Amazon's Ring, known for its camera-enabled doorbells, is launching Neighbours, a community app in the UK next month. The app, available inside the Ring app and free to everyone, including those without Ring products, seeks to replace traditional neighbourhood Facebook or WhatsApp groups. It will include a community requests feature where police can ask residents for footage from nearby reported crimes, with residents choosing whether to share it.
Anonymised posting and strict guidelines
The selling point, according to Ring, is that posting will be anonymised, and posters must conform to strict guidelines on what they are allowed to post. This would make it very unlike the unregulated nature of neighbourhood WhatsApp groups.
Dave Ward, Ring's managing director of international, told the Guardian: "We are going to coach people to make sure they're creating the right sort of post, asking them if that's really something they want to write or whether it really needs that descriptive term, to help stop the type of content no one wants to see and make it more community focused. That's very different to other places [such as WhatsApp groups]."
The charm and chaos of local groups
Neighbourhood WhatsApp groups often showcase both the worst and best of community life. Reports include ugly dislike of homeless people, fear of door-to-door salespeople, racial profiling of local youths, and the view that everyone not personally known is a criminal in waiting. Strange incidents include a north London group of more than 500 people disbanding over a Hewlett-Packard printer giveaway tied to BDS, a woman forced to recuse herself after seeing a toad squashed by a car and being inundated with volunteers for a toad protection squad, and a man with a vendetta against a couple feeding foxes using witty remarks in local chats.
Yet, there are wonderful stories too: organising a funeral procession for an older woman who died on the street with no immediate family, borrowing laptop chargers and camping equipment, and taking in people who had locked themselves out.
A personal reflection on community
The author reflects on living in south London for four years without a WhatsApp group. After a neighbourhood cat was mauled to death by an XL bully, signs invited locals to a memorial. Dozens showed up with flowers, wine, and stories, leading the author to invite new neighbours over for drinks, forming friendships and feeling part of the local area for the first time.
The author concludes that while Ring wants to streamline, moderate, vet, and polish, the rough edges of these groups are the spice of life. The price for moments of kindness and connection in neighbourhood groups is the nonsense.
