to tell you that MNHQ can call the police if they’re worried about you?

[PurpleDaisies]

This is news to me. The official policy is this...

'...on rare occasions where there appears to be a clear need to safeguard the welfare of a Mumsnetter and/or his/her family, it may be necessary to contact relevant authorities'

I am not referencing a specific thread or this will be deleted but I think posters should be aware that this is the case.

[brizzlemint]

You can tell a lot from an IP address if you know how. I've randomly picked an IP address and can find the name of the host, who the ISP is, the city, country and continent and latitude/longitude plus position on a map. It's then easy to find out who it is, or at least the address.

[AlpacasAreLlamas]

Lol. I wish we had your tech in the police!

[AlpacasAreLlamas]

My IP address says I'm in a different city. Apparently I'm in Milton Keynes

[brizzlemint]

Lol. I wish we had your tech in the police!

Do a google and you can - not for all IP addresses but for many. - At random look at geoiplookup.net/ip/82.134.28.13 (made up IP address)

[Pengrin]

I’m willing to bet on you being more alpaca than you are police judging by some of your posts this evening.

[AlpacasAreLlamas]

brizzlemint
I don't need to know what your toys can do in pretend scenarios.
Police can not trace an address from an IP address.
The person involved in this must have given their address to the OP here.
Police can not and do not track people based on IP addresses. It can take hours to get warrants etc. to track IP addresses (which are usually useless anyway as they keep changing), so I don't really understand this post nor MN's response to it.

[EmeraldShamrock]

I would think they have a duty of care, Also with the recent terrorist attacks then high rates of suicide.
Imagine the headlines if a Mnetter cried out for help then took their life, or a child was murdered by a parent who openly admitted abuse on a thread.
All social media platform's have to be responsible

[AlpacasAreLlamas]

They are a social media platform. They have no more duty of care than reddit or Facebook.

[JaneEyre07]

Anyone who thinks they can be anonymous online in this day and age are to be pitied.

This is a great site and HQ are damned if they do, damned if they don't. If there is even a small chance that someone is at risk, it should be passed on. And I genuinely hope that help is directed to some posters.

[AIBUtopickanyoldname]

It’s because of fairly recent changes to legislation. I’m a Samaritans volunteer and we have to tell the police if people are in imminent danger of commiting suicide or child is reporting that they’re in a situation that puts them at risk.

When the changes to the law came out, Samaritans was really really conflicted, because the whole service is about total anonymity and non-judgement. It made it very difficult to square with the charity’s ethos. But ultimately we have to comply with the law otherwise it leaves the door open for lawsuits/manslaughter prosecutions, etc.

[elasticfantastic]

They will provide police with op detail... for any MN hq people reading please ensure that along with up address you also provide exact time and date of connection including the time zone eg. Is the time recorded BST or UTC etc... I work on the police end of this and sometimes the reporting agency forget to give this info then valuable time is wasted while police specialists have to call reporter back to get these details.

@AlpacasAreLlamas many social media platforms contact police in these life at risk situations... Facebook included

[elasticfantastic]

• IP not op details.. bloody autocorrect again

[Buster72]

As well as IP addresses your email may have been recorded by police if linked to a crime report, which may have an address or phone number attached.
No need for warrants to search the police's own data.
We've had reports from administrators on other continents telling us of a vulnerable person.

[PurpleDaisies]

I hadn’t realised the law had changed.

I won’t be advising people to call the Samaritans in confidence any more. That will totally change their service.

I wonder how consistently this policy is applied.

[MsMustDoBetter]

I find that comforting to know that someone, even strangers, are looking out

[EmeraldShamrock]

I won’t be advising people to call the Samaritans
Please don't do that. The Samaritans are still a life line.
It is the same when you phone the citizens advise the line advises you it is confidental but if you discuss endangering a DC Tulsa will be notified. Tulsa is SS in Ireland
It makes sense, besides I bet most Samaritans would call an ambulance if you said you just took an overdose.

[HaventGotAllDay]

Ah, the change in law clarifies the intervention then.

I'd still like to know why this apparent suicide thread was left up for so long.

It will also be interesting to see if MN contact the authorities for the DV threads, the threads where children are left in the care of drug addicted father's etc etc. Because they're going to be very busy if the opt for a coherent policy.

[e1y1]

I have a PAYG phone and don't have WiFi and I'm not sure my service provider has my address

Your signal can be pinpointed to exactly where you are - I have watched it happen live when investigating fraud when I worked for a mobile phone call centre.

[gamerwidow]

They are a social media platform. They have no more duty of care than reddit or Facebook
It’s a moral duty of care not a legal one and yes these platforms should also exercise it.

[NoCauseRebel]

Your signal can be pinpointed to exactly where you are - I have watched it happen live when investigating fraud when I worked for a mobile phone call centre. bollocks it can. There are plenty of ways to mask an IP address if you have the technical know-how.

I find it interesting that the police can apparently trace someone who “claims” they’re about to commit suicide but there are online pedophile rings all over the world which it seems are impossible to locate with such speed in order to shut them down and catch the perpetrators.

As for the apparent suicide thread, the man sounded like a manipulative arsehole and his ex sounds well rid. and I’m surprised that A, anyone fell for it (not saying he was a troll but definitely a control freak with all his imagining the ex sobbing over his grave bollocks) and B, genuinely thought he was at risk of something. Also why was this thread left to stand when it could have been triggering for others reading it and no-one here has the expertise to deal with suicides. And why have mn hq thus far refused to comment on the situation?

Added to which, for those who claim it’s a good thing, you do realise that this isn’t just about suicide don’t you? Quite apart from the fact that mn isn’t a mental health resource and suicidal threads should be deleted, what about a thread where say, someone is in an abusive relationship and posts here for support in order to gain the strength to leave, will mn be calling the police on the basis it’s a safeguarding risk?

What about someone who lost it as a one off with their kids? Safeguarding risk?

Or what about a situation where an abusive partner wants to have more control over their partner in the access dispute? They create a thread as their partner and claim that they’re abusing the kids, police are notified and bingo, the ex has police intervention for his court reports....

If this is going to become the norm then this is going to remove the source of support for a lot of people who need support in situations which could be perceived as a safeguarding risk in the longer term but where biding one’s time might need to be a consideration.

And while I am generally of the view that the internet is not necessarily an anonymous platform and that posting about your private life publicly always comes at the risk of e.g. being recognised etc, this change in the law to inform the police (who are totally under-resourced as it is) of every possible eventuality is just a step closer to turning the UK into a police state.

That being said, perhaps it will reduce the numbers of DV/suicide/harming the kids trolls that are out there if they think the police are on to them. Would love to have been a fly on the wall when the police turned up to the one yesterday, because I don’t think he was anything like he wanted to portray.

[HarrysOwl]

MN have your IP address.

What if you've used a VPN?

[GucciDay]

NoCauseRebel, you sound very naive.

I'm sure paedophile rings use sophisticated methods and don't log on to mumsnet or similar where I'd guess people are easier to locate.

The insensitive way you talk about the depressed person who started the thread is sickening. Look up empathy and compassion and try it sometime.

[NoCauseRebel]

The insensitive way you talk about the depressed person who started the thread is sickening. Look up empathy and compassion and try it sometime. really? The individual was talking about wanting to see his ex sobbing over his grave. He was talking about the friends he had apparently approached for support and who would get what’s coming once his life was over and they’d regret not helping him. Once the police allegedly turned up he was trying to encourage posters to send him pm’s off board, in fact his pm facility was disabled by hq because of it.

I have absolute sympathy for anyone who is so low they feel that there is no other way out, but let’s not pretend that there aren’t people who use the threat of suicide as an emotional blackmailing tool because there absolutely are.

The thread should have been removed at the very beginning as others have in conjunction with conversations with the Samaritans and other mental health resources. Why wasn’t it? And why have mn hq thus far declined to comment on that fact?

[GucciDay]

It wasn't immediately removed no but it now has been so you can calm down. A depressed person wanting support isn't the same as 'I'm going to kill myself right now talk me out of it'.

Comparing finding people on a chat forum with paedophiles is utterly ridiculous. All chat forums will have guidelines about contracting police when there's a serious and obvious risk.

If you have 'absolute sympathy' then try not to call the op a 'manipulative arsehole'

[NoCauseRebel]

Who compared people on mn to pedophiles? I said that it’s incorrect to assume that the police can trace who/where you are based purely on an IP address. Not least because you could be one of lots of people in the same property, could be posting from a family computer, could be piggy-backed off the neighbour’s WiFi, could be at work where there are hundreds of other people.

Most people here don’t give their actual name and details when they sign up here, and Mumsnet and other platforms are full of trolls who post for kicks especially in the middle of the night when hq aren’t around. So where does the bar sit with regards to contacting the police? Remember safeguarding is a massive spectrum - we’re not just talking suicide threads here, and what to one is a troll could be considered a genuine post to another. Remember, whenever a thread is widely reported because of things like encouraging off-board PM’s or donations or pure emotive posting the mn hq stance is always that “we can never be sure that anyone on the internet is who they say they are,” so how has this notion been reached that they can’t be sure that anyone online is who they say they are to reporting suspected safeguarding concerns to the police and leaving that decision up to them. Because the police won’t go to every thread that is reported to them just because HQ passes them an email address and an IP.