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.

The latest response sounds more like damage control than real accountability.
Calling it "rushed" or "lax" doesn’t explain why quotes were edited to change their meaning or used to promote unrelated products. That takes intent. When someone’s words about a £20 item are used to sell something completely different at triple the price, it’s not just a sloppy mistake.

The idea that quotes were "always linked to original threads" and not taken out of context doesn’t match what’s been uncovered. People have shown examples where the original post had nothing to do with the item being promoted, or was talking about a different brand entirely.

What’s also clear is that this wasn’t just one or two articles. The scale of editing that happened - quietly, over a weekend - suggests this was a routine way of doing things. That raises real questions about how long it’s been going on and how many users have had their posts misrepresented.

This goes beyond affiliate links. It’s about trust. If someone buys a car seat or baby monitor thinking it came highly recommended by other parents, only to find out it was based on a quote taken wildly out of context, that’s a serious breach of good faith.

If the goal is to fix things, there needs to be real transparency. Not just an audit behind closed doors, but a clear explanation of what changed, how many articles were affected, and what steps are being taken to prevent it happening again.

People aren’t asking for perfection. Just honesty. And so far, that still feels like it’s missing.

What’s most frustrating is the ongoing refusal to call this what it is: deception. Editing user quotes to sell products they never endorsed, then brushing it off as editorial sloppiness, is insulting to the community’s intelligence. This wasn’t a technical glitch or an ambiguous mistake - it was a systematic attempt to manufacture trust and profit from it. If a commercial brand had done this, it would be called out as fake reviews. That’s exactly what this is, and no amount of corporate language changes that.

And finally, Justine’s reply was written by AI.

The long dashes and overly measured cadence are a giveaway. I can only imagine the prompt: "Tell these proles it was an accident."

It's certainly an odd statement, one with inconsistent formatting and editing.

@JustineMumsnet Did you write that statement by yourself, or did someone else have input?

Also, would you please clarify if you've sought legal advice over this? And is that why you have taken so long to respond following your earlier statements?

Oh and also, can we have confirmation that the initial thread, in fact, WAS manipulated so as not to appear in Active conversations?

Justine's reply appears to indicate that she was previously unaware of these 'mistakes,' and therefore must have been as shocked as the rest of us.

'Lax and rushed' seems to have nevertheless produced an apparently consistent and - one assumes - profitable business model over the years

Well, that's the explanation we're getting, and its the one MNHQ thinks we deserve.

Trust has always been at the heart of Mumsnet

😐

"...we’ve been both lax and rushed..."

Actually @JustineMumsnet , wouldn't you say it's the opposite? Searching the site for vaguely relevant quotes, searching back for years, then editing a quote to make it sound like something that it's not.... that actually sounds like a rather purposeful action, don't you think?

Yes I would like confirmation of that too.

I’m speechless tbh

I’d like to know

1. if this thread was shut down on actives
2. if mumsnet acknowledge this was illegal activity and they will report themselves?

They should actually be reporting these for this serious breach of the law..

Our intention has always been to offer genuine, helpful recommendations that we believe Mumsnet users will love. I don’t believe there was ever a deliberate intent to mislead - we’ve always linked user quotes to their original threads and haven’t hidden the context. But, having now reviewed this thoroughly, it’s clear that in some cases we’ve been both lax and rushed in how we've used quotes to support recommendations.

The screenshot in the quoted post seems to be a pretty deliberate attempt to mislead tbh. The MN-manipulated screenshot looks like it's an unedited post just screenshot straight in, but you can't just take out annoying words like 'cheapies' from a 'review' without intending to mislead the reader. You just can't.

Posted the pics again for comparison. I haven't even been following the thread that closely, but this one shocked me. If MN seriously thinks this is okay, where's the line? You can effectively take my very post I'm writing now and change it to say whatever you like, and present your edited version so it looks like the original post - the same format and layout and everything. You're not just being creative with text quotes within an article. This is manipulated to look like a screenshot of a raw post. It's unacceptable.

I appreciate the apology as far as it goes.

”We haven’t hidden the context” and “we linked to the original comment” doesn’t wash when you have altered the quotes and that’s not apparent from the landing page. Users will reasonably decide not to click through on the basis of what they see.

As for “I don’t believe there was ever a deliberate attempt to mislead” - well maybe not in the sense that Mumsnet did not intend to create Swears By articles that recommended classes of products that mumsnetters had no use for at all (“Mumsnet users recommend this concrete mixer!”).

There does however seem to have been an intention in many cases to link a generic recommendation, or a recommendation for a different brand, to a specific product that the OP hadn’t recommended. That is either knowingly false or it is reckless, not caring whether it was true or false (the test for misrepresentation or deceit).

I also note the failure fo address the allegation by many users that MN was suppressing the original thread on Active. I think we can reasonably infer from that, that it did happen. And I do not give MN the benefit of the doubt that they did so to prevent users from mistakenly purchasing electric blankets over the Bank Holiday on the basis of a false recommendation - if they had wanted that, they’d have let the thread stand so people knew not to use Swears By until it had been updated. They did it to protect the integrity of Swears By and stop people from realising what they’d been up to.

This is a good point. Not really lax and rushed then.

Hmm, so how are SWEARS BY products selected?

MNHQ claim the companies "never pay" for this, (except they actually do, in the form of commission...)

So what is the process?

MN: Find a product and go "oh hey GazeboKing, we fancy promoting you, will give us 10% of sales though our link?"
GK: sure thing!!!
MN: great... We'll find a random comment of the product, oh...wait not a single person has ever mentioned GazeboKing... let's find a similar product and put their comments in "I love this gazebo from Homebase it's so handy, light and brilliant".
MNer: ooooh... That's good, I've been after a gazebo, and looks like other MNers swear by it, they think it's great too... Soend spend spend....!

GK: oh wow MN, thanks!! We got a bazillion gazebos sold, here's your commission...

MN: mwhahahahhaah

Or is ir actually...
GazeboKing emails MN Swears By team, going heeeyyyyy, will you promote the GazeboMaster 9000? We'll give you 20% commission...
Which rather actually is a company paying for their place in Swears By (as is the other method...)

I can't see how any method is then not paying for a place I. swears by.

Exactly! Surely this takes a lot longer than the process implied by the "swears by" tag?

To me, swears by suggests Mumsnet spot that a product is being recommended by lots of mumsnetters, decide to give it a "swears by " label and then contact the company to discuss commission...

Whereas it seems to have happened the other way round, a company approaches and asks for the swears by slot, and then lots of creative hunting around (sometimes going back years) happens and then some creative editing if they still can't find a mumsnetter post that endorses the relevant product

The odd mistake over a long period of time could be lax and rushed. Many mistakes over a short period of time would seem deliberate.

For “lax and rushed”

I see

“intentional and methodical” in our deceit

Wow, yes, they have removed a word that alters the meaning fundamentally , but then made it look like a screenshot.

That's not rushed or lax that's deliberate and painstaking

Because this has been ongoing for many years… that would have involved a number of staff, who have handed over to newbies and explained the deceit.

This will be a top down approved, actually encouraged, strategy

I think we all know what was happening and how, not only illegal (as far as the Advertising Standards go) but also massively letting down every single person who believed and trusted MN. That trust I think sadly, and I genuinely mean sadly, has now gone.

I don't think she was ever going to admit what they did as any admission of guilt would lead all sorts of sanctions and so she has to waffle around it hoping to provide as much damage limitation was possible.

Trust these days, particularly online, is such a rare commodity and really sadly MN has destroyed theirs to, what seems like a large number of people.

I wonder if any of the advertisers involved in this… are aware of this thread?

Give it a rest will you. Classics my left nipple.

🤢