdoor is the Nextdoor you’ve got and we’ll get.

Meanwhile, Nextdoor continues to frame itself as a force for good, citing low rates of harmful content and quick removal times. But as any seasoned journalist or civic advocate will tell you, absence of visible harm doesn’t mean harm hasn’t occurred. Bias can live in silence just as easily as in speech.

Nextdoor was never designed to be a neutral space. It was designed to be a local space. But localism brings with it the full weight of local bias, parochialism, and fear. What one neighborhood sees as vigilance, another might see as profiling. What one moderator calls inappropriate, another might consider civic activism. In this ambiguity, power thrives—quietly, invisibly, and often without accountability.

There is a bitter irony in all this. The very elements that make Nextdoor unique—its reliance on real identities, its local focus, its neighbor-led governance—also make it fragile. Without formal structures for fairness, transparency, and appeal, the platform risks becoming a digital HOA: full of rules, devoid of justice.

None of this means that Nextdoor is without value. The platform has enabled disaster response, revived lost pets, connected volunteers with the elderly, and informed residents of civic meetings and local initiatives. These are real and meaningful contributions. But if Nextdoor wants to be more than just a glorified bulletin board, it must invest in democratic infrastructure.

This means allowing users to vote for or review moderators. It means publishing data not just about what gets removed, but about who makes the decision and why. It means creating independent review boards—like editorial ombudsmen or citizen panels—to resolve disputes. It means embracing journalism not just as a content source, but as an ethical framework for truth and fairness.

The goal of any civic platform should not be perfection, but accountability. Nextdoor, like any institution claiming to support democratic life, must earn and re-earn the public’s trust. That requires more than kindness tips and automated filters. It requires structure, honesty, and above all, transparency.

Fairness online is not a feature—it’s a practice. And unless that practice is made visible, participatory, and reviewable, the promise of digital community will remain just that: a promise, never fulfilled.

After reviewing multiple sources analyzing Nextdoor that I used in this article, I wanted to better understand the changes currently being implemented under the leadership of CEO Nirav Tolia, who returned to lead the company earlier this year. Tolia, the founder of Nextdoor in 2008, appears focused on addressing both the platform’s long-standing profitability challenges and the persistent criticisms surrounding its community dynamics. The redesign now reportedly underway is aimed at creating daily value for users and fostering consistent engagement—much like Facebook or Instagram. However, I believe Nextdoor’s transformation goes beyond simply boosting ad revenue. It’s also about restoring user trust, curbing the chaos of inconsistent moderation, and improving the platform’s image as a fair and reliable digital space for neighborhoods.

What follows is a summary of the changes my research uncovered. I did not write this description myself; I’m simply passing along the most coherent explanation I found that outlines what’s changing and why these changes matter.

The future of Nextdoor is shifting from a chaotic neighborhood message board into a structured, daily-use civic tool—more like a local utility than a free-for-all forum. Instead of relying on self-appointed moderators and unpredictable neighbor commentary, the redesigned platform centers around curated news, safety alerts, and AI-powered local recommendations. These features are designed to make Nextdoor a habit—something residents check daily for reliable updates, trustworthy tips, and useful services—while minimizing the drama and dysfunction that have plagued the platform since its early days.

By reshaping how content flows and reducing the influence of rogue moderators or agenda-driven users, Nextdoor aims to rebuild trust and become a true companion to everyday neighborhood life. The shift is subtle but profound: less confrontation, more coordination; less personal judgment, more platform-guided clarity. It’s a move from passive posting and reactive moderation toward a proactive, civically minded design that invites users back for what matters—connection, not conflict.

Nirav Tolia (CEO) has stated that the goal is to turn Nextdoor into the “essential companion for neighborhood life,” not a place people visit just to complain or argue.

If you or you know of someone who was banned from any local Nextdoor, including Sedona Nextdoor,  you can comment after my article as to what you think caused you to be “banned.”

As part of my research, I am very interested in hearing from the public on their experience with Nextdoor.

If a post of yours was taken down without a cause you agreed with, also comment. If you have opinions on the Nextdoor platform itself, comment. That way, my report can be educational, as well as giving those who believe they have been “banned” and treated unfairly, a place to express their opinion. This request is open to anyone, not only to people who have engaged with Sedona’s Nextdoor.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed above are not the opinion of Sedona.biz or it’s editors and publisher. They are solely the opinion of the author. Sedona.biz welcomes community input and is a cyber platform for the voices in our community that are not heard, otherwise.