Some people on here are ridiculously gullible

Hmm I initially voted YABU, not because you're necessarily wrong but because I don't really see how it matters. Either way I'll never actually meet the DH with the sex beaker or the interfering MIL so does it actually matter if they're real or not? Nobody is forcing anyone else to respond.

But then thinking about it there are some people who do get sucked in, and, in extreme cases, send money etc. Also while 5-10 years ago talking about Russian influence and bots information farming etc would have got you funny looks, unfortunately it's no longer tin-hattery. One made up thread with a thinly-veiled implication regarding immigration or benefits or whatever is one thing, multiple repeated over months to an audience of 8 million, can influence people, subliminally or otherwise, particularly when a fair number of MN users are perhaps a bit more socially excluded/nervous then the general population.

The fact that so many people can't tell when posts are so obviously AI-assisted or completely generated is worrying as well.

I take everything on here with a pinch of salt and assume the majority is absolute horse shit.

Yes, I had one of those. In fairness, I was posting on behalf of a friend, it wasn't my scenario but she had asked me to! It was deleted.

I was asking for advice about an encounter of sexual abuse. I had been on here for donkey's years at the time too.

Tbf I don't need anyone to point out that a story could be fake - that's baked-in in my head with everything I read, and allowing it simply means all threads potentially get derailed with whether or not it's possible to have happened. So I agree with banning troll-hunting on threads.

OP, I think you’re gullible for thinking that people necessarily believe the threads are true. MN is no more than interactive entertainment for many.

They’re no more wasting time on MN than you are.

Most replies are as far fetched as the post.
A lot of the advice is unhinged and not something people would actually do in real life.
Much of it is mumsnet only advice that you never hear or see in the real world.

There are posts just in the last week so outlandishly fake yet you report and you get an email saying that admin thinks it fine. But God forbid you say the tr@!! Word and instant ban.

I agree there are a lot on here that feel rage-baity - the simpler, shorter ones often.

But about a decade ago on here I saw a long and detailed thread

Yes this too.
People do not apply critical thinking less so even out of the box or more than basic thinking even!

If something trivial has really got to someone, it might not be a case that they're living a privileged spoiled life. Perhaps their life is actually very challenging to the point where feeling a bit fat/their friend bringing the wrong paperwork/ a missed appointment or such weights heavier?

Apologies. Psychiatry for three decades. Consultant aged 30. So 25 years. Hope that clears things up.

That really wasn’t what I meant at all @CardboardScott . Having read a previous post of yours, I don’t think my idea is that different from yours.
I’m not talking about people ‘suspecting a post may be untrue.’
I was talking about the effect of not taking anything seriously. That’s what I meant by downgrading.
I’m really struggling to see a problem with this thought. It’s so straightforward really.

Thank you, but I will leave my head unwobbled. 🙂

I disagree with the premise that suspecting that a post may be untrue means that people will deliberately give advice they wouldn’t otherwise.

People love to give advice and to state their opinion, especially on an anonymous site where one doesn’t have to water it down for courtesy’s sake.

If I have the time and inclination to state my position it’s far easier to say what actually I think than make something “farcical” up.

Agree.

Posters are generally very helpful and if given a vague location will spend time researching foodbanks in Greater Manchester, emergency social services numbers in South Wales, churches which might offer support in the Lothians and so on. But there is always a reason why the supposedly desperate person cannot contact them or cannot get there. As more and more suggestions are made, and more barriers are put up, it becomes increasingly obvious that they want cash.

Tend to agree that both the posts and the responses, are mainly performative.

It's a chance to respond by typing in nice-sounding guff, that maybe builds karma on your profile. Certainly that is the way it works on Reddit and a number of other forums, don't know about here.

I imagine concrete actions taken in response to these posts amount to zero.

Even if the post is genuine, the chances of it being possible to actually do anything must be close to zero.

When I tried suggesting something sensible to do by way of acting on the problem (which often involved directing them to a food bank, emergency department etc) the few times I got a response, the person either tried to rationalise not acting themselves, which was rather suspicious, or it was transparently kind of scam. Only once, did someone thank me for sending her to the right place to fix the problem.

A few years ago I was calling BS on a thread and a poster said she’d rather answer like it’s true and risk it being not, than answer like it’s fake.

The poster must have something deeply troubling going on in their heads/life for them to create a fake thread.

As long as people don’t send money or give personal details etc then it’s fine.

FWIW I have literally been down to my last 5p and was not able to get any baby formula etc.
I didn’t post as this was years ago but it definitely does happen.
If you’ve never experienced true poverty then you can’t judge someone who has.
Although no one should be sending money/food etc.

I wasn't referring to the begging posters, as you know and when I said a third, I was not giving a statistic but saying that at times, it seemed like that.

I was referring to the amount of posters who come on, tell us they have no friends, family, husband, neighbours or budgie and who live very rurally, without the benefit of car, train, bus, pavement or penny farthing.

A good number of posters say this in some form or other. Get your eye in and you will notice it too.

Thanks to you and others for defending and explaining my comment!

Ofc I am not as literate here as in real life.

Being 55, and having worked many years in the NHS with the public, I have the skin of a rhino, fortunately. But I do genuinely appreciate it when people challenge unnecessarily snide comments online!

No. I wont.

There is nothing wrong with how she has expressed it.

Please go and have an argument with someone else!

Yes you were - you were patronising. The way she wrote it was fine- only you didnt get it.

She's not at work on MN so no idea why on earth you'd expect her to come out with a load of psychobabble 🙄

As a counsellor who's also worked as a police dispatcher, I hear you on this.

People forget or don't realise what others' lives can be like and what kind of weird and wonderful complexity encompasses the human nature and psyche.

I agree with a PP about the 'beggy' threads.

I've hardly seen any and I've been on mn over a decade. They're not THAT frequent. And the types to beg are also the types perhaps to beg on a forum. You don't need so many of them to stand out. They could be 1% of the population and that's still quite a large number of people in the great scheme of things.