bulling on mumsnet.

[threefeethighandrising]

Yes, this is a thread about a thread. Or lots of threads in fact. So shoot me.

I'm shocked saddened by the level of bullying that goes on, particularly in AIBU.

I'm not complaining about people speaking their minds. One of the things I love about mumsnet is frank exchanges, that people can say what they want.

What worries me is a nasty group mentality - people ganging up on a poster - usually a new one - and picking apart their story and being absolutely, unforgivably nasty to them.

We teach our DCs to stand up to bullies. Well, how do we stand up to these ones?

I've recommended mumsnet to many people over the years, as a place you can find fantastic support, frank and honest opinions. Those kinds of threads make me question whether this is a place I should be inviting any one other than those with a very think skin. Which is a real shame IMO.

I'm not really asking AIBU. I am asking how we can stand up to bullies on mumsnet. I've posted it here because it happens here a lot.

bibbity - have just seen this, but have to go and make dinner now. Will have a think and come back later.

bib had a nosy at your link, and thought you were moving

I've been bullied in RL. I was 7 at the time so it was a loooooooong time ago. I've not seen any bullying on MN. If that helps :)

BecauseImWorthIt - well I would argue that there are certain posters whose put downs and nasty responses are constant. Okay they may not particularly victimise one person but they respond pretty regularly in a way which is likely to upset.

No I won't name names because I can't be bothered with the backlash. I have just spent a long period getting my head around my own personal experience of bullying and I am in a stronger place but can't be bothered. In my experence such people are best ignored

I had stopped posting for a while but I saw the title of this thread and it confirmed what I have learnt in my 32 years of existence. You can bet your bottom dollar that if you think something is amiss then others have spotted it too, or also feel the way you do.

It is a very convenient argument to believe that people should be thicker skinned, or should just walk away etc. It isn't that simple, it is easy to get sucked into an internet site like this for many, many reasons but it is still RL - people do get hurt

These people are the way they are and maybe are the same in RL. It is human nature and won't ever change but it doesn't stop people caring.

Finally it isn't as simple as just reporting it because often it is hard to explain. I lived with a bully for 15 years and yet even now I find it hard to explain it in a way which doesn't make it sound like I am making mountains out of molehills. Partly because I got similar responses such as 'you are too sensitive', 'get a thicker skin', 'if you can't take it fuck off'etc

Sometimes you just know and trust your instincts and I do believe there is a bullying culture in some areas of mumsnet.

If a person feels they were bullied then well you have to give credit to that because otherwise you invalidate their feelings which is a form of bullying in itself

I don't think there is a set definition of bullying as some suggest and conclude there is none on mumsnet. It can take many forms and many of you remember being bullied as children and how awful that was and apply it to mumsnet.

LeQueen I fail to see how anyone would volunteer the fact that they felt bullied on here (discussion moved on now I see!!) and have everyone trawl through their previous posts and then pick apart the alledged bullying / intimidation in public and be told that they "need to grow some"?

There have been a number of things in the past few weeks that have made me feel less than comfortable with how MN is developing, the "porn in my bathroom" thread and it's aftermath was horrific when all this woman wanted was a bit of empathy with her shock, boobjobs thread has been mostly light hearted but the constant accusations of falsehood clearly upset her, there was something in relationships where a poster did not believe her partner was a "whatever" but ended up saying, "OK, if you all think I should leave him, I will take my children to my brothers tomorrow" and there was a breast versus bottle debate where a poster was told she was not fit to have children if she didn't want to breast feed.

I can honestly say that I have withheld my comments on several threads for fear of direct attack which I could quite frankly do without!

I do not think that this is what Justine and Carrie had in mind when they set out to make parents life easier by pooling knowledge experience and support.

If this is how grown adults, who for the most part have parental responsibilities, behave on a forum that is supposed to be supportive, I fear greatly for what my teenage children will have to encounter and how in light of the "if you can't take the heat" comments on this thread we have any way of protecting them from this.

Some people are unpleasant and insensitive - in RL just as they are on here.

If that is the case - regardless of what you call it, then you report it to MNHQ. To be honest (and I'm sorry to hear about your own situation), I do think that if you can't articulate why it's worth reporting, then it's probably not. I'm aware that sounds harsh, and I'm not meaning that to be a personal attack!

BTW - for the record - I do care if people feel they are being bullied, or if people here are being nasty - but I think there is too much overly vague usage of the word 'bullying'. Or bulling, as it will forever now be known.

]:%) mooooo

I was invalidated and gaslighted by my step father and that is why I found it hard to explain. I didn't have black eyes or evidence of physical neglect but I realsie now he did abuse and bully me, by god he did

But you see I would have agreed with you all through my childhood and teenage years, that I couldn't articulate it so I didn't report it. I suspect a lot of people wouldn't have taken me seriously anyway.

What he did was hid his personality disorder behind a 'call a spade a shovel, I'm a tell it how it is kind of guy' so that I was gaslighted into believing it was me and I was too sensitive. He also did it oh so covertly, so that he knew I would find it almost impossible to report anything.

But I now know I should of reported him and stood up to him and in fact I have done it now after 30 years - he cut me out of his life. He knew damn well he was guilty as hell and now all sorts of memories ave come back confirming it was worse than I ever imagined

I am getting sidetracked but it is relevant because I believe (and no one on here will change my opinion) that these nasty, sneering and intimidating types do exist on online forums such as this. And yes there are sensitive souls who are vulnerable. And I am all for protecting and defending the vulnerable

I think it's ridiculous to say that people can't be hurt by what happens on the internet. It might just be words on a screen, but they're typed by real people towards other real people. Of course it's just going to roll off some, but someone isn't necessarily weak just because it does affect them.

That being said, I haven't seen an awful lot of straight-out bullying on MN. There is piling on on threads where the OP is wrong (in general opinion) and everyone wants to say so. And there are a handful of individuals that can be quite nasty or sharp in the way they come across, but I think most cases of bullying would be actively picked up on and halted. I hope.

for what it is worth I have reported my concerns to MNHQ and as I suspected it made not one jot of difference.

I haven't seen direct, crude, deliberate cyber-bullying in the sense of going after one particular individual from thread to thread, or else I would report it.

But there's a lot of subtle, unpleasant, intimidatory behaviour which goes beyond being frank, witty, forthright, or anything else that I enjoy about Mumsnet. I believe that most of this is unknowing, and that individually many of the most aggressive posters are perfectly likeable people offline. But the sum of the whole ends up being a lot worse than the individual parts.

There are bullying dynamics:

Posters being very aggressive and intimidating less confident types into silence, then claims being made that aggressive behaviour is justified because it represents the majority.

Status being gained by being witty in a cruel way at the expense of others who are weaker (in this forum, being verbally dexterous and socially sophisticated plus having a thick skin is strength)

People being given the clear message that they do not have the right to complain or object or else they are prissy, stupid, wimpy, whingy, and grassing (reporting)

Discrimination against people who fail to measure up to standards of the group - which amounts to class discrimination much of the time and certainly intellectual snobbery. I've lost count of the number of times posters have been sneered at because they were less articulate or sophisticated in their expression, because they weren't net-savvy and didn't know that you need to lurk before you leap and get a feel for the tone of the forum, because they allowed their wounded feelings to show before adopting a suitable attitude of detached curiosity towards the responses.

It kind of reminds me of the girls at school who used to sneer at people for wearing the wrong clothes or seeming a bit too babyish or being awkward in some other way - only on here it's all verbal.

Another bullying feature is the sharing of flippant responses and in-jokes between certain posters in a way that effectively excludes and belittles the OP - a clear message that for whatever reason "you are not important enough for us to take your feelings and opinions seriously, and you're certainly not one of us."

And above all I resent the suggestion that you should not post on mumsnet if you are unable to take any of the above behaviour on the chin, switch the computer off, namechange, and forget about it.

In other words, if you are socially isolated, desperate, frail, sensitive, insecure, mixed-up emotionally, have low self-esteem and therefore brood over insults, or generally vulnerable and needy, this isn't the place for you, even though it's a parenting support forum??

And if you have obviously ended up on AIBU not knowing what you have let yourself in for, then you deserve what you get?

Fortunately this is NOT the majority of Mumsnet which remains a fantastic site, and again, I am talking about a negative dynamic not individual posters being unpleasant people.

But I do worry that it is spreading, and I also do think it is important that people who are uncomfortable with it keep speaking up about what they see, if only to get a more balanced portrayal of what Mumsnetters actually think.

I certainly prefer it to reporting people, which I haven't yet done because as I keep saying (tired and struggling with words, sorry) it is mainly something that happens and people get caught up in, rather than being the direct product of any one person.

Unfortunately the behaviour being questioned is not limited to AIBU.

You know, there is a difference between having a disagreement, or beyond that, a real spat, and consistent bullying across threads.

I speak as one who had a real spat quite recently. And what happened is that the Twitterati came onto the thread, and clearly there was a posse. But i stayed and fought my case.

And do you know, some of them came around, some of them lost interest, and some of them stuck to their original position. But I think (hope) that on the next thread, no grudges will be borne. That's how it goes on MN, I think :)

So the conclusion that we reach is that there are some nasty people on Mumsnet? Yes, there probably are. Just as there are in RL.

I have seen the sneering that can happen, and it's not pleasant.

I've also seen - and indulged in - banter with other posters. Including on this thread, I think. I've been here for some time now and inevitably have got to 'know' many of them. It's part of the enjoyment of the site, that kind of banter, but it's not intended to be something that belittles or excludes other people. I can't help it if people feel belittled or excluded! I'm not about to stop interacting with other posters because it upsets someone. If you want to join in the banter no-one is going to stop you. That's one of the great joys of an internet community - it's here, in public, for everyone to join in.

But none of this is bullying - it's behaviour that you don't like.

And if you observe it on a thread that you are, then call the posters on that behaviour. You never know, there could be lots of other posters and/or lurkers who will agree with you and will ride in to support you.

There are guidelines on MN about when to report a post. If you feel you are being attacked personally, which includes bullying, then report it to MNHQ.

Do you know FrickleFreckle I have been trying to artculate what your post so eloquently put for so long. Well done!

'but I do worry that it is spreading'

Yes. I posted recently in Education about a stressful experience I was going through. I was vulnerable and tired and it ended up with personal insults. I was accused of being defensive when in fact I was taken aback by the way the thread went. I was insulted (called an eejit and told that my ds should be felt sorry for). I responded angrily but then got attacked for that. It was very upsetting and I didn't sleep well at all. I left the thread but I have read it since with more rational eyes and I still can't believe what was said and the manner in which it was said.

not banter at the exspense of making someone feel belittled no. Why would you want to do that?

I banter frequently in RL and at times on here but never at the exspense of making someone feel belittled. Or if I did I would be mortified and change my behaviour.

I don't want to banter with you LeQ. See I know about those Laura Ashley bedrooms

Ok , I will repeat
Bullying is a word overused for something far less worthy of the word.

NO ONE HERE is condoning bullying,
NO ONE HERE has said that Internet bullying does not happen

But lots here are having difficulty seeing where the bullying is . Again....I see sarcasm, drollness (is that a word?) and frustration at supposedly adult people believing that because people query some of the "taller" stories or inconsistencies of a stealth poster that is bullying??

FFS, I am now going to do what I advised the whingers to do when a thread is more than they can handle. I AM LEAVING THIS THREAD

Now does that mean I have been bullied off by the posters who insist continually there is bullying and do not see my point.

NO OF COURSE IT FUCKING DOESN'T!!! It means I dont really care any more so my brain has planned its escape.

peace

'the whingers' - and there in lies another way in which someone can feel invalidated just because they don't have this wonderful thick skin that others talk of.

Ok I'm going to throw another suggestion in.

Maybe, just maybe internet forums are not suitable for some people. There is nothing wrong with being sensitive at all. But I think it would be helpful if people sometimes sat back and looked at themselves and realised that maybe they are just a tiny bit too sensitive. Especially if they are feeling left out etc by posters bantering between each other.

If that sort of thing upsets you it might be worth looking at yourself rather than criticising others. I for one am not going to stop bantering with posters I feel I've forged a 'friendship' with just because it upsets someone.