Nextdoor.com making changes to reduce racial profiling

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- After complaints about racial profiling on Nextdoor.com, the social networking site based in San Francisco says it's making changes. Nextdoor doesn't want to be associated with racial profiling at all. That's why they've spent months working on changes.

ABC7 News reported on this issue in January when Oakland advocacy groups discovered people posting suspicious behavior with vague descriptions like "African American males" "baggie pants and hooded sweatshirts."

RELATED: Oakland officials to meet with Nextdoor to reduce racial profiling

The San Francisco Chronicle reports Nextdoor's CEO met with Oakland leaders Tuesday night to announce the improvements. Now you can flag a post for racial profiling, and there's a mandatory format for crime and safety forums. You have to choose whether you're reporting a crime, suspicious activity or something else. And when you describe the people involved you cannot list just gender and ethnicity, instead you have to say exactly what they were wearing head to toe. If you violate these new rules, your post can be removed and you can be suspended from the site.

Nextdoor says the features will be released to all 98,000 neighborhood forums once the process is refined.