(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Nextdoor problem with local elections [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-06-23 Last night I discovered I was put on a time out by Nextdoor moderators in my local group after posting rebuttals to a calculated tide of misinformation about the recent Virginia local election primaries. Here in Virginia we have off, really off year local elections where county government, the entire state legislature, sheriffs and the Commonwealth Attorneys are all up for reelection. Last Tuesday was Primary Day and one red hot issue was the three incumbent Commonwealth Attorneys for Arlington, Fairfax and Loudon counties — all of whom ran on a platform of “restorative justice” back in 2019. Primaries in Virginia are open meaning no party registration in the state, if both parties have a primary you choose your ballot but if only one party has a primary anyone can vote. Instead of the usual case of Democrat vs. GOP the GOP decided to take the unusual tactic of urging their members to vote for the stealth GOP candidates running as Democrats on pro-police crime and justice platforms. While the whole “we’re in a crime h-hole” genre has been a staple of Fox News and local Sinclair Broadcasting stations, it seems to have kicked into high gear ever since Biden won office. Nextdoor has been infamous as a hot bed for “concerned citizens” despite their public facing shows to tamp down racist trolling and “Karens”. Frustrated neighbors in my county are totally freaked out that only one Republican remains on the county board and that the Commonwealth Attorney is a liberal into restorative justice and they have been programmed by the firehose of disinfo accusing him of driving out employees, bungling rape cases and in general letting crime skyrocket as if this was an undeniably true fact. My neighbors have been religiously posting news of any and all crimes in the county, all copaganda blaming the crime spike on liberal politicians and of course plenty of links to conservative media pieces supporting their viewpoints especially hit pieces from WJLA the Sinclair Broadcasting owned local ABC station. Very few of us have attempted to fact check the fire hose of info, I suspect a lot of lefties left Nextdoor as it’s not very good unless you want your neighbor’s junk or you have a lost pet. On Nextdoor “politics” is considered off topic unless it is local. Clear as mud right? So the algorithms and human volunteer mods are only as good as their political leaning. In my local group that means only the worst of the worst conservative posts get taken down, ones that use profanity for instance but attempts to fact check the conservative posts say by using examples that might be outside the local area are getting removed as are posts that have phrasing like “you are wrong” as were posts that dove into the historical past to show the Jim Crow roots of certain GOP stances or posts that drew direct lines from the political stances to Proud Boys and the like. I wondered was this happening elsewhere? Then I spotted this article from The Atlantic Monthly. Local Politics Was Already Messy. Then Came Nextdoor. Community moderators say the social network is being exploited for political gain. Kate Akyuz is a Girl Scout troop leader who drives a pale-blue Toyota Sienna minivan around her island community—a place full of Teslas and BMWs, surrounded by a large freshwater lake that marks Seattle’s eastern edge. She works for the county government on flood safety and salmon-habitat restoration. But two years ago, she made her first foray into local politics, declaring her candidacy for Mercer Island City Council Position No. 6. Soon after, Akyuz became the unlikely target of what appears to have been a misinformation campaign meant to influence the election. If you don’t have the time or patience to click through and and get past the free article limit, the author has found evidence of sockpuppets on Nextdoor including sockpuppet moderators that in the case of the article were policing the Mercer Island, WA Nextdoor group to favor conservative candidates in the local election. We were fortunate for now in Virginia — the primary results were a decided defeat for the local GOP’s efforts to tilt the Democratic primaries to their stealth candidates, in fact some long time incumbents lost for being the classic stale centrist hippy punching type of Democrat. All three Commonwealth Attorneys won their primaries by big numbers. I’m hopeful that the Democrats can hold onto control of the state Senate and regain control of the House. But we must not be asleep at the switch. The GOP will by any means necessary attempt to obtain election outcomes to their liking. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/23/2177261/-The-Nextdoor-problem-with-local-elections Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/