Experts say apps like Nextdoor and Ring's Neighbors give people a false sense that the US crime rate is worsening even as violent crime reaches record lows
Why people are socializing more about crime even as it becomes rarer. — Violent crime in the US is at its lowest rate in decades. Tweets: @nancyleong , @frankpasquale , @ranimolla , @dangillmor , @martinoxon , @voxdotcom , and @melissakxly4 Tweets: Nancy Leong / @nancyleong : Great article about “fear-based social media” and how it enables a cycle of racial profiling by increasing contact between police and people of color. https://www.vox.com/... Frank Pasquale / @frankpasquale : Amazon & other tech firms “are only trying to sell more door cameras and wireless security devices and encourage more app downloads, so breeding fear is in their best interest” https://www.vox.com/... Rani Molla / @ranimolla : Crime is going down but we're worrying about it more. How fear-based social media like Nextdoor, Citizen, and now Amazon's Neighbors are making us afraid. https://www.vox.com/... Dan Gillmor / @dangillmor : A reminder that local TV “news” (and newspapers in some cases) spent several decades making communities more afraid at a time when the crime rate was plummeting. They did it solely to make money, fueling terrible laws that eviscerated civil liberties, and helped demagogues. https://twitter.com/... @martinoxon : It is a little reported historical fact that quality of life is generally up, the world over, for many many people. I know. I know. It's still in the toilet for far too many. BUT both things are true. And media makes us v. anxious about things because clicks and it sells stuff. https://twitter.com/... @voxdotcom : Local crime apps like Nextdoor and Citizen are hugely popular even as violent crime reaches record lows — and race-based fears are a big reason why. https://www.vox.com/... Melissa Luck / @melissakxly4 : Also - if you follow a Facebook page that literally posts nothing but unverified scanner traffic, you're going to think your community is a dangerous place. Good local journalism will put that in context for you. Get your info there instead. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This piece lands mid-arc in a running investigation of neighborhood crime apps. Earlier reporting found that Amazon's Ring runs the Neighbors network, where petty crimes are heavily policed and racism is common, and that cities like Oakland and Seattle have moved to restrict police surveillance tech while Ring video doorbells remain unhindered despite serving similar purposes.
The new angle is the gap between perception and data: violent crime is at record lows, yet apps like Nextdoor, Neighbors, and Citizen keep users convinced it is worsening — with critics pointing to fear-based engagement loops and to tech firms selling more cameras and security devices into that fear. Nextdoor has since deepened its official ties by launching an app letting police departments and city halls push geotargeted alerts, making the platform a formal channel between law enforcement and residents.
First-order effects
- Amazon gains a self-reinforcing sales funnel: alarmed users buy Ring cameras, share clips on Neighbors, and alarm their neighbors, who then buy cameras too.
- People of color face increased police contact as users report suspicious-seeming strangers, which critics say turns these apps into an engine for racial profiling.
Second-order effects
- Cities writing surveillance rules for police-owned tech leave privately owned camera networks like Ring outside those laws, creating a regulatory loophole that pushes monitoring into unregulated hands.
- Nextdoor's pivot toward official public-agency alerts positions it to compete for the same municipal relationships Citizen courts, while inheriting the misinformation and polarization problems documented on Facebook-scale platforms.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, private camera-and-app networks become de facto neighborhood policing infrastructure — shaped by Amazon's commercial incentives rather than by public oversight or actual crime statistics.
- A public whose sense of crime is set by engagement-optimized feeds rather than data becomes easier to move toward punitive policy, echoing how local TV historically sensationalized crime for audiences.
The trend: Neighborhood safety is migrating from police statistics and local news to commercially run social networks whose business models profit from perceived danger, decoupling public fear from falling crime.