How Bailey Backers Weaponize Nextdoor

By Kate Callen

An outspoken supporter of San Diego City Council District 2 candidate Richard Bailey has used her position as a Nextdoor moderator to sanction a Bailey political rival on the social media platform, according to documentation obtained by the Rag.

Margaret Virissimo, a founder of the pro-Bailey group San Diego United Communities, engaged in a tense Nextdoor interaction on March 20 with D2 primary candidate Mandy Havlik. What began as an argument escalated into an official Nextdoor reprimand.

In a screenshot of the exchange sent to the Rag, Virissimo said, “Mandy, you are proving to be exactly who you are, a disrespectful hot head.” Havlik responded, “You’re upset because you are being challenged with the truth.”

Virissimo then filed a formal complaint against Havlik for violating Nextdoor rules. And in her authority as a volunteer moderator on the platform, she voted with Matt Capron, another pro-Bailey moderator, to issue a warning to Havlik about using unsuitable language.

(Disclosure: The Rag endorsed Havlik in the D2 primary. It has endorsed Nicole Crosby in the D2 general election.)

The Rag received the screenshot from a Nextdoor moderator who objects to the use of the platform as a tool for political retribution. The person has requested anonymity to avoid reprisals.

The source said that the abuse of moderator authority for partisan purposes happens too often on Nextdoor. “It is labor-intensive to moderate discussion forums. If volunteers are willing to moderate, it is to Nextdoor’s advantage to let them keep doing so unless their moderation is egregiously biased.”

Havlik confirmed the account. “I was cautioned by another Nextdoor moderator that my posts were being targeted,” she said.

“The next day, Nextdoor warned me about offensive content. Subsequently, the audiences for my posts, which had been consistently good, dropped off abruptly.”

We emailed Nextdoor corporate offices to ask how all-volunteer moderators are vetted and how the platform prevents them from conducting personal vendettas. A representative mailed back a link to a searchable database of press releases. We emailed Virissimo to request an interview but received no reply.

To be clear, this isn’t a simple case of people harassing other people. That would not be news. That would be what journalists call a “dog bites man” story.

This is a story about a corporation worth nearly $1 billion that empowers partisan activists to persecute others who disagree from them. Here in San Diego, the result was the rebuke of a candidate for elected office. We call that a “man bites dog” story.

Nextdoor is aware of numerous complaints about arbitrary censorship by unpaid moderators because that issue has received widespread media coverage. Two examples:

In May 2023, The Atlantic published a story titled “Local Politics Was Already Messy. Then Came Nextdoor” about a Mercer Island (WA) City Council candidate who “became the unlikely target of what appears to have been a misinformation campaign meant to influence the election.” Author Eli Sanders wrote on his Substack account “about nationwide concerns that politically driven moderators are gaming the system on Nextdoor.”

On March 27 this year, the Connecticut Examiner ran a story, “Nextdoor’s Closed Door Policy,” that said the platform’s “moderation structure, which relies on untrained local volunteers, has produced patterns of inconsistent and sometimes prejudicial enforcement that deserve public scrutiny.”

“The platform explicitly bans users from publicly questioning or criticizing moderation decisions, requiring all concerns to be raised privately. … Rules like this create a closed informational loop in which moderators are shielded from community oversight.”

Biased moderators aren’t the only way Nextdoor stacks the political deck. A Nextdoor member who has requested anonymity has told us that Bailey supporters will flood the platform with complaints about an individual who angers them. The practice is called “brigading,” and it’s a growing tactic for online harassment.

“They work in coordination to file multiple reports, and even if the comment is written in a neighborly tone and obeys the terms of service, the comment is automatically taken down,” said the source. “But pro-Bailey comments that clearly violate the terms of service rarely get taken down.”

The irony here is that Nextdoor has built its brand on the concept of community solidarity. Its “About Nextdoor” webpage says, “We know that when neighbors start talking, communities get stronger.” How does stoking discord make communities stronger?

“Nextdoor needs to take responsibility for what happens on its platform,” said Havlik, “to make sure moderators aren’t abusing their authority, because ultimately, the local community pays the price.”

We end with a question for Bailey’s backers: When you unleash venomous assaults on people for exercising their First Amendment rights to speak freely, do you help or hurt his candidacy?

“Even if I were inclined to support Mr. Bailey,” a source told us, “the vicious behavior of his supporters would convince me otherwise.”