Front Porch Forum is Vermont’s most popular social network. Could its neighbor-focused model succeed elsewhere?
By Globe StaffDecember 5, 2024
Front Porch Forum was so compelling to a group of Williamstown residents that they convinced the organization to make the border town the first Massachusetts community on the platform four years ago.
Millions of people are flocking to newer social networks such as Bluesky and Threads in the hope that they offer a better experience than the internet’s previous town square, X, which has become rampant with misinformation and bot accounts.
But in Vermont, there’s a social network that more or less fulfills that dream — functioning more like a real-world town square — and could be one piece of the framework for a healthier web. Front Porch Forum has quietly grown in recent years to become Vermont’s most popular social network, not through some technological breakthrough, but thanks to strict terms of use that say only community members, using their real names, may post.
While users can ask to borrow household items, seek advice on local contractors, or line up help finding lost pets, one thing they won’t get is the hateful content they might encounter on other social platforms. Front Porch Forum has bypassed the traditional, algorithmic and engagement-driven models of mainstream social networks to create a simple website where users can interact with their neighbors virtually and then, if the site is successful in its homely mission, in person.
Front Porch Forum’s rare formula for civility stands out in an era of media fragmentation and underscores why its model can’t be found everywhere: It can be incredibly difficult and labor-intensive to referee an online space for civic dialogue at a mass scale.
Founded in 2006, Front Porch Forum began as a way for Michael and Valerie Wood-Lewis to connect with their hometown of Burlington. Since then, the site has expanded to every community in Vermont, plus a few out-of-state communities in New York and one in Massachusetts. It boasts roughly 240,000 active members in a state home to 270,000 households, and The Washington Post recently called it the “friendliest social network you’ve never heard of."
“It’s through these everyday, simple, neighborly interactions in a civil, neighborly space that people — over time — grow closer to their neighbors,” said CEO Michael Wood-Lewis.
Wood-Lewis gave the Globe access to a few of the site’s local forums, which featured a range of posts. Requests ranged from common asks, such as posts seeking plumbers or electricians, to the more niche requests — “Got a Gong?” one member asked recently. And announcements from residents publicized everything from budget meetings to a steel pan concert.
But the forums host more serious topics, too. Residents in Bennington, Vt., for example, discussed Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations throughout the country and how the state’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, would respond to the president-elect’s immigration policies. Property taxes — a hot political topic in the state — have also spurred discussions in towns such as Burlington.
Civility is enforced by the platform’s moderators, roughly half of Front Porch Forum’s staff of 30 employees. They’re all Vermonters, Wood-Lewis said, but a few moved out-of-state during the pandemic and work remotely.
Its moderation policy, where every post is reviewed before publication, is unlike other platforms that serve local communities. While other networks can drive engagement through provocative posts and finger-pointing, personal attacks, and hateful content are all off-limits in Front Porch Forum. So is misinformation — if something appears to violate the terms of use, moderators will reach out and ask a user to back up their claims with sources.
Moderators similarly reach out to users they and other community members suspect are using false names or addresses and will shut down the accounts of repeat bad actors.
The structure of the platform likely helps protect people from getting carried away and too confrontational. After all, they’re interacting with their real-world neighbors, who can’t hide behind digital avatars.
“People tend to behave better when it’s in front of people they live around versus distant, anonymous strangers,” Wood-Lewis said.
Front Porch Forum was so compelling to a group of Williamstown residents that they convinced the organization to make the border town the first Massachusetts community on the platform four years ago.
Bette Craig looked at the Front Porch Forum site on her desktop in Williamstown, which became the first Massachusetts community on the platform four years ago.
“It’s the friendly part of it that I found appealing,” said Williamstown resident Bette Craig, 83, the former president of the South Williamstown Community Association. “I get it about every day. I always read it.”
Ethan Zuckerman, a University of Massachusetts Amherst associate professor who studies internet and social networks, said that while the model may not work everywhere, Front Porch Forum shows that Silicon Valley hasn’t entirely cornered the market on digital connection.
“It is proof that you can build other forms of social interaction — and it’s a good reminder that we probably need that,” Zuckerman said.
Zuckerman, a resident of nearby Lanesborough, Mass., who is in the Williamstown forum, said he’s used the site to give away extra items such as nonalcoholic beer, but he also connected with a group that was trying to support recent immigrants to the Berkshires.
“I ended up working very closely with that group in Williamstown, and actually, ended up becoming the financial sponsor for a family from Haiti,” Zuckerman said, who added they spent Thanksgiving together.
The fact that Front Porch Forum is hyperlocal aids that type of interaction. And it shows that a social network doesn’t have to be a catch-all.
A view of the Front Porch Forum, which has quietly grown in recent years to become Vermont’s most popular social network.
Front Porch Forum does make money off ads, but it doesn’t sell user data, Wood-Lewis said. It’s a Vermont public benefit corporation — a type of for-profit company that must contribute a positive impact to the public or the environment — and is not backed by venture capital. Wood-Lewis declined to be more specific about financials than that.
"Silicon Valley is a terrible business innovator in social media settings — all the business models are the same,” said Rahul Bhargava, an assistant professor at Northeastern’s College of Arts, Media and Design. “Show tons of ads, sell lots of data, and make a ton of money.
“That is only one business model out of many,” he added.
Even if Wood-Lewis was presented with venture funding to significantly scale up the site, he said he would probably reject it.
“I would respectfully decline, because I think what you’d get is Nextdoor,” Wood-Lewis said, referring to the social network that is similar to Front Porch Forum but is much larger and has a more lax approach to content moderation and has grappled in the past with allegations of racial profiling. (A Nextdoor spokesperson said it has nearly 200,000 volunteer community moderators and its staff handles harmful content, including misinformation and discrimination.)
“Our service, in a small way, is saying, borrow a lawn mower from a guy next door and talk to him for five minutes in the process. And then, do that kind of thing or make that part of your daily life like it used to be a few generations ago,” Wood-Lewis added.
Its small footprint was a feature, not a bug, for Matthew Baya, 55, who led the initiative to bring Front Porch Forum to Williamstown four years ago.
Matthew Baya posed in front of The Store at Five Corners in Williamstown. Baya led the initiative to bring Front Porch Forum to Williamstown four years ago.
“It wasn’t some big thing from Silicon Valley that was trying to be in every town and every place,” Baya said.
Zuckerman said he and a group of scholars at UMass Amherst are studying whether the world needs a lot of new, smaller platforms as opposed to one big alternative.
“I behave differently in the library than I do with the bowling alley,” Zuckerman said. “Why should there be one space with one set of rules for social media?”
He argued that Front Porch Forum is very good at getting users to interact with neighbors, but it’s not necessarily a strong platform for contentious political topics because its strict moderation policies may not create the best environment for free-flowing conversation.
Wood-Lewis said the organization has heard complaints that it is a “political actor” when it has closed users’ accounts for violating its policies. That criticism comes at a time when some users, often conservatives, have criticized some social networks for censorship and limiting free speech. Just this week, Meta announced that it has mistakenly removed too much content — including topics such as the COVID-19 pandemic — from Facebook and its other apps.
But Wood-Lewis tells critics that their restrictions aren’t about a users’ politics, but instead about their behavior.
Beyond the demands and cost of its moderation policies, there’s also no guarantee that Front Porch Forum would be a good fit in other parts of the country. Newer, smaller networks, however, could fill the gaps.
Downtown Williamstown is near Williams College.
But what Front Porch Forum enthusiasts believe it can do is help strengthen local communities at a time when many feel that social connection is low. Studies show how people feel more lonely now than in previous years.
One way to counter feelings of doom and gloom can often be to work with neighbors to advocate for issues on a local level. Platforms such as Front Porch Forum, which focus on local communities, can help people do just that, said Northeastern’s Bhargava.
“A lot of people are feeling the loss of the ability to make change,” Bhargava said. “Focusing on local settings is a great way to reinvigorate your ability to feel like you can make change.”
Aidan Ryan can be reached at aidan.ryan@globe.com. Follow him @aidanfitzryan.