To be fed up of the political manipulation on mumsnet

[ZenNudist]

It's incessant and it's wearing. It's been going on for years and I'm fed up of the massive amount of tory party generated and lobbying content blocking up mumsnet.

I appreciate mumsnet is seen as a key voter demographic but a lot of the threads being posted are so transparently fiction.

The billion VAT on school fees threads must have been a mix of real people and tory HQ.

Fake outrage started immediately and now well into saying that with less than 4 Months of government and before enacting their first budget the Labour Party are apparently making a mess of everything and reversing the great gains made during tory rule. What great gains? I don't know. I saw one post trying to take tory credit for reducing inflation like that was Rishi's doing, laughable.

I also have seen a few fake scenarios for adverse impact of the budget on inheritance and small business taxation. Speaking as someone who will be adversely affects by increasing employer NI and the reduction in business property relief I still support these changes. My friends who are small business owners feel the same way.

Labour promised not to put up the main rates of income tax and employee NI. They were clear that measures would need to be taken to increase the tax take. They still are trying to drive growth because at the end if the day increasing the tax base is the best way of increasing revenue to the exchequer.

I know a lot of mumsnetters say they can't spot trolls or AI threads. I also think a lot of people will not spot the blatant manipulation by lobbyists and tory campaigners.

Tory party now playing a long game.

The Tory party is funded by the rich for the benefit of the rich. The rest of the middle, the poor, the marginalised have almost no voice and no one funding a political machine to work in our favour.

Yeah I don’t agree with a lot of posters but I give them the benefit of the doubt that they are expressing their own views and aren’t posting cynically. Of course debates get heated etc but I’ve never bothered accusing someone of being something because I’m focused on what they are saying. Play the ball not the man and all that.

I think it’s just very common now that people try to discredit or mock rather than actually refute someones points. It’s a failure of debate.

Some of the ones during the election were brilliant.

One declared himself as 'A middle aged female suburban public sector worker.'

@TygerLyt but this really isn't unique to Labour-try having a relatively neutral conversation in many forums not just mumsnet without being called a rabid lefty or a snowflake or a Remoaner or worse by many Tory or Reform voters. To some of them anything left of Hitler is a rampant lefty.

Personally I accept there are a broad range of views on all kinds of things - I agree with some views from all the main parties , and disagree with others and am happy to say why. What I don't agree with is rampant 'trolling' by people paid to do such activities as part of their job/ business under the guise of 'Mrs concerned citizen' and I don't care which party they are from.

I do find it's fairly even both ways.

There doesn't appear to be any room for nuance.

There are a fair few posters who were previous labour voters who feel disenfranchised because Labour are wedded to an ideology that we can't support, that's not surprising on a site predominantly used by women and mothers, but it's totally baffling that we are accused of being Tory bots.

I have found though over recent times that since my 'rose tinted' the left is perfect glaze has shifted I'm more aware of the way people who dare to criticise the righteous left are sneered at. This is the same on posts about the Democrats. I'm no Trump supporter but woe betide anyone point out that there are good reasons that some people in the USA are dissatisfied with the Democrats.

I think this is a shame. Ultimately tribalism will destroy democracy, at least it's currently pointing that way.

I'm sorry, but this is just a tired old trope trotted out to shut down discussion whenever right-wingers become don't want to confront their own prejudices.

While genuine concerns around immigration exist, racial and religious biases clearly drive the majority of those worries. The fact that discourse is so relentlessly focused on asylum seekers, the least significant category in terms of overall migration but the only group predominantly Muslim, ought to put that beyond doubt.

If there were genuine concerns over the impact of migration, opponents would be protesting legal migration first and foremost. And if their issue was strictly with 'illegal migration', they’d have turned their attention to the Indian, Chinese, and Vietnamese visa overstayers, who far outnumber asylum seekers. Yet, we've not seen any protest target those groups.

The only conclusion you can reach is that people who claim to be concerned about migration are really motivated by underlying biases that they refuse to acknowledge and discuss openly.

And oddly enough the left and right are actually united as far as wanting to stop the boats are concerned. The difference is the left want to do so by setting up safe and efficient routes to ensure they get the help they deserve, while the right want to turn their backs on them completely (or actively sink their boats/machine gun them as they come ashore in some cases).

Maybe Labour have learnt Rishi's lesson on inflation. Make something really bad whilst your chancellor so that you can claim credit for reversing it when your PM. I think lots of people have opinions on both sides. That is the good thing about the UK we can have different opinions.

This is the sort of bot I can't stand, unable to see the wood for the trees.

Were you here during Brexit?

I still wonder about the arch Brexiteer @mummytime who disappeared without trace on June 24, 2016.

I think a lot of trolls get through.

Food security & the environment not your thing eh?

Don't want to make a TAAT but wanting to keep the nations food supply in tact ought not be considered a right wing position. That was a very good thread and showed an awful lot of ignorance as to the need to keep our farming secure from people so convinced that the rich must pay up without realising the impact on food supply.

Pots and kettles!

No I completely agree with you.

The poster I quoted said

Was it the suicidal multimillionaire octogenarian farmer that pushed you over the edge?

So they obviously thought the farm poster was a bot, but also failed to comprehend that the octogenarian they were talking about isn't a millionaire.
I was horrified by the replies on that post, people who failed to understand that owning farm land, whilst valuable, doesn't have any actual value when it is just dirt. Yes they maybe asset rich but once it is sold it is gone for ever.

In a time or worldwide upheaval and political uncertainty food security is especially important.

Yeah I’m so bored of it too. I don’t know why I’m even still here, it’s become ridiculous

apologies @MrsRobinsonsHandprints I misread your post.

Likewise, by labour voters even though I don't have any political affiliation- not from the uk.

Off you pop then!

If anyone actually wants to understand the situation with farming better then this book is very informative.

www.amazon.co.uk/Bittersweet-Brexit-Farming-Chomsky-Perspectives/dp/0745337708/

I bought it in the bookshop of the Toldpuddle Martyrs' Museum.

Which I found a very educational day out.

Even though I am somewhat right of centre myself.

I like hearing different points of view.

It is the 'we need to get rid of the conservatives if they get in I will be raging and crying and will move to Mars' so when Labour gets in 'we need to get them out' and so the dramatic continues

@Fordian I didn't notice it so much with Brexit, or questioned less who was making up all these posts. Without sounding too tinfoil hat, Russian interference in that election is now understood to have happened and it may have made it as far as mumsnet.

I think you can spot some profile building posts as well. Babynames has always been rife with it.

In the run up to the election and now trying to control the post election narrative the Tory HQ posts are so obvious and it's so unbalanced. Overwhelming the site which is my complaint.

I'm not trying to say that normal right leaning mumsnetters can't have an opinion or post. If it were just that it would be fine, but it's all the issues led bullshit that doesn't sound like a real person.

I'm not saying don't hold the government to account but I do say wait and see. You can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear and Rome wasn't built in a day.

Politics plays out in short media cycles but the decisions made by our leaders cast a long shadow. We are currently paying the price of decisions taken by Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, Johnson, Sunak and Truss, all of whom have directly affected mine and my children's lives. You could not have told, 4 months into their premiership (apart from Truss) what those implications were going to be.

Did op really believe after such a poor and lacklustre performance that MN was going to be singing Labour’s praises?

Labour got in on false promises and fake news, and a manufactured public sector crisis led by the unions.
And now they are like children with the keys to Daddy’s car and our credit card on tap. It is scary for the rest of us. The adults in the room.

You can continue to play your anthem of bots and Tory HQ because the public are dismayed and disappointed, and are coming here to express themselves. But honestly could you at least change the record? Maybe AI and Elon Musk? It shows a lack of creativity and imagination by screeching bot every time someone says quite accurately that Labour are <word of choice>

It’s actually putting me off this site to be honest. It’s relentless. I’ve been on here for well over a decade and it used to be a bit ‘cut and thrust’ as well as funny. However, it’s now 80% online political influencer content.

If people think make up brands pay influencers, I don’t know why they don’t think there aren’t people paid to flood social media and forums such as this with political influencing.

There will be online marketing specialists who’ve done demographic research and have a PowerPoint deck with ‘Mumsnet Woman’ with a bullet point list of our ‘attributes’ and how to target us.

Don't be ridiculous! He was completely responsible for his own downfall. The harrowing evidence given by numerous people at the Covid Enquiry, including those who worked closely with him, made it clear that he was lazy, incompetent and completely out of his depth. He was defenestrated by his own colleagues.

It's odd as there are loads of people clearly annoyed with Labour, it's shown in polling and groups and yet some on mn think this site would be devoid of any of that. Just pro Labour

Why would it be? The only way is if pp try to drive off differing opinions, which to be fair is done with bot accusations and insults etc

There's a brilliant function on Mumsnet where you can "block" a part of the forum you don't like. Maybe try that?

You see the silencing of real opinion all of the time.

It is scary how little they value alternative points of view, and unless it is exactly their narrative then it’s dismissed as a bot or AI and ignored.

Then they squeal when something unexpected happens, despite the obvious writing on the wall.

We should put listening and respecting all opinions back into the school curriculums. It’s a key life skill and a democratic society relies on it.
It seems many on here would be happiest in Russia, China or NK. I can’t imagine what their kids are listening to.

Do you respect all opinions?