The doorbell net NextDoor recognizes that it has become a gossip and bitching party line. It’s trying to add more of the services that people need, services that USED to be provided by local radio and TV and newspapers.
I signed up for NextDoor in 2018, but quickly realized it was mostly groundless suspicions, not real crimes and troubles.
= = = = = START QUOTE:
Getting reliable, trustworthy information to the public in emergency situations is difficult: social media prioritizes engagement over safety, and government alert systems are sometimes spotty. During the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year, a small, nonprofit-powered app called Watch Duty became a life-saving resource for residents. Tolia says that user engagement was “through the roof” during the LA fires, and the hope is that Nextdoor can use its precise data to send better emergency alerts. If a power company reports that a few hundred households are affected by an outage, Nextdoor (which has precise home address data from when users signed up) could send an alert to just those people, Tolia says.
= = = = = END QUOTE.
This is why I value the SpokaneNews facebook page. The moderators do a good job of posting the more meaningful alerts from those sources. As he mentions, the FB algorithm lowers the utility. Facebook no longer lists messages in TIME ORDER. It always puts the most “engaging” items first, and even when you choose the Newest First pulldown you only get ONE new item followed by the rest in random order. You can’t track an arsonist or a storm in random order!
Polistra's Mill 