Well done Justine and Becky. We told you it would happen again.

Personally I don’t even see why gifs have to be allowed in the first place. It’s not Buzzfeed. I find use of gifs annoying and childish most of the time, I’m sure I can’t be the only one.

It doesn't address the bigger issue but I really don't see why we have GIFs anyway, they don't add any value to a discussion.

Gosh that's fascinating. I'm a cynic about the gap between MN's commercial reality and the touching faith some posters have in thinking the people who run it are all characters from Motherland. All forums are subject to intrusions, they just have more robust defences, all of which you've pointed out @NoCommentingFromNowOn . I think the trolls are interesting but that's a niche viewpoint. MN deserve to lose engagement. I wonder where the talks to sell a stake in MN to private equity have got to.

They don't annoy me, but if banning them made the site safer then I would be in favour.

But the most important thing is that you can't copy text from a post, but you have to quote the whole thing??

The only reaction is 'thanks', which basically now means 'like'.

Focus on the important stuff eh.

It's no longer meeting the needs of the audience. MN has evolved, but management of the site hasn't.

I am very disappointed because shift workers have to see and report this stuff. Invest some money back in?! I didn't see it tonights nonsense but yesterday was vile!

Oh I blocked Mumsnet emails ages ago. I don’t understand the point of sending a response to anyone’s forum report, I’ve never seen that before. Usually moderators just take action. Interesting that they’re sometimes nasty to the people helping them out though, especially since they always tell people to report.

Years ago when I joined the forum was being absolutely brigaded by MRA/incel types making the most ridiculously misogynistic fake threads. I think I got two wet lettuce “well, I’m just really not sure…” emails from Mumsnet before I blocked the address from sending me further emails. 😆

I quite like the janky, vintage message board vibe on MN but it’s not really fit for purpose in 2026. They probably did need to invest more.

So the moderators are deleting posts on this thread but not actually responding to people’s concerns. Standard.

The troll was posting on the thread, hence the deletions!

I have to say I saw some of the filth and was shocked it got through, on other sites this stuff is deleted immediately

I haven’t been on here long enough to fully understand how it works, as much as I love the site and the ease of use, and spend too much time skiving on it, I posted on a thread it was made up nonsense, I then got suspended for a day , as apparently that was troll hunting, even though I’d had no warning or previous communication on such a thing, which surprised me, and then multiple other people posted on the same thread saying the exact same thing, and the posts all stood and were apparently fine. I was reading it thinking everyone thinks the same as I do, but the thread is allowed to stay as is all the other posts saying it’s nonsense,

it felt like if someone reports you you are punished, but no one then monitors it, we all know there are multiple posts a day saying something is made up that stand, and then of course you see pure filth being posted and it’ also stands. I don’t really understand it if I’m honest.

punishing genuine posters randomly but not having the resources to manage the trolls and filth being posted and only acting if someone reports, and behaving in a punitive manner immediately,

it feels a little odd if I’m honest. Genuine posters are immediately punished but only if reported, but if no one reports, or you post after a certain time of night, you can post any utter filth you wish.

i always try and help if I see a spam post or something I report as I know they are likely busy, but I am rather bemused by it if I’m honest. I’m sure it will make sense at some point, but right now, I can’t say it does, not when you’re reading the kind of filth I saw.

'I’m seeing them as the ‘ethical hackers’ who try to hack into banks etc.'

• I don't think so. If that's really their purpose, there were other options besides putting disgusting GIFs and poo fetish posts including on threads that were pretty serious. They didn't disturb me, just grossed me out, but clearly a lot pps were disturbed to the point of the site being unusable for them.

I do agree re the advertising being predatory.

You're absolutely right, @Viperregency. It's strange to get deleted and suspended for pointing out that thread is bogus. Especially as it's a site which relies on user moderation so much.
I'm currently frustrated at the acceptance of ageism though. I have reported it, it's acknowledged, but not dealt with. An ongoing problem.

What has this hacker done that people think of ethical?!

I agree that MN are really od about troll hunting. They suspended me once for contesting the genuineness of something a poster said, so I started reporting troll hunting rigorously whenever I came across it. The response was totally inconsistent - some stuff got deleted, but other incredibly blatant troll hunting was allowed to stay. It does appear that, if they accept someone is a troll, then troll hunting is OK - but surely if troll hunting is banned, it should be banned for all purposes? And if they think someone starting a thread is a troll, why not delete the thread anyway?

@BeckyAMumsnet what's happened this time?

Something to do with GIFs, I'm guessing? Can you disable GIFs? There's one poster in particular who used to splash them all over every stupid post she made although I don't think I've seen her for a while so hopefully you banned them.

Could you maybe post a new thread to explain what's happened, what Mumsnet did wrong and how it's going to be resolved in future? I can't be the only one who is in the dark here.

It wasn't GIFs last night though anyway