To be sick of propaganda on MN

[Apolitia]

Recently there seems to have been an outbreak of fairly overt political propagandising on MN. Scenarios and views presented as ‘just what I think’ which I strongly suspect are not from your average MN punter.

This, and the weird AI/ reddit-type dilemmas (me 31M, 33F blaaah, aargh) that frequently pop up are putting me right off. And I’ve been here for more than a decade.

Mayve I’m just old and grumpy and it’s a sign to put down my phone and talk to actual people :/

That’s totally fine.

This isn’t about criticism and calling people out. That’s really healthy in a democracy.

It’s about the use of social media by propagandists and those who aren’t just chancing by for a chat. There are whole bodies of academic research from within the political science and history disciplines looking at how interest and power groups have shaped public discourse. I’m not saying anything astoundingly new, I’ve just noticed an uptick here on mumsnet and was making an observation.

Whilst there is a problem on many sites with bots be careful of thinking everyone without your opinion is a bot. Unless you love echo chambers?

Give over. People have different opinions, different views. Wide range of people on MN. Why do you think the posts criticising Labour are bots, but the ones criticising the Tories are apparently genuine? I hate the propaganda stuff on the Middle East, but just avoid reading them. Can’t you do the same? The clue is usually in the title - if you see something that’s going to get on your nerves, just scroll on by……

I don’t think that. Why have you presumed I do?

I haven't noticed any uptick, s there were frequent threads criticising the Conservative party
There will obviously be an increase in threads criticising the Labour Party because we now have a Labour government.

You do realise there have been plenty of charities and community orgs making similar concerned comments on the news? I guess they are all thick wimmin too 🙄

I am neither a Labour nor Conservative voter but I entirely expect both Labour and Conservative voters to start threads expressing their opinions.

That Labour supporters think the Tory ones are ‘propaganda’ but their own, presumably, are not (even the dirge I am replying to above) speaks volumes about the Labour mentality.

Agreed

Well this. This is clearly exactly what is happening here.

It’s absolutely bewildering to watch those who allegedly support left wing politics want to exacerbate freedom of speech for others. Aside from being completely undemocratic, it’s screams of low intelligence and an inability to debate current affairs, anyone who dares disagree is a labelled a bot or a Tory. Certain Labour voters want the conversation shut down because it doesn’t suit their personal political agenda. It’s disgraceful. I am neither a Tory nor a Labour voter, if people could allow themselves to be free thinkers, rather than tribally aligned, Mumsnet would be vastly more interesting read.

OP, I think it's reasonable to question whether propagandists are using Mumsnet to influence political discussions. Trouble is being able to identify who the propagandists are? I'm always horrified at posters who descend on threads where women / parents are discussing safeguarding children and accuse women of being "pearl clutchers "etc. Apart from the sexist language, I wonder why safeguarding children threads so attract their attention and scorn? But that's because I place a high store on parents being able to tease out and speak freely about safeguarding children without being shamed.

The motivations of posters are often a mystery and I suppose there's nothing that we can do to "police" it. Imho, MNHQ are pretty swift to identify and ban dodgy posters.

Did you miss the bit where I said I am not a Labour voter?

And no, of course I don’t think Rosie Duffield is a bot - I don’t understand that comment at all. Are you saying that because she is a Labour politician and has crtiticised Labour, that propagandism on social media can’t be a thing? Logically one thing doesn’t follow the other.

YANBU, but I think you need to tread carefully, OP.

I don’t mind pointing out when a real shit stirring post has come out under a new user name, abs I think most of us underestimate the propensity of the gutter press, the Tory party and especially hostile governments for stirring the pot (there has been much research into the last).

But a minority of these posts are from long time Mumsnetters and I think we do owe them the courtesy of civil disagreement

@MermaidEyes ,These WW3 threads; are they the result of people reading the "Armageddon" interpretation of the Global Warming problem as spouted by Just Stop Oil and others? As if the world will suddenly heat up and fry us all.
We know there is a problem and we are managing the thing that we control.

It’s aimed at the many threads which I believe your post addresses, such as the Keir Starmer one on AIBU?

There has been a lot of Tory propaganda which is quite blatantly such on here. It doesn’t even read like normal people’s write iyswim.

All this stuff about expenses and “do you regret voting Labour now?”. It’s really blatant.

Just things that to me do not appear to be written by casual commentators and feel disingenuous

It's a fairly well known site, @Apolitia, so is always going to be targeted by those keen to push something other than a genuinely held personal view

Luckily it's usually pretty easy to spot though, and even easier to scroll by

I think people forget what it was like over the years on here when the Tories were in power. There were so many similar threads on here then, and so much scaremongering about Brexit. How we were going to have massive food shortages etc.

The boots on the other foot now and the Labour supporters on here don't like it. Yes some of it is getting a bit boring now but if you don't like it, just scroll by.

Whether you’re a Labour voter or not isn’t concerning to me. Watching various posters try and undermine mainstream media outlets, to suit their own political views has been a familiar sight on MN, disagreement is frequently framed as ‘Tory’, ‘bot’, ‘Labour champagne socialist’, these are all reductive terms designed to hinder freedom of speech and close the debate. What’s the point of a forum without differing opinions?

Getting tiresome isn’t it? And we’re only a few weeks in…

What I’m saying is that there is clearly discontent and frustration even from Labours very own MPs. Therefore, assuming that posts on here critical of Labour, Starmer or their policies / behaviour are bots does seem strange to me and I don’t mean strange in the sneering way it can be used on here, I genuinely find it hard to understand why someone would assume it wouldn’t be discussed in detail.

Politics and politicians can be a bit like that ‘all fish live in water; not everything that lives in water is a fish’ thing. Brexit is true of that too. ‘I voted Remain’ doesn’t mean ‘I blindly support everything the EU does or did’ just as a Leave vote doesn’t mean someone is against absolutely everything the EU stands for.

I am against some Labour policies; it doesn’t mean I’m against ‘them’. And you know, people will be. A MN that only permits posts critical of the Tories / UKIP isn’t really a forum I’d want to be part of. You don’t have to be a Tory to be able to see that Labour have moved away considerably from their original roots and say what you will, having a penthouse to study in for GCSEs isn’t really what Wat Tyler and the unions were about, is it?

Wwe have had years of do you regret voting for Brexit threads, which I think those who don't regret probably avoid at all costs are they propaganda too ?

See this is exactly what I mean. There are people who didn’t vote for the Tories, but do not like Labour, there are people who voted for Labour and do not like Kier Starmer. Can you not see how reductive it is to dismiss all as propaganda vs. opinions?

I wrote about the country on one of these threads.

Response; well that’s not labours fault is it.

It’s like no shit Sherlock but it is their job to sort it out.

So I don’t know. There probably are bots everywhere, and equally a lot of pissed off people.

Don’t bots require quite sophisticated technology? Surely it’s more likely to be Labour/Conservative party interns? Or just pissed off voters who aren’t particularly literate?