to say mn is potentially putting people at risk

[LilQueenie]

twice I have gone to post something but stopped myself out of pure fear it will end up viral in the papers or magazines. It used to be a place to find support and advice. Now it feels like russian roulette. Not helpful at all.

I would be shocked if they cared - yet people whine about 'if we all leave they will be sorry' - no I would imagine they won't give a shiny shite as long as they have enough users.

And for those who don't frequent the site much, why are they getting so worked up about it, also there is something called a search function. Hth

Is whine your favourite word Livia?

Posters are concerned and discussing the issue. I don't see any whining going on. People are trying to process the different feel to the site, that's all.

Tbh, HQ can't now do the U turn thing and say "oooh this is all a bit wrong" after their collaboration with the DM project a few years back and that there wee "share on FB" button thingy.

They can't have it both ways.

And neither can we. We can't find penis beaker totes hilaires, and then whine (my favourite word on this kind of thread too) when a different thread gets linked.

But this has been going on for months and every week we have a new thread - people just need to get the fuck over it now, it isn't just the Mail doing it.

The concern about how public a post is is that mumsnet will attract a bias of a demographic (not exclusively) female, child rearing age, computer literate. By going into print media, that expands that exposure. It could be your computer illiterate granny picking up a DM, or a colleague picking up the Metro on his commute, people that you may have felt "safe" from being outed to on the forum itself.

Also the community atmosphere means that reaction tends to come from a certain angle, feminist, supporting a victim, liberal. Mumsnet reaction is moderated and offensive, inflammatory reaction can be removed. Comments pages for newpapers will attract a wider less supportive audience. Even when a OP has a thread not going in their favour, the way that they are ripped to shreds will be fairly diplomatic and eloquent.

When you sign up to mumsnet, you're accepting mumsnets terms and conditions and it's difficult to anticipate outcomes from that post being distributed more widely which was uncommon several years ago.

And if someone wants to set up a private forum, they are at liberty to do so. But I'm not sure if some posters understand the word public - you don't even have to be a member to read posts. They come up in google frequently so that directs people here.

And yes it is 'whining' - it's like a child saying 'it's not faaaaaaiiiiiiirrrrrrr' - well life isn't fair

And are the threads published in the paper versions or just online? Because if just online, being computer illiterate is irrelevant

Yes to whining - or whinging - it's a constant cycle of impotent complaints to be presented as some kind of legitimate complaint and dredged up at least once a month. Like a bad period.

It just serves to whip posters up into a frenzy. I just assume they like a bit of excitement until MNHQ arrive (following an urgent summons) to politely tell everyone to pipe down,

It's funny.

There are other less popular forums where you can post more personal stuff besides mumsnet. Mumsnet are just out to make money. Look how much they're worth now, it's hardly a parenting site anymore with all the trolls and goaders.

I actually think mumsnet like the coverage they get in the DM you know, as long as the publicity is lining their pockets. Meanwhile the government are making astronomical cuts to the welfare system.

well life isn't fair

Well, thanks for that nuanced and well-thought-out contribution to the discussion

I do think there's a big difference between a silly thread like Penis Beaker getting lifted, and really sensitive ones like a poster talking about bereavement. Like ARumWithAView said upthread, we shouldn't just pretend like the sensitive stuff never gets lifted, because it does and it has and we'll likely see even more of it in the future.

Okay so what do posters intend to do about it? Genuine question.

Or will you just continue to whinge?

No, the threads aren't lifted into the paper version, only on to the website. Also, a thread being lifted will only spend a day on the DM website, whereas if you post on MN your thread could sit in active until it reaches 1000 posts, so is likely to get far more exposure that way.

I think so many people are up in arms about MN being posted because it's suddenly forced them to admit they read the Daily Mail whereas previously posters had some kind of fake outrage over the daily mail and how awful it is, while all the while clicking through to have a good read without anyone realising. But of course every time a poster points out that a thread has been lifted that's one more who is clearly a hardened DM reader, which in turn changes the perceived mentality of the site.

Of course, if people want to read the DM then that's their perogative, but then why not just admit it?

Do you think anyone disagreeing with you counts as "whinging"?

We're talking about how it's changed the feel of the site, and what people think about that. If you think it's a stupid discussion to have, you're free to go and discuss something else? I don't go into the Style and Beauty topic and loudly complain that everyone's talking about makeup, just because I'm not interested in makeup myself.

Posters will post less and leave. There will be a faster turnover of users. Lots of them will arrive from Daily Mail land. The feel of the site will change.

But the feel of MN changed the instant the aibu board was launched. This was exactly what MN wanted. I remember seeing Justine on some news programme about five or six years ago stating how the amount of traffic had increased because of the aibu board and how fantastic that was for MN. And IMO it's the aibu board which has changed the feel of the site from one of support to a free-for-all where if you dare to post then you deserve all the vitriol you get. Nothing to do with the Daily mail.

a hardened DM reader

MN has long been an important source of support for people going through incredibly difficult things.
DV, bereavement, abuse...the lot.

People cannot access this support without giving details of their issues. They are encouraged to give details by posters responding to their ops.

It is unfair to sneer at 'idiots' when the whole point of setting up MN was to provide support and a platform for discussion for parents.

It is also totally untrue to say that the DM is only interested in silly stories about willies and car parking.

They do not discriminate. Why the fuck would you think the DAILY MAIL would have scruples about what they pinch to put on their website?

They child bereavement one (pretty sure it was a different one from the one linked) was a turning point for me.
Have you ANY idea how difficult it is to find a space where you can discuss your dead child? Do you imagine that in RL there are hundreds of willing ears to listen to bereaved parents?
Why the hell do you think so many turn to the internet in the first place?

If the Daily Hate can lift stories from grieving mothers do you think they will balk at featuring rapes, beatings, traumatic births and all the other things discussed on MN boards?

Its all very well for those of you who won't post silly sex stories and comedy family spats to dismiss worries about this issue.

But you really think its ok when women in need are scared to post 'my husband just raped me and now he has threatened to take my kids away, what can I do?' in case those fuckers at the DM are having a slow news day?

If the 'whinging' makes one more poster aware that they might find their personal story splashed over the DM then I think these regular threads are a small price to pay.
I don't understand why posters who don't care about stories being lifted, feel the need to argue against those who do. The relationship between MN and the DM has changed. The DM has lifted at least one very identifying story about an abusive relationship.
Perhaps another point of these threads could be that MN could add a warning to all threads (and to the option where you start a thread) so it makes it clear that posts regularly end up in the MSM with audiences of xx amount. Or add a shiny box under trending that includes that type of disclaimer.

We teach our children about 'stranger danger' and we confiscate their mobile phones to scrutinise, safe in the knowledge that we've implemented parental controls on their PCs that the Pentagon couldn't break -

... and then we post with abandon here, saying what we want, disclosing any number and manner of personal stories - peppered with warnings from other posters about DM-filching - going into details that are both unbelievable and extremely unwise - and then we bleat to MNHQ to DO SOMETHING NOW!

You can't educate stupid. We know the risks and if we take them, that's on us.

In that case we are telling people 'if you have lost a child, if you have been raped, if your partner is hurting you, you cannot post here and expect to be treated with respect'

People seeking help are stupid bleaters.

namechangeemergency

But even if a poster posts about DV etc, if they've posted with identifying information then that identifying information is still on a public platform, and will remain there for as long as the thread remains active.

People have absolutely no idea who reads MN and who could identify them from the information they post about themselves. It's no different

People absolutely do need to get past this notion that MN is some kind of exclusive place to post about your personal struggles and that you are safe doing so here. It isn't. And it never was. And this issue has come up in the past, when MN had the Facebook share button people suddenly started talking about privacy and being recognised.

The onus is on the poster to not make themselves recognisable, because there is no way of knowing when you have been recognised.

If I write "my husband beat me up when I got home from work last night," that information is out there regardless of where it is published. And if the daily mail lift it then it's still there, with my username attached. If I haven't put information which identifies me in that post then I'm no more going to be recognised if my granny reads it on the daily mail than if she reads it on MN.

It's not about where the information is posted, it's about what information is posted. And if posters are making themselves identifiable then the responsibility for not doing so is that of the individual poster, not of MN for ensuring it can't be replicated elsewhere or that the poster can't be recognised.

People do have personal responsibility here.

Okay so what do posters intend to do about it? Genuine question.

Oh, wow -- so we're actually allowed to have ideas? I thought even raising the subject of privacy protection, in any form whatsoever, was a pathetic pointless whinge?

Your posts say so much more about your own worldview than MN. If you assume that profiting from the site is the sole concern, to the extent that they have absolutely no interest how anything impacts members more readers, more traffic, more links: end of why don't they take money from payday loan adverts? Especially at Christmas: great time to catch parents who struggle to afford gifts for their kids! Why don't they run special offers on cosmetic surgery fix those saggy boobs and mum-tums, ladeez! or alternative 'cures' for autism, or MLM firms or anyone else offering a wodge of cash?

It's not inevitable that all content of a website is immediately, entirely and freely available for rebroadcast. I don't know the legal position but, as WhatsGoingOn pointed out, MN does claim copyright of posts. Whether lifting large amounts of text from threads to form the main body of an article used by a professional (ha) news outlet consitutes fair use, I don't know.

Practically speaking, there absolutely are measures that can be used to prevent easy skimming-off of material. Yes, everything here's public, but there are different degrees of that. It doesn't have to be so easy for others to wander through, picking out stories as it suits them.

I know another forum where certain topics are restricted access, and you have to log in to view them, and enter a password which is posted elsewhere on the site. In one of these topics, you can't even post unless you've accrued fifty posts elsewhere. None of these measures are insurmountable (and they're not designed to be), but they cut down on random browsing the rest of the site is heavily used and goady fuckery, and maintain a strong sense of community and responsibility between posters, and that seems to work pretty well.

(I'm rereading that and it sounds vaguely dodgy. It's just a writing site, where people need to post work-in-progress without it being nicked, trolled, spammed by fake agents or potentially losing first publication rights.)

I'm not saying that's right for MN. But there are options. We don't just have to throw up our hands and say of course this is open season for the Daily Mail.

namechangeemergency You're being obtuse. Those type of posts and threads are never lifted and indeed, wouldn't be posted on AIBU which seems to be fodder for the tabloids. Sensitive posts are generally on other boards.

It doesn't help your agenda to be disingenuous.

To be fair, I think a log in would deter them. They're doing it because it's easy, not because MN is especially interesting. The stuff on here is commonly found on other forums tbh. Make it harder and they'll just go elsewhere

However, as MN have frequently said, it's not going to happen. Because without open forums what is mumsnet?

lying I am not being obtuse. You are mistaken . Those threads are lifted.
Its has already happened.