In the Dayton area, several popular Facebook groups have emerged as the places to talk about everything from school events to food truck rallies, promote small businesses, find lost dogs, alert residents of traffic events and warn about scams.
Tyler Fox has been an administrator for the Yellow Springs Open Discussion Facebook group for nearly two years.
“Personally, I do believe the pros outweigh the cons,” Fox said. “It is such an important tool for communicating. The world is so technologically forward now and this is just an example of a way to reach more people quicker and easier.”
Virtually every city and municipality in the region has at least one group dedicated to their goings-on. Dayton alone has several communities grouped by interest: the Dayton Music Scene, Dayton Foodies: Uncensored, Dayton Ohio Small Business Central and others. The group “Things to do in and around the Dayton area” is more than 34,000 members strong.
Last February, Pew Research found that Facebook was the second-most popular social media platform, behind only YouTube, which is used by 83% of adults. Discounting YouTube, “no other social media platform comes close” to Facebook, researchers wrote, at 68% of users responding they used Facebook regularly.
Roughly half of adults, at 47%, report using Instagram (also owned by Meta), according to Pew, while about a third of adults use Pinterest and TikTok. About 30% of adults use LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit are used by 22% of adults.
This broad reach can be a force for good. Fox said the group became an important tool for safety when Yellow Springs had an active shooter.
During the incident in March 2024, a 20-year-old man shot an elderly Yellow Springs woman in her home on a Thursday and was arrested the next Sunday after threatening a second Yellow Springs resident with a firearm. The man, Jackson Bleything, was handed a life sentence in Greene County courts in November.
“I was keeping people informed, some of (whom) got their info strictly from the post,” Fox said.
While the group has had a few challenges with the Facebook’s algorithm that chooses which posts people see — such as not allowing posts that “clearly didn’t violate any of our rules,” Fox said — the biggest challenges are absolutely some of the users.
“The biggest downside is the arguments and numerous instances of trolling. I’ve seen it all,” Fox said. “From racism to sexism. It’s ‘open discussion’ but there are things that we cannot tolerate.”
In another example, the group Everything Kettering recently drove the fundraising of $5,280 for the Korean Methodist Church at 2675 Galewood St. after staff members arrived to see smashed windows and broken doors.
Everything Kettering shut down on Jan. 1, with administrators writing in a post that the publishing of users' personal information, personal attacks, “general nastiness” and a lawsuit contributed to the decision.
Being an administrator is also just a lot of work, Fox said, especially with balancing a full-time job.
“Some things slip through the cracks, but we have a team that works really well together,” he said. “We are just people too. We have full-time jobs and don’t get paid to do this. We do it because we care. So go easy on us when things get missed.”
Middletown Talk, Middletown Ohio Talk and Original Middletown Talk are just a few groups in Butler County where posters shared observations and opinions from everything from “what’s that noise?” and “shots fired” to business openings and closings and thoughts on native son JD Vance’s election as the next vice president of the United States.
Other popular Facebook groups in surrounding communities include Trenton Talk, The Real West Chester and Liberty Township Neighbors Group, Oxford Talk, Fairfield City, Ohio Residents and Ross Talk.
Springfield, Facebook, and the pet-eating hoax
Springfield social media groups were especially tense this fall when the debate over Haitian immigration (a years-long local discussion) went national.
A post originally from a Springfield Facebook group went viral in September, claiming that a neighbor’s daughter’s friend had lost her cat and found it hanging from a branch at a Haitian neighbor’s home being carved up to be eaten.
The claim became an inflection point in the 2024 presidential election, as Donald Trump and running mate Vance amplified claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating residents’ pet cats and dogs in interviews, on social media and during a presidential debate. Local police, as well as city and county officials, have repeatedly said those claims are baseless.
In a case that some were confusing with Springfield, an American-born woman in Canton, Ohio was charged and convicted of cruelty to companion animals for killing and eating a cat in a neighborhood in front of multiple people. That woman, Allexis Ferrell, 27, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Dec. 3.
Springfield also has busy niche groups, like Clark County Food Fiends, Springfield Ohio History and Clark County Crime Monitors.
The multiple local crime-oriented groups were robust this year, posting police and fire details as they happened, often with information obtained via emergency scanner. This fall, the city of Springfield encrypted its police, fire and EMS dispatch channels in part to ensure “that our first responders can perform their duties without the added risk of public interference.”
The broad Springfield OH Community Facebook group — 17,000 members discussing jobs, housing, pet peeves and all facets of daily life — was paused by an administrator for 21 days in December, just restarting Wednesday.
