To ask how to recognise a Bot on Mumsnet please?

[Dabralor]

Overnight and today, there are lots of really weird posts about the Oval Office events that just sound really off. Lots of sudden negativity around Zelenskyy, lots of fearmongering about war and lots of reframing of Ukraine's status as a sovereign nation with a democratically elected government. It's a kind of content that you don't normally associate with Mumsnet. I find it really jarring with the kind of forum this normally is.

AIBU to think a lot of these posts are not from real people at all but junk content being fed into Mumsnet on purpose to confuse and blindside us all? If it was real people, then fair enough - we are all entitled to our own views and should be welcome to subject them to robust scrutiny. However, this content just doesn't feel real- its timing and volume feels part of an agenda.

How can you tell if a Mumsnet account is potentially botty or from a troll farm? Does anyone have any tips? I'd really appreciate how to screen the posts I am reading properly so that I can check for provenance.

Ps this is not me wishing for an echo chamber where everyone agrees all the time. I just worry that insidious ideas are being purposefully fed in and spread about.

Another thing I'd like to know - Facebook has removed all its fact-checking in the same way as twitter x. Does Mumsnet fact check anything or does it rely on posters just reporting stuff we happen to spot?

this is not me wishing for an echo chamber where everyone agrees all the time

Yes it is! 😁

No, it's just that I don't trust whether the people interacting with us here are actually real people. Is it unreasonable to worry about this?

Most threads are about opinions rather than facts so fact-checking won't be much help. Someone can have an opinion you disagree with without them being a "bot" designed to manipulate you or break down western society.

It would be unusual if those types of posts weren't on Mumsnet tbh. They are everywhere. If it seems off, it probably is. YANBU at all. See the increase in poverty-bashing threads also.

If I told you I'd have to kill you. 😁Seriously explaining how to spot a bot makes cleverer bots.

This site is used by lots of teenagers who think it's funny to make stuff up. It is also probably targeted by bots from political parties and maybe foreign governments. So there is a lot of fake content but from time to time very useful and well informed stuff too. I doubt anyone can spot all the bots all the time.

I'm never sure what people mean by a 'bot'. Is this some AI that randomly creates threads from different emails? I've no idea how that works.

I do think that a good proportion of threads on relationships and AIBU are totally made up and the thread written via AI. Generally spotted by being long and complex with no paragraphs and the OP never returns.