Bullying and mumsnet

[hattiecattie]

I'm a long time lurker since I had my DD 8 years ago. I have noticed since the first day I joined mumsnet that there is a huge bullying culture here that takes place. I have witnessed so many pile ons happen to desperate people asking for help. Even if you don't agree with someone, there's no need to be cruel.

I wonder if there's a way that MNHQ can challenge this? Shut down bullying on this site as soon as it occurs.

I agree with you OP. A couple of months ago I agreed with someone on a Covid thread about the amount of people mixing and not caring about the rules any more. There was a long list of people sending laughing emojis at my post, and comments making out I must want to stay isolated forever etc, really horrible and mocking me. I left the thread and changed my name, but I felt shaky and horrible. All I was saying was to keep to the rules, I wasn't saying anything extreme at all. I never look at Covid threads now, and certainly won't get involved in them again!

"Are you sniffing glue?"
"ODFOD"
"You need to drive straight to a psychiatrist"

All of those would be deleted if reported.

Which goes back to my original question does everyone want this site fully moderated like other sites?

If people want a more actively moderated site, there are plenty to choose from.

MN was plagued a little while ago by a troll, who kept starting threads about his nasty MN were and how we should be nicer. It was an effort to keep women in their place, and roundly rejected. Because women don't have to be nice all the time, and people liked having one site where it's possible to escape the expectation of what women should be like.

Also, instead of going on about his nasty MN can be, you can instead use the solution at your fingertips. Post the advice and responses that you think are better on the thread itself.

I think some threads can get into bullying, and do think a like button would help.

However you also have the other way where someone posts what is clearly a rather biased version of something, and you get people egging on an Op in a situation where the Op could well be bullying in rl. This often happens on mil/sil threads.

I think a "like" button would have the opposite effect

It would be even further polarising

I think a Like button will probably appear at some point even though hardly anyone wants it.
People can then engage even less if commenting is so difficult.
Posters are already using the AIBU topic as some sort of poll. I always vote YABU just for doing that.

Having said that, some people are just downright nasty for the sake of it and I think the ease of name changing enables that

I agree. I see the value in name changing, but wonder if it could be limited more.

The robust responses, even if many, are fine.

But there is absolutely a tendency for aggressive, personal, attacking posts, when the consensus is against the OP.

They can be reported (& I do, a lot) but it's hard to manage a thread (for MNHQ) when that becomes ubiquitous.

If you disagree with tone or personalised attacks, you often become to target of unpleasant comments then.

Aibu is like the Coliseum: it attracts people who are angry/bored/malicious and need someone to kick.

Well put!

Hide Thread is a very good function. If it’s all getting too much in your opinion just hide it. Find another thread to engage with.

I agree there is bullying. I am quite used to it but when you stop to think about it, it is very unpleasant.

I report quite a bit, I think people need to make an effort to do that more.

I* report quite a bit, I think people need to make an effort to do that more.*

I agree with this too.

Some of the responses on this thread show so much ignorance about bullying it is shocking.

I see a lot of pile-ons, but I wouldn't call that bullying as such - maybe others would.
A poster asks AIBU and lots of people disagree in a forthright way - fair enough.
Someone makes a nasty comment to someone, and lots of others pile in with the same - that is bullying.

threads can sometimes turn a bit horrible in places but not sure it’s possible to bully an anonymous stranger
You are kidding, right?

As a general life rule I think if someone is upsetting you on an Internet forum then it’s time for you to step away
Again, if someone is upset because people aren't agreeing with them, that is one thing. But why should someone leave a generally supportive forum because they are being bullied?

What really happened OP? Did you get your arse handed to you and a thread deleted?
Great example of an unkind and unnecessary comment.

-I also think you should know however that a lot of Mumsnet users on AIBU use an unspoken culture of "robustness" or "handing someone's arse to them on a plate" as a cover for vindictiveness and insults.
Exactly.

MNHQ cannot possibly read every thread so we all need to report threads where we see people being bullied, even if you're not the victim yourself

I don't see bullying. Bullying is usually sustained, inescapable, targeted. In AIBU spats between two posters are frequent and some people are rude but there's no power dynamic. If X calls me a name I can report if I want to. I can namechange and X won't know who I am next time. Even if I don't name change X is unlikely to follow me across the boards.

Of course there are some unpleasant posters - and some unpleasant views held by posters but that isn't bullying.
We could of course start a counter culture of shutting down every opinion that was demeed Not OK. I suspect it won't be long before that happens.

The other problem I find is that there are often attacks on OP which possibly don't meet the threshold of MNHQ deletion - but they are haranguing, aggressive, hurtful & (I'm going to say it) plain mean. Cumulatively they make for a deeply unpleasant thread.

I see MNHQ challenge here. Deleting could cross over into censorship.

Often in these cases, the thread gets deleted in full. I think that's a shame as good advice is lost, and potentially OP is left feeling shit, without access to the supportive posts.

We could of course start a counter culture of shutting down every opinion that was demeed Not OK. I suspect it won't be long before that happens.

It's not about alternative views. It's really about tone & approach eg twisting & turning points to create a different construct, rather than arguing meaningfully.

It destroys the thread, and is nasty.

@TheVanguardSix that's terrible, I'm so sorry

I've been realising the same recently - some people can't seem to cope with the realisation that bad things can happen to good people, or that some problems don't have any straightforward solutions (the latter has been especially true on covid-related topics). So if you're in a shitty situation they have to find a way to twist it into being your own fault somehow, even if that defies all reason, otherwise they might have to acknowledge that life is complicated and often unfair. It's a very infantilised view of the world IMO, but it seems to be oddly prevalent among a minority of MN posters.

Tone and approach are subjective though.
I agree no-one likes a nasty poster unless people can challenge or dispute the facts there's really no point.

@Sparklingbrook

"Are you sniffing glue?" "ODFOD" "You need to drive straight to a psychiatrist"

All of those would be deleted if reported.

Which goes back to my original question does everyone want this site fully moderated like other sites?

Oh come on that's a specious argument at best.

Why are we talking about deletion and moderation, when people could moderate their own behaviour instead by just not posting this kind of thing?

And let's not always turn to the invisible bogeymen that are "trolls" as explanation of why such posts exist.

There are regular active users with usernames of five years standing who have posted on multiple threads today alone , who have all used the "sniffing glue", "go see a psychiatrist" comments.

So it's not the Russian bots or the incels to blame. It's people with cutesy usernames who post vitriol on here knowing it's a lightly moderated site operating on a reactive basis

Sorry - there should be a BUT in there...

The problem in part is a strong herd mentality - a lot depends on the first two or three posts because the rest tend to follow the same line, at least for a time. I've also noticed that, particularly at night, you see some really weird responses which I suspect are from people who are insomniac or do work that leaves them with time on their hands.

It's quite interesting - and enjoyable - to see what happens when there's a pile-on and then two or three posters go against the group mentality and post something sensible that supports the OP. That brings a few more supporters out of the woodwork and often the whole thread turns round, so that if anything it's the people attacking OP who get piled on after that. It's quite satisfying to see the bullies not getting the support they expected.

I like the ones where people trawl previous posts in order to make out you are a liar.

Like you can’t have a problem with a loved one day and still love them all the other days. It taught me to change/rotate my name.

I've seen threads taken out of active or moved out of busy sections of the site if they are getting too nasty. You do need to report them though as HQ won't know otherwise. I've occasionally seen nasty threads get deleted, but it isn't usually because the op is getting attacked, but because other posters are fighting tooth and nail with one another and personally attacking, troll hunting etc. I do think if an op posts on here, HQ tend to leave them to it, to a point, even if it looks as if they didn't expect a pasting and are clearly getting distressed. I've reported someone's thread, I think on the Covid board, because I felt so sorry for her. Think it stayed up, but it was an awful thread about her weight and Covid.

Oh come on that's a specious argument at best.

I disagree. While MNHQ rely on reports it’s all we have. People could moderate themselves but they don’t. 🤷‍♀️

@Zzelda

That's spot on about what happens when one or two posters point out the poor argument in the initial pile-on. Then everyone realises, and the thread turns on it's head.

It's like watching shoals of fish suddenly change direction and move as one together

The bar is already pretty low For what will be removed as not in the spirit. And this makes it a bit of an echo chamber at times. As you cannot meaningfully challenge posts. Be too brutal and no matter how correct you are you are you are likely to get removed. I wish it was a bit more like Twitter or piston heads (without the sexism) where more cut and thrust comments were allowed.