That Mumsnet has people working to skew public opinion on the government

[Twinklelittlestar1]

I see hourly posts from people airing views echoing government agenda. They're often inflammatory and designed to rile people up or push an agenda.

For example with covid, I'm not saying that some people don't back this government's response to covid but the majority of people see that the government's response to covid has been diabolical and resulted in an unforgivable amount of deaths throughout England. Yet we get posters defending them to the hilt and I don't buy it. I suspect Mumsnet has become another source of influence with people working behind the scenes to influence public opinion and perception. I don't believe that Mumsnet is simply a community of people who've come to share interests or concerns, I think it's being used as a platform of influence (and I suspect it has for some time)

I fully suspect some retaliation of 'just because not everyone has the same view doesn't mean something else is going on'.

I just think it's worth considering that you shouldn't believe everything you read in the posts on Mumsnet...

but how does that work @Twinklelittlestar1 with posters also asking for personal advice or the issue of security breaches?

Personally I think the bots are quite easy to spot as when challenged they resort to name calling & lack the ability to debate.

I agree OP, it’s blatantly obvious in some threads like the schools ones. Very little about dentists when that’s a HUGE issue just as an example. Over on the other mums forum for chat it’s disputing depth

It’s discussed in depth rather

There's more than a few posters shouting 'Tory bots' and shills at the most innocuous posts but then you AS them and see they're constantly posting scaremongering bollocks and saying how much they love Keir Starmer..

I was quite hopeful about Keir & the future of the labour party (I'm a floating voter). However I think the whole Priti Patel issue will just turn people off. Does that make me a Tory bot?

It is getting tedious. I have so many threads hidden MNHQ must wonder why I’m on here! Fortunately they have that hide thread facility, and I can enjoy the other threads.

I voted for this party.

I voted to get Brexit done.

I am a remainer.

I have also voted labour in the past.

I am more of a centric voter.

But what's more important is I know my own opinion. I can listen to the other side and reform my opinion if I feel it necessary.

And the most important - I can ignore people who use insults and stupid lines such as "of course you don't agree because you're a lefty" (or whatever)

So yes, there are bots. Sometimes they are bleeding obvious by the username!
Just don't get sucked in by them! What I see is the thread becomes about these bots and everyone quoting them and becomes less about the topic of actual debate.

The issue I have is that this goes largely undetected. If we could see how many posts posters had, it would be a lot easier to detect those with an agenda

Yes this is a good point. It should have date of account creation and number of posts displayed. This is a growing risk to public discussion on the internet generally and I doubt Mumsnet is immune.

‘Personally I think the bots are quite easy to spot as when challenged they resort to name calling & lack the ability to debate.’

And there are no normal posters who fit into that category? Really?

Mumsnet - influence? haha don't give it credit for that. At the most its a petty gripes and gossip site.

There a few reasonable debates that go on but If I wanted proper discussion on important issues I wouldn't think of mumsnet!

Nah unfortunately people just are that stupid. I live in quite a right wing part of the country and people have chosen Boris as the hill they want to die on.

Tbh it was obvious he'd be shit but they lauded him as some sort of saviour of the right. I think they're just too embarrassed to admit what was fucking obviously going to happen has happened.

I will have thousands of posts.
Poster X has thousands of posts.
I have been on MN for 15 years, but don't post that often.
Poster X joined for the referendum but posted incessantly.
How will you know?

Tragically there are people I meet in real life who still defend this Government. People really are that stupid! I'd love to think it was a Mumsnet conspiracy, but those views exist in our communities and so are bound to be represented on this forum.

This has been happening for years.

As an example I haven't seen or heard anyone in real life banging on about teachers being too lazy to have the kids back at school. I mean, I'm not a teacher and I'm not a particular teacher cheerleader, but really, in a global pandemic, with overcrowded schools and classrooms and no money invested to make space, the reason that people who've decided to devote their working lives to children's education are wary is laziness? No one normal thinks that.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel 🤣 yep my bad!

I doubt mumsnet themselves would bother, but 'bot' accounts that are pro trump etc are well known on large forums such as reddit, who have done a lot of research into them and started publishing proven bot accounts so people can see the kind of things they post.

No doubt it happens here too

There has been a few threads about this recently, more and more people are noticing it.

I assume OP means people are using MN rather than MN being responsible. Which isn't a particularly out there view. There are regimes that actually pay people to go and shill certain views on social media, anything popular enough is potentially worth targeting. And there are journos on here fishing for stories, people selling, all kinds of shit, so the idea that there might be people trying to use it for political reasons is plausible enough.

There are clearly bots posting on here. There’s one who might as well start her posts with ‘view from the government bot’ she’s so obvious.

The clue is that they follow the government line on everything, defend the absolutely indefensible and use all manner of distraction techniques to deflect blame away from Bozo and chums.

People are fairly entrenched in their views on here. Threads run on because two sides clash, hardly do you see someone far to the right or left say oh yes I see what you mean I’ll vote otherwise. People in the middle get it from all sides anyway from everyone.

A few more posts convincing people won’t do much. Plus it’s pretty easy to get a sense of who is posting normally imo.

But still no point in thinking there isn’t a large amount made up and treat accordingly.

There are bots for the left and the right, there are genuine posters with strong opinions either way put eloquently, there are posters who just parrot what they’ve picked up here and there and there are many advertising posts, dressed as genuine recommendations.

A bit of everything really.

There was one poster who was on when Johnson was very ill, wrongly claiming there was no procedure in the UK for who steps in if the sitting PM dies and that this was going to lead to instability and unrest if he did. They used 'you' for Britain but then claimed to be British. It was very obviously a bot.

Yanbu op

Not sure the bots are the ones to watch out for tbh. There was one who seemed to revel in how many deaths we had or were predicted & was on loads of Covid threads. I think they came back & did a smug told you so thread, is that what a dementor is?

A dementor is not necessarily a bot, but of course they could still be one.