Part 2: MN misrepresentation in recommendations: a depressing blend of abject amateurism and outright greed

[Wondermoomin]

Welcome to part 2. The quote I’ve added in the title is actually a generic quote about MNHQ not specifically about product recommendations, but it’s very eloquent and quotable.

Here is part one: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5326652-mn-have-used-my-quote-to-promote-a-product-ive-never-bought

And here’s a brief summary so far:

• MN were caught out, allegedly acting in breach of ASA guidelines among other things
• The thread was temporarily hidden
• MN then provided a few explanation posts saying that this was a one-off cock-up and sorry that we MNers were confused
• Then we were told that in 99% of cases, the quotes refer to the specific products being featured; in a tiny minority, they are referring to a generic product category and will make that clearer
• Several users easily discovered multiple other examples, suggesting that it wasn’t just 1% of cases, or a one-off cock-up
• MN went on an editing spree of their swears by/recommendations sections (editing about 64 out of 75 things), also suggesting it’s not just 1% or an isolated cock-up
• The thread largely disappeared from active and trending, suggesting it’s been suppressed
• MN says it hasn’t been suppressed, threads appear in active based on popularity and how new they are
• Another MN source shows that they do sometimes remove threads from active to give them a chance to “calm down”

Please feel free to use this thread to capture any other examples you find, to update on anything you hear back from ASA, to provide your own professional or common sense input.

If you don’t agree, it’s probably not the thread for you so please feel free to pass on by! An issue doesn’t have to be the most pressing matter of our times to be important, and I think it’s important that trusted brands don’t mislead consumers.

That's awful @Wondermoomin

No doubt we'll soon get a patronising 'Just popping our head round the door folks' type inane comment on this thread

That's the thing I'm dreading tbh. MNHQ tried that on the first thread. It would be the last straw for me.

I'm fairly sure that Justine et al are taking legal advice and seperately deciding what approach they're going to take with members.

I would urge them this time to be serious, transparent and NOT insult the intelligent women on MN once more by telling them that they're 'confused.'

For those who haven’t ploughed through the whole of the first thread, MNHQ said that only a tiny percentage of Swears By had used recommendations that weren’t for the specific items.

If you look at the Swears By articles on the site you will see that there has been a lot of “updating” going on since the first thread on 1 May. Including of an article about Black Friday 2024 deals on electric blankets….

LOVE your name 💕💕💕💕💕

Same with the heated socks, edited on May 2nd. It now says "type of product recommended" to stop me from getting confused.

Also sneaky that the original recommendation had the he word "cheapies" removed as at over £70 for socks, the ones being promoted were not.

Next up, heated gloves. How strange... Debenhams and the price was removed from this one. I wonder why? The promoted were much more expensive. Funny that.

There's a definite pattern emerging isn't there!!

(They should have just taken down all the swears by stuff down over the bank holiday weekend!)

There’s quite a bit more tidying up to do on the articles they didn’t get to on Friday.

Take shapewear. The “Best tummy and waist shapewear” award of 20 December 2024 goes to the Dorina Bridget Super High Control Brief, purchasable by clicky links from Very and ASOS.

The (sole) Mumsnetter who is supposed to have Tried and Tested this item is DSGR. Let’s see what DSGR actually said in the linked August 2022 thread about holding in a tummy:

“I find the M&S freecut shorts are brilliant for this. The high waisted ones. But if you truly want holding in, it has to be control pants!”

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/style_and_beauty/4603945-good-knickers-for-larger-middles?reply=118992653

Unfortunately DSGR’s first two sentences were omitted from the recommendation. Poor old M&S!

As usual they will pretend like they're doing this from the back bedroom after having given the kid their tea and put DH on bedtime...

Getting ahead for 2025!

And here’s the photo of the SwearsBy article.

I found this in active, if that helps

Ive never opened a 'swears by' or 'promoted by MN' post

I assumed they would be marketing and a load of BS.

Some of these examples are indisputable breaches of the regulations.

I wonder what MN’s next steps will be.

I see that the editing blitz has continued over the weekend - hadn’t realised that.

It’s really not a good look for MN that these topics on products for pregnancy and early parenthood apparently needed emergency attention over a Bank Holiday weekend.

I was chatting with a friend about this very thing. She was furious about the possibility people have been buying car seat/child safety-related equipment etc based on dodgy/fictional MN reviews.

Did no one, at any point, say 'hang on guys, isn't this really, really unethical?'

Lots of arse covering, there.

Wow. That is all new since I posted on Saturday (3 May) about the numbers of Swears By articles I had seen that had been edited. They really have been working hard to eliminate that “tiny fraction” of posts that had recommendations that weren’t for the specific product.

I just counted on the Pregnancy and Baby Care Swears By page that 44 articles have been edited between 1 May and today (yes, they were editing an article today rather than responding to any of our concerns).

The articles they have amended are for things like baby seats, cots and mattresses. All these are items that you would expect a site for mothers to take particular care over recommending.

Why have all these articles been edited so recently, including over the Bank Holiday weekend?

https://www.mumsnet.com/h/swearsby/pregnancy-and-baby-care

(BTW my tally on the last thread was from this page, which is supposed to be “See all in Swears By” but doesn’t seem to include the baby specific articles, so it’s an additional 44 I have just counted https://www.mumsnet.com/h/swearsby)

Fabulous work OP.

I’m a bit worried you may just ‘disappear’ soon though. It’s amazing how many posters who have raised issues get banned soon after. Watch your back. 😉

They’ll say that they’ve edited them out of an abundance of caution to go above and beyond for their Mumsnetters. Or something similar. They will claim that it has all been done for our best interests even though only a tiny fraction needed it. Of course no one can actually judge that for themselves now.

Wow. Read this thread a few days ago before it mysteriously disappeared. Fake recommendations for gazebos are one thing, but doing this for car seats with the headline 'safest picks tested by parents' is surely crossing a whole other line.

Placemarking. Thanks OP for starting another.

I just noticed a comment on the other thread about NW either not being identifiable or that anyone could claim to be a NWer

You can tell the real ones by the blue background we have when posting 😄

Placemarking

I subscribe to Which?
I wonder what they would say.