NextDoor, a private social network for neighborhoods, is a popular means of letting neighbors know if you have a washer and dryer to sell or if you want to buy a camper. NextDoor lets people ask for plumber recommendations and post information about crime in the area.
A handy app for the neighborly…unless your address is on the sex offender registry.
No one who lives at a registered address is allowed to join NextDoor. Not the registrant, not the spouse. No one at that address.
How is this not punished? Another bullet for a lawsuit.
Keep it coming!!
Just another example of the public registry being no big deal.
I tried to sign up a couple of years ago and was denied. Nexdoor told me that my address was listed as the residence of a registered sex offender. Yup.
It definitely seems like a misguided policy for all the reasons listed by the author in her blog.
The common denominator of all of these policies is the availability of sex offender registration via the web. Get rid of that and these will go away. Corporations now consider it legally advisable to act on information available to them, from a liability standpoint. Lawyers and insurance companies urge them to keep us out of these private resources. As long as they have access to this information, then they will feel obligated to act upon it. It also says much about the extent to which we have become a litigious society and the ease of suing entities tangentially related to events which are really beyond their control. This is why we have to destroy the Registry or, at minimum, destroy Megan’s Law websites.
I was living in the Santa Cruz moutains recently and a month or so into living there, my roommate was removed from NextDoor without warning. I asked her to contact them and get in writing their response:
JUN 16, 2017 | 11:16AM PDT
David W. replied:
Hi ****,
I’m sorry to hear that you’re not receiving our responses.
Unfortunately, public records indicate that you share a home with a registered sex offender (offender profile attached) on the California Offender Registry and our policy, therefore, blocks everyone in your household from using Nextdoor:
https://nextdoor.com/member_agreement/
We understand there are many people on the sex offender registries who do not pose a threat to their neighbors. Unfortunately, we have no way to reliably distinguish between those who do and those who do not. In addition, Nextdoor has partnerships with more than 500 police departments, city governments, and other public agencies, and they have made clear to us that a no exceptions policy with regard to the households of registered sex offenders is a necessary precondition for these partnerships.
If the offender has since re-located, we’ll need to clear the hold on the address itself. The easiest way to resolve this is by speaking with your local Offender Registry agency, and explaining your current situation. They’ll be able to file the appropriate paperwork and start the process of clearing your address.
Alternatively, we can also clear your hold by providing us with applicable documentation. This could be a recent purchase agreement, lease agreement, rental agreement, land deed, or writ from the offender agency in your area.
Once your address is cleared, I can help you access to Nextdoor.
Thanks,
David
Nextdoor
Facebook is a whole other ball game. Not allowed to join?? Then you can NOT comment to most news stories online. Huge, Huge, Huge Problem.
I have a NextDoor account. I haven’t had any problems, nor do I ever see posts about RCs.
I’ve had a Nextdoor account for years. I am a spouse and while our address isn’t listed online – I have been concerned for years that they will one day kick me off the site.
We have used it for communicating with neighbors about lost pets , missing mail , lost keys , donations in the community , free furniture , any criminal activity in the neighborhood , last week there was a fire nearby.
For there not to be serious legal ramifications for this company is beyond me. So now , I am also a threat and can not find out quickly if my neighborhood is on fire or my dog got out.
Some days this just all feels hopeless.
NextDoor is nothing but a gossip site. It is used to talk about others who do not clic with the current bully group. A new group starts up well enough but degrades into hood control freaks.
Really not missing much but no neighbor hood group should be able to ostracize any one within that groups boundaries.
1984, I have been active member on Nextdoor for several years. NextDoor is very popular in my neighborhood and it has allowed me to meet many of my neighbors (in real life) and to participate more fully in my community (again, in real life). I have had neighbors lend me tools, help me move furniture (with his pickup truck and his physical assistance, at no charge), and I’ve even been invited to join a very active local neighborhood association because my neighborhood does not have one.
That said, I find it extremely disheartening that more registrants and their family members are not able to make use of this app as I have found it very helpful to successfully integrate in my community.
(However, 1984, you are not alone in your negative opinion of NextDoor. I know folks who have quit NextDoor because they feel it is nothing more than a forum for nasty griping, comprised primarily of busybodies, nosy neighbors, and gentrifying hipsters.)
Well, isn’t this timely?
“SHOULD FACEBOOK AND TWITTER BE REGULATED UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT?”
https://www.wired.com/story/should-facebook-and-twitter-be-regulated-under-the-first-amendment/
This company is partially responsible for my business going under. My wife tried to join and they said that an RC was living at my address and they would not let her join. Since that time, my business has suffer a loss of customers each month. I now have no way of supporting my family. The biggest problem is that I can’t even get in to find the info about me, so that I can sue for damages. Nextdoor isn’t the only reason why I lost my company, but they did assist in a big way.
So, I just got an e-mail from NextDoor that a PFR moved into our area. It shows a photo of that PFR and all the other descriptions of that person, to include the offense. It is one thing that NextDoor bans registrants from using their site but it can’t be legal that they inform everyone in the neighborhood about a PFR moving in. This is worse than Megan’s Law. At least Megan’s Law does not send out blast e-mails, you basically have to look for yourself if you are interested. Can NextDoor be sued for this?