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Created by: Ashwin van der Vlugt

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Jolieke, Raquel en Ashwin

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The positive things about social media and communities.
Created by: Raquel Tolhoek.

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The negative things about social media on neighborhoods and communities

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In Halloween 2017, a 3-year-old Chicago boy named Ryan missed his chance to go trick-or-treating because an illness landed him in the ICU. So his mom took to the neighborhood-based social network EveryBlock with a touching request: Would Ryan's neighbors be willing to re-create Halloween three days later? The yeses poured right it.

And when an elderly couple's basement flooded in Columbus, Ohio, in 2014, they posted urgent requests for assistance on Facebook, Twitter and the neighborhood-based site Nextdoor. But it was the Nextdoor connections who actually showed up.

"It was like living in an Amish community, and somebody had rung a bell, 'cause people just came out of the woodwork to help," the grateful husband told The Verge.

Stories like these explain the draw of locality-based online social networks. Nextdoor is by far the biggest of these networks, with private community sites operating in more than 168,000 neighborhoods across the United States (up from 40,000 in 2014), and thousands more in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands. But there are also sites like Neighborland, E-Democracy and thousands of private neighborhood Facebook groups.

To join most of these neighborhood sites and groups, you need to prove that you actually live in the neighborhood or get permission from the forum admin, a step that ensures that topics and interactions stay local. You also have to use your real name, a buffer against the ugliness that online anonymity often provokes.

'Can Anyone Recommend a Good Contractor?'

Rosta Farzan, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh and researcher of online communities, says that when you ask people why they join community-based online social networks, they say that they miss the sense of real human connections with people in their neighborhoods.

"They also care about the local context in a way that they really do not care about issues that they're not in touch with on a daily basis," says Farzan, who has studied the types of interactions and content posted on neighborhood sites.

Unlike most messages posted on Facebook's public pages, or via Twitter and Instagram, which run the gamut from international news stories and cat videos to political rants, the main thing driving interactions on community-based sites is mobilization, explains Farzan.

Mobilization means that you need something and you want to leverage local resources to achieve it. That could be anything from recruiting neighbors for a group yard sale or getting a recommendation for a contractor to blocking the construction of a multi-story parking complex down the street.

And when neighborhood social networks are at their best, that's the benefit they provide. They rally the ingenuity and input and action of neighbors, the people with the most interest in making the community safe and successful.

But in practice, things aren't always so simple.

'There's a Suspicious Man Lurking Around...'

Chris Englert, an author living in Denver, Colorado, started a neighborhood Facebook group when she moved to a new and fast-growing subdivision. What started out as a friendly and convenient way for new neighbors to connect and keep each other informed, inevitably devolved into endless name-calling arguments about dog poop. Despite a rule about never posting anything you wouldn't say to another person's face, neighbors became bullies.

A Philadelphia blogger went on a delightfully R-rated rant about her neighborhood Facebook group, where she says nine out of 10 posts are negative and nobody seems to care about actually doing something to change the status quo. "Reminder," she writes, "posting on the internet in private groups doesn't count as working hard to be a good member of your community."

Back in 2015, the East Bay Express in Oakland, California, uncovered a more insidious issue with neighborhood social networks: racial profiling. The report focused on Nextdoor's "Crime & Safety" section, which is intended to function as an online neighborhood watch. Unfortunately, people were using it to post "suspicious activity" that wouldn't have been nearly as suspicious if the subject wasn't black or wearing a hoodie.

To its credit, Nextdoor responded by completely revamping its crime and safety reporting system and creating a Racial Profiling Resource Center. Now, before a user can post a report, they're prompted to consider whether they'd report the same activity if it was done by somebody of a different race. And reports must include specific identifying characteristics of the suspect, not just race or sex.

"We are very proud of our work to address racial profiling on Nextdoor and have seen a tremendous response from our community," Kelsey Grady, director of global communications at Nextdoor, writes in an email. "We have seen a significant reduction in problematic posts and this number continues to decrease."

In her research, Farzan found that while safety is definitely one of the motivating factors for wanting to connect with your neighbors online, it's not anywhere near the top. And Nextdoor's own user data bears that out. According to numbers provided by Grady, the most popular section on Nextdoor is "Classifieds" (items for sale or giveaway), which makes up 32 percent of posts followed by "Recommendations" (24 percent). Here, posters ask for help finding the best restaurant, mechanic or plumber in their area to name just a few requests.

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Nextdoor and More: The Good, Bad and Ugly of Neighborhood Social Networks

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In Halloween 2017, a 3-year-old Chicago boy named Ryan missed his chance to go trick-or-treating because an illness landed him in the ICU. So his mom took to the neighborhood-based social network EveryBlock with a touching request: Would Ryan's neighbors be willing to re-create Halloween three days later?

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The negative things about social media on neighborhoods and communities

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It's an old idea made new: neighbourhood watch groups taking to Facebook and other social media platforms to keep a watchful eye on goings-on in their areas.

Such groups have footholds across Winnipeg's digital map, sprouting up lately in areas including Windsor Park, River Heights and Wolseley, allowing neighbours to share posts advising others of crime, security issues or suspicious interlopers on their streets.

But a University of Manitoba criminologist warns that if they're not done properly, the groups can harm, not help, the neighbourhoods they represent.

Frank Cormier spoke to host Trevor Dineen on CBC Manitoba's Up to Speed on Friday.

The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
How helpful are Facebook neighbourhood watch groups when it comes to reducing crime?

They can be, in theory, quite helpful. Criminologists, we look at something we call social disorganization in neighbourhoods, and that's something that often results in a situation where neighbours don't know each other very well.

So in neighbourhoods, for example, that have high in-and-out migration - a lot of turnover of the people who live there - people might not know their neighbours, they might not speak to their neighbours, and so they remain unaware of things that are happening.

They don't recognize when there is, perhaps, a strange or suspicious individual in the neighbourhood, and therefore they're less likely to notice when things are, you know, going wrong in the neighbourhood, whereas if they were in communication with each other, they would be more aware and they perhaps could take steps to try to address the problem.
What are the differences between those real-life programs and these Facebook groups?
The Neighbourhood Watch program has been around for, you know, 50 years now, I think, in the United States and Canada and other parts of the world, so it's a very similar idea in that it's a network whereby neighbours stay in touch with each other, keep each other apprised of issues in the community, sort of look out for each other.

So using Facebook or other social media, it's just really an extension of something that's been around for a while.

One of the potential dangers, though, with new technology - there's always that double-edged sword - is that there have been examples where these Facebook groups have actually started to divide neighbourhoods more than they have brought them together.
How so?
One problem is that very often, there's not sort of a full inclusivity where people take great steps to ensure that everyone in whatever the designated neighbourhood is ... is invited and everyone is really encouraged to take part.

There are cases where you might have a small sub-group in the community, people that already know each other - you know, they're like-minded people - and they start a group and it becomes exclusive to them, rather than inclusive.

And there have been cases where we end up with, if I can use a popular culture reference, sort of a Mean Girls situation, where there's almost a clique that sort of runs the group and the Facebook group becomes more of a "burn book," so to speak, for gossip and attacking other people than it becomes a uniting community resource.
Some posts in these groups include photos or descriptions of people accused of crimes. What are the dangers of sharing these kinds of posts?
There's a number of dangers inherent there. Sharing information can be a good thing. But the problem, and I think we've all observed this, [is] online behaviour can often differ quite severely from our normal in-person social behaviour, and ... people might feel emboldened to make accusations or attacks on people electronically that they wouldn't otherwise.

There have been cases, mostly in the United States to this point, where people were taking photographs of people or making videos of them and posting those to the site and describing them as being suspicious or imputing some, you know, nasty motives to them when these people were perfectly innocent of anything.

And that's when we start getting into dangers of invasion of privacy and possible liability issues. There's civil liability, where they could be found to be libelous ... where you defame someone's character incorrectly, or even gets into criminal matters such as harassment or making threats.
What advice would you give to people who are moderating these Facebook groups to make sure they don't get out of hand?
That is the key, is that there has to be an active moderator who will screen posts and comments people make, and there should be a clear list of rules.

A list of rules to start with, to say we will not, you know, accept posts that are threatening or harassing, etc., etc., and then somebody really does have to screen and moderate those and remove any comments that are moving into more negative territory.

Also, as I mentioned before, inclusivity is the really important part. There has to be a real effort made to get the entire neighbourhood involved in it and included in it, again, to make sure that you're bringing people together rather than fostering anger and resentment and thereby driving people further apart.
Can these Facebook groups work harmoniously with traditional police neighbourhood watch programs?
That's an excellent suggestion that I would make, is that neighbourhoods or groups that are thinking of starting this sort of thing should first consult with the local police. Here in Winnipeg, there still are a number of neighbourhoods that still have fully functioning neighbourhood watch programs.

The police do keep in fairly close contact with those groups and will offer support and advice and can designate a liaison person, so if there are concerns, rather than sort of venting those and perhaps moving into vigilantism, there's one contact person who can speak with the police and the police can advise and assist as necessary.

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Is your neighbourhood Facebook group keeping people safe or just becoming a 'Burn Book?' | CBC News

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It's an old idea made new: neighbourhood watch groups taking to Facebook and other social media platforms to keep a watchful eye on goings-on in their areas. Such groups have footholds across Winnipeg's digital map, sprouting up lately in areas including Windsor Park, River Heights and Wolseley, allowing neighbours to share posts advising others of crime, security issues or suspicious interlopers on their streets.

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The negative things about social media on neighborhoods and communities
Created by: Jolieke van Harten

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The negative things about social media on neighborhoods and communities
Created by: Jolieke van Harten

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Uploaded by Gloucestershire Constabulary on 2018-01-23.

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The use of social networking in community development

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The use of social networking in community development

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Can social media save a neighborhood organization?

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Can social media save a neighborhood organization?

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Problem solving for neighbourhood policing

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Problem solving for neighbourhood policing

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How to solve local crime and disorder problems for neighbourhood police officers.

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The role of social media in community building and development

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The role of social media in community building and development

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Positive things about social media

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Rosie Niven

acebook users can claim to have hundreds of friends in their network, yet sometimes find it difficult to name half a dozen people that they have actually met in their local neighbourhood. While social networks have helped people to meet like-minded contacts online, they have had a more limited role in developing face-to-face contact in communities.

But gradually, social networks are beginning to have a bigger role in building community and catalysing neighbourhood co-operation and social action. The recent post-riot clean-up Twitter campaign was one example of how social media can be used to inspire people to get involved in community life.

This was just one of the examples discussed at a round table event last week exploring the crossover of local communities and social media. Organised by RightmovePlaces and Civic Voice, it brought together some of the leading lights in hyperlocal online communities to discuss what role social media can play in supporting and mobilising communities.

One national organisation that has used social media to encourage community action is Keep Britain Tidy. The organisation's partnerships support director Fran Hayes told participants how it uses existing social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to help change people's habits nationally and organise local litter pickups.

Keep Britain Tidy now has almost 9,000 followers on Twitter and 2,000 on Facebook. The organisation has encouraged its Twitter followers to take photos of litter in their areas and share them as a Twitpic. It has also launched a closed Ning forum where people can turn conversation and debates into action.

Hayes said that the organisation considers that social media provides a safe environment for "mobilising people who are upset about litter". He said that the momentum provided by litter picks could snowball and benefit the community further by encouraging locals to collaborate on future projects.

Paul Twivy, of Your Square Mile, an organisation that is building communities both on and offline in 16 UK locations, has worked with some heavy users of Facebook who have failed to realise its potential for community action. "It hadn't occurred to them that they could set up a Google or Facebook Group for their street," he noted.

But it is not just social media that can be used to mobilise communities, online blogs and forums can have a similar effect. Hugh Flouch, the founder of Network Neighbourhoods, presented survey data from a 2010 study of the social impact of online communities carried out by his organisation.

The study explored the ways in which people communicate online using citizen-run websites, the impact of that communication, and the implications for local service providers. It focused on three well-established sites around London: Brockley Central, East Dulwich Forum and Harringay Online.

It found that 42% of respondents say they have met someone in their neighbourhood as a direct consequence of using the website. Three quarters of respondents felt that participation on the local site had a positive effect on whether or not people pull together to make improvements to their area, while 69% felt that participation on the local site had strengthened their sense of belonging.

The research concluded that neighbourhood sites appear to be playing a consolidating role, building a stronger attachment on already-sound foundations. They help to raise and debate local issues transparently and provide a channel and encouragement for people to get involved in civic and community issues.

But the research also suggested that there is a limited crossover of activity from online to physical communities. Overall, only 13% of respondents said they have been involved in formal groups or organisations locally in the past year. "It seems likely that local websites can both stimulate and reflect a latent demand for informal opportunities for collective involvement, very much on a dip-in dip-out basis," said the document.

Flouch told participants at the event that online platforms were good to encourage the habit of communicating with other community members. He added that people do not necessarily have to have any other motivation than wanting to chat. "Logging into a website for half an hour creates a habit of people communicating with their neighbours."

The participants did briefly discuss the fact that too much of an emphasis on online communities can exclude those not online. Most agreed that online communities are not a panacea - indeed Twivy's work with Your Square Mile emphasises the need for community development to take place both online and off.

The discussion has highlighted how social networks and online forums are fast becoming recognised as an important tool in community development and the range of tools available to practitioners.
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The role of social media in community building and development

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Rosie Niven acebook users can claim to have hundreds of friends in their network, yet sometimes find it difficult to name half a dozen people that they have actually met in their local neighbourhood. While social networks have helped people to meet like-minded contacts online, they have had a more limited role in developing face-to-face contact in communities.