Fucking Cunting Trolls

[MsHooliesCardigan]

In the past week, I have posted on threads about someone's 15 year old niece taking their own life and today somebody wanting to give their 4 year old son up for adoption. They both turned out to be trolls. I love Mumsnet, I really do and I have seen many situations where those in genuine need of support have been massively helped. I have PMed a Mumsnetter at 4am asking her to call me if she wanted to talk after she had been assaulted by her DP. She did and we subsequently met up.
I have had a huge amount of support myself from Mumsnet but I am getting really weary of it now.
I work in mental health and it's something I feel really passionate about which is why I was drawn to the threads I've mentioned.
I know that there isn't much anyone can do about it and I think MNHQ do their best as both these threads were taken down pretty quickly.
Just needed to rant

MNHQ policy actually encourages trolls.

There is an obvious troll who has been posting about a fairly dramatic situation in her family and other unbelievable posts . She has about 6 or more threads, each involving an increasingly unbelievable scenario. I pointed out on one of the posts that her life was certainly dramatic.

My post was taken down for troll hunting. So even mild questioning or expressing surprise is not allowed.

It is an irritating kind of censorship that allows trolls to go unquestioned. And yet when you do report, especially over a weekend which is when they are most active, MNHQ does not respond quickly.

And then there are the totally unbelievable fast moving dramas that are on thread 3 in two days. These are fuelled by the many uncritical fangirls here who place mark and watch fast moving threads with baited breadth, and to them, troll hunting is worse than trolls because they just want to be apart of a dramatic thread even when it it is completely unbelievable.

Add to the this the fact that MNHQ has pretty much given sanction to the Daily Mail and the Sun to lift whole threads here, and you can guess which ones are lifted.

All if this means that Mumnset has become the perfect repository for troll threads. But I now understand it, I think. The Mumsnet model is built around clicks, lots of them. And trolls bring clicks, so they get a light touch from MNHQ.

Oh well. I have some lovely memories of how it once was. Twas all fields round here once.

endehors, It's an eye-opener for some over there, but I've been a moderator on another forum for a long time and I can spot trolls instantly. It is something you can learn, and if the reddit helps people to do that, so much the better.

It is something you can learn, and if the reddit helps people to do that, so much the better.

It certainly does.

Maybe its not so much the influx of trolls, but the large amount of threads that are being deleted and how quickly they are being deleted, in the last few weeks.

The Reddit forum so far, I don't think has been wrong in any thread they have mentioned could be a troll or a PBP (I agree there is a difference)

All the Reddit group will do is encourage even more troll hunting if they're still posting on here. Some of the threads they're adamant are trolls are laughable.

All the Reddit group will do is encourage even more troll hunting if they're still posting on here.

Where's your evidence for that?

So all the troll hunting over on Reddit is for what?

Pass the time?

Just to say that some people do have unbelievable things happen to them. For example I had 3 members of my family murdered in 1 go. I never posted about it on MN, but I am pretty sure if I had I would have been called a troll.

I remember as a newbie in 2011 I had no idea people would lie on the internet.
I got very sucked in by a thread about someone who had a boss that looked like Dan Snow.
She was going on a date with him, and went to Bicester clothes shopping and posted pictures of dresses so we could help her choose.
She posted pictures of what his car was like, and on the actual date she was updating us from the bathroom. It was all gripping!

Then it went poof, and I was 'WTF happened'?

But over the last 6 years my troll radar has been tuned and the more you see the easier they are to spot. It's like a sixth sense.

The internet is an opportunity for people who suffer from Munchausens. We had someone on a health thread whose stories went on from diagnosis into escalating medical mishaps and complications until we alerted Mumsnet that they were no longer credible and their story was really frightening for people who were dealing with their own diagnosis and were therefore very vulnerable. However it took a few more months to discover that the same poster was posting similar but even more extreme stories on other forums across the internet, including in one case that after a long saga of infertility she had given birth to twins who had been killed by her her violent partner, surely a story that would have made the national press, on our thread she longed for but had neither children or a partner. Attempts to challenge her stories on the thread were met with aggression and manipulation of other posters via PM, they felt particularly hurt and upset when the truth came out.

That particular thread was and continues to be an important source of support for many facing serious illness but a lot of experienced posters who had a lot of support to offer to others decamped to safer places on the internet and those that visit are a lot more cynical....

However I don't think any of us felt angry towards the poster, or at least understood that anger wasn't really appropriate, she (if she even actually was a she) was clearly seriously mentally ill and probably entirely unable to understand the consequences of her actions. There is quite a lot of research into Munchausens by internet once you look for it, it is quite a big problem.

Be careful out there.

So all the troll hunting over on Reddit is for what
Pass the time?

Because they can?
Because if people are not sure they can ask, without being started on by other posters or get deleted or banned?

They also don't need to say anything about the sub because you mention it on any thread like this,

daemon perfectly put

Most people probably have things that have happened to them that if they posted them on MN they would be suspected to be a troll or to have made it up.

But it's not essential to post everything on MN.

So all the troll hunting over on Reddit is for what?

Because it can't be done here?
Frustration at a particular thread that must not be named kicked it off I think.

Sparkling Exactly, but the loss of that naive kindness and caring is sad since without it those in genuine need suffer.

By the way posts with lots of CAPITALS and exclamation marks... The glass plate fell on me!! The Radiographer SELLOTAPED it back in place!!!!!!!!!, run for the hills....

Whilst it's nice to care and want to help others, there are better more effective ways of doing it than on an anonymous website.

I think the way people get so involved in threads is a bit silly and maybe people are looking for some way of making themselves feel better without having to leave the sofa.

There are extreme limitations to talking to people online like this

I tend to post on MN (under various usernames) things that I would rather not share IRL but need an outlet for

I'd be devastated to lose the support I get through this outlet if I was thought to be a troll.

But then when I get scared it might go in the DM I change details... sometimes I have a DS sometimes a DD sometimes I am older or younger, married unmarried etc

I hope MN never decide I'm a troll.

I remember that thread too Sparkling.

There are have been trolls on here who played their game for years even (remember CVQ, anyone?) and even met posters IRL. There are some weirdos about. Sadly, I don't usually reply to child death threads unless it's a known poster because there have been so many people trolling about that over the years. Child death and child cancer are really common things to troll about. I think HQ advice to get involved at your own risk is sound, where people started selling goods on here the 'I need someone to buy these bundles of clothes by close of play today or I'll have to sell myself on the kerb threads were legion.

Were you sucked in Weebo or were you a bit less naive than me?

I was totally duped Sparkling.

Hook, line and sinker :o