MNHQ: Update on Image Uploads

Oh well that's alright then 🙄 DO BETTER

Yeah...apart from the fact that it's so sick and disturbing, I am also worried about any potential legal issues with such images ever having been inadvertently seen on my phone, as that could be seriously problematic from a career perspective too.

it's outrageous that this was able to happen in the first place, but twice in what, less than a week?! And MNHQ can absolutely fuck off with their minimalising responses and "oh we are doing our best tee hee, naughty trolls". MN is a massive organisation, not 2 mums at their kitchen table. Do better ffs. Far better.

I honestly can't believe that MNHQ didn't already have things in place to prevent this. It's such an obvious work around.

Exactly.

It totally failed because it should have "known" that a link will generate an image. I would have tried that when I was 14 and breaking copyright on 5 1/4 floppies in 1980

@GutsyGertrude they could, but clearly they won't. So they need to take other steps.

Could we have a step by step what to do if we see them?

I would be very worried for the children, my own accidental committing of a crime, how to get them removed asap - do we report to police? An online place?

Can MNHQ confirm whether the filter has caught CSA images? It seems that whoever is attacking the site is very determined. It may be that the filter works (which would be good news) which is why they changed methods.

I know. I've thought the same thing.

💯 agree

But, she's not wrong that HQ has the option to employ mods to work overnight instead of relying on volunteers

So what???? People are posting CSAM. That's more important than a picture of a dress.

I don't even post a huge amount, am much more of a lurker, but at this rate I'm gonna have to delete my account I reckon, as I don't want to accidentally stumble across something awful within an otherwise innocuous thread that I might be reading. It's just unacceptable.

I agree, they absolutely shouldn't be relying on volunteer mods on here at all. I've been quite vocal about that elsewhere on the site. Mumsnet makes a lot of money out of our posts and traffic to the site. Moderation at the best of times is quite poor on here. Inflammatory and obviously fake posts get left up. Troll hunting, spam and mentioning certain other sites (not harmful sites either), seem the only things which get a quick reaction from HQ. To then rely on unpaid mods overnight is outrageous.

I also think we need to have the option to block other users. HQ have always resisted making that possible.

Since HQ doesn't seem to want to pay their mods overnight, then yes, the best option is to remove the option to post pictures when there are no properly paid mods on here. The volunteers can't even get reports, so you need to post publicly on The Night Watch overnight, which is not enough. Can we even report troll posts on there or is that troll hunting? It's absolutely not good enough.

The AI filter didn’t fail, because no one uploaded an image for it to check. The criminal attacking the site used a different method this time.

So that would mean that MNetters in the Southern Hemisphere would not be able to post Style and Beauty photos, property photos and all the other stuff that genuine posters share during the daytime, (whilst those in the Northern Hemisphere can), unless they are up at silly o clock in the morning. Maybe MN should pay for Mods there (so in effect have a 24 hour moderated site), rather than waste money on an AI filter which clearly doesn't work

@GutsyGertrude

what's the excuse this time?? Seriously unacceptable, Mumsnet needs to take accountability

Not really the greatest advert for "AI" is it ?

Stuff gets through on FB. Our local paper online gets hit regularly.

UK night because that is where the mods are. They are volunteer mods overnight (UK overnight). During the (UK) day, there are paid mods on the site.

The trouble with the "not posting at night" idea is whose night are you talking about? MN is a worldwide forum so whilst it may be night in the UK and Europe it's day elsewhere and vice versa. Do MN ban Aussies from posting any photos whilst they are scrolling during their lunchbreak as it's a time when the UK are sleeping?

I saw one of the CSA images on a thread last night, it really upset me, it was I think a preview of a link. I clicked off the page as soon as I saw, by the time I went back to report the thread been hidden but enough people would have seen.

@LilyMumsnet @BeckyAMumsnet This is completely unacceptable, what more are you doing to stop this?

There's an explanation on another site stuff thread - it was a link with an image preview rather than an attached image.

Thank you for the reports and we are very sorry for those who’ve been affected. Our AI-based filtering system is designed to detect and hide inappropriate images but the attacker posted a link to site which contained such images. We are disabling the feature which shows image previews and have also disabled new registrations and images for now. We'll post more information as soon as there is anything else to say.

How can this happen again? A lot of posters saw the images and are understandably upset.