Fake threads

I don’t think they are doing it themselves but there have been threads that are blatantly Chat GTP posts that are never followed up by the op. HQ don’t delete them though.

Absolutely - more people can make more "well-written" posts at a greater rate than before AI.

But I don't think this means MN are doing it themselves, which was the point I was trying to make (probably not very coherently! )

Interesting question and I have to say I’ve noticed this too. I’ll usually leave the thread if the op isn’t engaging after about 15 or so messages.
There was another interesting thread this morning about MN use of Facebook and people responding on fb instead of on the MN site.
Changing times !

Yes people are always going to make stuff up, but now they don’t even have to make an effort. Just ask Chat GTP to make it up for them. They get reported but not often deleted and people get swept along with it.

there is certainly a crystal clear agenda right now re both people on benefits and disabled people. It's disturbing how little a push many people need to just dive right into the hate.

People have been making up nonsense on the internet to provoke a response since the dawn of time. Well, since the 1990s.

It's not new and the fact that more people are on forums than before, and they're not all that savvy, means the hunger to wind people up can be fed pretty easily on a huge site like MN with lots of engagement.

Plus the "no troll-hunting" rule (which I support) means the default position is to take posts at face value - or report privately.

There's no need to assume MN would do this (make up posts) when it's been incredibly common since even before MN existed.

My opinion is that lots of them are by people who were in a very minor "situation" irl who wondered what would have happened if x,y, or z had been the case to make the situation more extreme or dramatic... and they post about that exaggerated situation, so they're only half making it up.

The really fake ones are usually obvious!

There's definitely a political dimension to it, too. I'd bet most of the "benefits bashing" posts (and there are so, so many) are written by anti-Labour activists.

I've read something about that. There's quite a bit of talk of it happening a lot on reddit.

Ah yes. See: Aston University MN Data Scrape.

What happened to Justine/MN’s legal case?

Including those with the one or two lame responses of, ‘I am reading all of your replies, I promise’.

There was one the other day about a security light. It was clearly written by AI. Once you thought about the detail in it didn’t make sense. But it was funny and everyone was snorting their tea out of their noses and waking the baby and telling to op how funny she was. The op never came back to the thread. I reported it as did others but nothing happened.

As a pp said it’s often their first post or they do a couple first to make it seem real. The names are often adjective-noun-number.

This sounds ominously plausible.

I’m going to be looking out for these threads, although truth be told I’ve started some in the morning before work and often it takes a good half hour to get a thread moving so it may seem I’ve disappeared but in reality I’m just at work…

And sometimes they definitely look like a journalist harvesting opinions for some article or other.

Another possible solution is AI companies using human MNetters to train their bots to sound more human.

maybe removing threads that OPs don't come back to might be worth considering.

I don't think a company needs to put that much effort in though. AI generates the post, someone in their comms or marketing team posts it on here. Maybe a few others in that company respond as other accounts to get the fake controversial thread going. Not saying this definitely happens but it's not massively time consuming to do.

I disagree that companies who pay to advertise on here would also invest their effort and money into generating false content. Surely if they purchase an advert they expect viewers as part of the service? Why would they pay for an advert and then put loads of work into drumming up people's engagement with the site so they see it? I would think they would just go and pay for adverts on more active sites instead of going to all that trouble.

Think of it this way. If a company buys a television advert they don't also buy lots of newspaper adverts encouraging people to tune in to watch Countdown because it will help more people view their advert.

Dear MN Mods, please don't ban people for stating their opinions. Having a negative view of Mumsnet is not against the forum rules. The following is simply my personal opinion

You sort of shot yourself in the foot here OP by asking if they pay people to do this. Of course they do it in my opinion, but they don't pay people specifically for it. It will be members of staff that are paid for other roles, or volunteers doing it via an AI bot. So no money is changing hands for this specific job. This allows them to come in here and honestly say "no we don't pay anyone to do this". They are answering a slightly different question to the one you meant to ask.

Indeed!

After a while you can spot them well enough to be able to make them up yourself.

E.g.

AIBU - to think that all children, regardless of their faith should be made to go to Christian assemblies in school every day. Poster name is something like Devil666

AIBU - to think that only rich people can afford to be kind and anything else is performative attention seeking by people who are networking for personal gain. Poster name BoredOrangeJay

AIBU - to think that women don't love men who earn less than them. I'm not saying all women, but what I observe is that young women will only date men richer than them. Poster name SurrenderedWife72.
.

Once you spot a thread like this it becomes so obvious when looking at other threads. Op posts less than half a dozen times and fucks off.

There are loads of shit stirring threads started on here now where the OP makes a really controversial post, then buggers off and leaves everyone arguing amongst themselves. I’ve reported a few but nothing ever happens, they remain up. I generally do a quick search before reading a thread now to see if the OP has been back to respond to anyone.

It’s almost as annoying as the ones where people don’t read the opening post properly and ask stupid questions that have already been answered.

Totally. Sometimes they resurrect user names from years ago too.

Hmm. I don't know if that is a good idea. Someone might be in genuine need of urgent advice or support. Maybe apply this to AIBU, though?

Some forums I’m on don’t allow you to start your own threads until 10 days after you’ve joined. Would that help do you think?