AIBU to think deleting the TIME thread because of misogynist infestation is itself anti-feminist?

[HomeHelpMeGawd]

I know that MNHQ needs to pull the plug if things get out of hand, but I was dismayed to see a this happen to a thread started in order to express outrage at TIME magazine's decision to include feminist as a candidate for the '2014 word that should be banned'. I presume it happened because there were a significant number of misogynistic posts. But this shrinks the space in which feminists can talk. If we can't have a thread on a feminist board on MN to express outrage about TIME magazine's behaviour, where the fuck are we supposed to go with this? Surely MNHQ can find a way to act that better supports women in the future?

Why was the thread deleted? I was there in the beginning but there were only two twats on ot then- par for the course...

I was very surprised to see it deleted especially after hq stepped in quite early anyway.

It does seem a bit like punishing the whole class . . .

Did anyone take screen shots of the stuff the trolls posted (pictures of women being raped with graphic descriptions, etc?) Because I would love to send them to the woman journalist running that Time Magazine poll and see what she had to say about them. Maybe we could invite her on here for a web chat?

All I saw was a comment about wanting a sandwich made and a suggestion that those posting were ugly.

There may have been other things whjch were deleted more quickly than I could see

Lurcio please tell me that never actually happened?! I was there for the two idiots who got banned but disappeared to catch up on doctor who do the dishes. Came back and the thread was zapped asked in site stuff what had happened and someone said there has been an influx of trolls

No, unfortunately I saw the posts before they got zapped. Very unpleasant. Charming people with user names like "WhitePowerWomanHater" (it wasn't that, but something similar - probably just as well I can't remember exactly as no doubt they're doing google searches on stuff that may throw up threads they can invade).

Actually, may report my own post and see if MNHQ has the posts. I really would like to see them forwarded to that reporter to see if she stands by the "methodology" (and I use that word in its losest sense) behind her poll, and whether she's happy to have a poll which is so obviously being manipulated by highly organised internet trolls to stand in perpetuity with her by-line above it.

I'm glad it wasn't just me feeling this way. It's pretty clear that the volume and viciousness of misogynist trolls has been growing substantially across the internet over the last couple of years.

MN, you really need to think carefully about what mechanisms you're going to use to manage this in a way that doesn't just shut down discussion for everyone else.

Mumsnet is eating itself

I don't see anything wrong with the Time magazine thing but we should be allowed to discuss it

Perhaps we can use this thread to continue to express our outrage at TIME's actions. Some feminists have been engaging directly with Katy Steinmetz, the journalist, on her twitter feed, and have pointed out that a number of the other words on the list are neologisms used by young women.

I wonder if this was simply clickbait gone wrong, or if she genuinely holds these views. Not that I think unreflective misogyny is any less harmful or acceptable than the other sort.

Are you just not looking, TheBogQueen? You don't think that if TIME magazine declared that the banned word of the year for 2014 is "feminist", that would harm women or women's interests? Or do you mean you don't think it's a problem to harm women and women's interests?

What views? I thought it was a list if the worst words of the year and one if them was feminist and you could vote ( if you could be bothered)

I thought it was a zeitgeisty thing. If feminist was judged the worst word they would explore why.

I reported the post that included a photo of a woman being raped as soon as it came up, it took a good few minutes to be zapped, and more trolls kept piling in. Then whole thread went. Didn't get a screen shot sorry.

But I agree the thread should have been left (with deletions obv) to be discussed - and yes, forwarded to Time (pref without deletions if MN has them!).

If anyone needs proof of why we need feminism, and just how much some men really really hate women, that thread was it.

Really fucking grim.

Also, I should add there was a second (very odd) thread on the same subject and that was zapped before I could post on it.

So expect trolls here soon too, they seem to be after these Time threads to shut down discussion.

I didn't see the trolling on the thread. It does seem very counter productive to zap what could be an interesting debate.

If you are going to moderate then moderate and let the thread stand

From the Washington Post

www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/11/12/time-magazine-wants-to-know-if-you-want-to-ban-the-word-feminist/

www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/11/12/time-magazines-silly-proposal-to-ban-the-word-feminist/

There are quite a bit of other articles on this in various places.

It will harm women's interests when they announce that "feminism" won the poll. I hope they backtrack and/or apologize and pull the whole thing before that point.

I think it shows how far we have to go when a "respectable" magazine is seriously suggesting this. Most of the other entries aren't even real words. This is just so fucking depressing.

Here's Alyssa Rosenberg's riposte in the Washington Post.

I wonder how they did come up with the words

If there were violent images perhaps mnhq had to take it down maybe the trolls have been reported to the police, I think perhaps you should trust Hq to do their job and maybe start another discussion

TheBogQueen, I mean two things by views:

1. That is OK to suggest that feminist is an annoying word. The fact that it's only semi-serious makes it worse, not better. Banter is one of the new modus operandi of misogynists to harm women.

1. In addition to the list of words, she provided a rationale for why each word should be banned, and what she wrote for feminist was this: "You have nothing against feminism itself, but when did it become a thing that every celebrity had to state their position on whether this word applies to them, like some politician declaring a party? Let’s stick to the issues and quit throwing this label around like ticker tape at a Susan B. Anthony parade." There are many, many things that are problematic and misogynist about these views, but to pick only the most obvious: she is attacking celebrities for daring to call themselves feminists. Emma Watson is a celebrity, and has declared herself a feminist recently. She is a victim of misogyny, as you will find out if you do a google-images search, and see the fierce competition to expose her and shame her sexually. And of course many hundreds of female celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence have just been exposed and humiliated in the last few weeks. Misogyny takes many forms, and for women stars that form is often to appropriate naked or sexual images of them, share them widely, laugh at their distress, and then tell them they cannot call themselves feminists. I think it's fucking disgusting.

That was my thread. Changed my name today, was Graedal. (MN can verify)

The poll may have been started as a joke or just a case of poor taste. But as we said on the thread (around the shit posts) the number of votes represents the misogyny and what we're up against.

Gutted it was deleted and gutted how bad it was

As others have said, Mrsjayy, taking down posts is different from deleting threads. And I'm not simply going to trust MNHQ to do their job, I'm going to say what impact I think their decisions have, so that they can take this into account when they make future decisions.

Well...to be honest I think the article is fairly lighthearted. And you may not agree with her but the journalist is expressing a fairly pedestrian approach to the zeitgeist issues of the day. Within this context I don't think it merits this level of outrage.

I do consider myself a feminist but these online battles seem rather esoteric and overblown.

And it's a good point - the people trolling the thread may well have been reported to police.

The thing is, the Bog Queen, that our trolls appear to have been members of an online community who have been systematically voting on Time's poll, and skewing the results (because it's not a properly conducted poll with checks to make sure you have a representative sample and that people only vote once, it's a "click-here" poll). Then Time will have its front cover for next week: 60% of people say feminist is the word they'd most like to see banned next year. Plastered prominently on the shelves of every newsagents shop in the country. And when you try to discuss this online (and perhaps wonder how you could get in touch with the journalist who wrote the article to find out what the fuck she thought she was doing - though it's obvious: click bait), discussion gets shut down by trolls.