Vice Article Hit Piece

[Chuy Gonzalez]

A vice article came out today (shared on Facebook). You don't even have to read the article to know that landlords are evil, and we abuse our poor tenants. 

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwnnv4/the-wildly-popular-forum-where-landlords-plot-to-screw-you-over?fbclid=IwAR2juoVOfPT7se28H1mrOQ4z6-UXwohSAWud676uQAcfpS7guTuAPgZApGU

[Scott Trench]

Hey guys - I'm aware of the article. 

The article's thesis is about the imbalance of power between landlords and tenants. This is an interesting concept and I think there's an interesting discussion in the second half of the article.

Just a bit of a shame about the title and first half of the article... I wonder why they don't seem to match the thesis? They seem instead to try to bash BiggerPockets and landlords in general. A shame for an otherwise interesting article.

Folks, this is the internet. Some of the posts called out in the article and on twitter in recent weeks ARE embarrassing, do not reflect the values of BiggerPockets, and are ideal fodder to stir up clickbait headlines for a certain type of media outlet, even if some of those posts were made in jest. Public comments like some of these risk being called out. We should all know better.

That said, forum posts are user-generated content and ascribing the views of a forum post to the community at large or to BiggerPockets as a company would be equivalent to digging through facebook for certain types of posts and saying that this user-generated content represents the views of facebook. The article is carefully constructed NOT to directly extend the views of the posters to BiggerPockets. However, unfortunately, due to the article's construction, I worry that many people will be left with the wrong impression about us.

The vast majority of our platform is positive, as is the vast majority of media coverage for BiggerPockets, and rightfully so. It takes real work, skipping over hundreds or thousands of quality forum posts and discussions from intelligent and ethical people to cherrypick the tiny fraction of posts that can potentially support portrayal of the community in a negative light. 

But, this is 2019. A certain segment of the population is looking for an excuse to portray real estate investors in a certain light. If this is a surprise to you, you haven't been paying attention and it's time to start watching your words. 

Watch what you post, let's keep the forums clean, productive, positive, and informative, and let's keep helping millions of people achieve financial freedom in part through real estate. Or, in other words, let's keep doing what we're doing, which is why we are so "wildly popular" in the first place!