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.

Yes it definitely wasn't showing over the weekend but it was showing this morning.

I agree - nothing to do with being rushed. It takes far longer to find, edit and misrepresent a quote than it does to just use a quote that exists in an unaltered form. It’s clearly a deliberate act by someone or people to deceive. Why else do it?

Just placemarking

@JustineMumsnet

Thank you for returning with an update that acknowledges this has been more widespread than you initially believed.

Whilst the apology and explanation is not entirely satisfactory, I understand that it is as far you will go to comment on the matter.

This draws a line under it for me. Complaints that have been made to regulators will continue to run their course and I hope you will be honest and transparent in dealing with those, and will put in place sufficient measures to avoid further wrongdoing.

Slightly different flavour of bullshit from MNHQ this time, but bullshit nonetheless. They didn’t have much choice but to row back on the 1% claim, given the evidence, but lax and rushed, really? Whoops, I was so lax and rushed that I spent time carefully editing out the words that identified the product a poster was recommending, so that I could use it to promote a different one. And I don’t see how you can argue no attempt to mislead when you are deliberately misquoting posters to persuade people to buy items that have never actually been recommended by MNers. “MN swears by” my arse. More like “not one of our many users has ever recommended this product, but they’re paying us, so here’s a review of something else which we’ve doctored to completely change the sense and con you into buying this product, might be good, might be shit, who knows, who cares as long as we get paid, no need to thank us” 👍

It’s also glaringly obvious that this is not about noticing that lots of MNers seem to love a product, and sharing that with everyone as some kind of public service. If it were that, you’d be able to use contemporary quotes from people recommending that particular gazebo, instead of 8-year-old quotes about gazebos in general. You wouldn’t need to edit out bits that give the game away, like the inconvenient “kindle”. It must be the other way around - we have a customer and need to find a way of promoting their product - go and find some posts that recommend it, and if there aren’t any, find some you can doctor to make it work.

For future updates, maybe imagine you are posting to a bunch of intelligent, informed, cynical, disappointed and very pissed off grown ups, many of whom are lawyers or work in marketing / advertising / promotions. Pretend you give a shit about your users and try to hide the fact that you think they’re morons. Ask yourself - am I about to make a tit of myself here? It’s actually toe curling, how badly this is being handled.

"MN swears by” my arse. More like “not one of our many users has ever recommended this product, but they’re paying us, so here’s a review of something else which we’ve doctored to completely change the sense and con you into buying this product, might be good, might be shit, who knows, who cares as long as we get paid, no need to thank us”

Exactly!

If it was true to its branding there would need to be any, erm, creativity with the truth. because there would be heaps of recent recommendations from Mumsnetters for that specific product

They actually say “Swears By taps into the collective wisdom of Mumsnetters to find the best products for you and your family. Every item has been recommended by real parents, so you can shop with confidence.”

Obviously a barefaced lie, but no intention to mislead, oh no, definitely not 🤦‍♀️

More like “Swears By is a moneymaking scheme where we try to persuade posters to buy products that we are being paid to promote. We look for recommendations that match the product and if there aren’t any, no problem, we simply make one up! Items might have been recommended by real parents, might not. Good luck with trying to find safe products for your babies, suckers.”

@JustineMumsnet thats a very magnanimous response from @Wondermoomin I think it’s clear that MNHQ hasn’t fully accepted how deceptive they have been, or indeed that what they did was deliberate and wrong. Perhaps as a gesture of contrition a percentage of the affiliate / adversing revenue received as a result of the deception could be donated to an appropriate charity?

no, they should report themselves to the ASA ... take the fine and actually learn the lesson

let's hope MN doesn't start making accounts and creating fake recommendations now ...

Oh god yes, that will be next 🤦‍♀️
They’re probably kicking themselves that they didn’t think of that sooner.

Little quiz for MNHQ:

You have been asked to promote a product for money using user recommendations. But no users have actually recommended it. Do you:

a) decide it’s probably best not to promote it using user recommendations in that case

b) find some vaguely similar user recommendations for other products, edit them and pretend they were referring to the product you are promoting

c) using a fake account, post a recommendation of the product in question, then use that to promote the product

d) well it all depends, how much money are we talking about?

There is that of course. Lets hope they are honest about what they've done. I wonder if they have self-referred, as an organisation with integrity would...? Or are they just keeping their heads down and hoping that the reports from MN users don't go anyywhere - and in the meantime conceal any evidence of fake reviews...?

This is in active threads.

There's clearly no conspiracy to hide it.

Just a bunch of posters who never once made a mistake at work. They're the ones who've never had an affair, their kids have never done anything wrong. They'd be the perfect stepmum of coursr. Pure paragons of virtue.

No doubt sprinkled in with a bunch of bitter men and TRAs

Oh come on, it's not one mistake.... It's an ongoing breach of the law...

The previous thread was hidden over the weekend. Lots of us checked it.
A mistake is something you do a few times, not a persistent and detailed pattern of acting

.

It seems now that I will never accept an MN product recommendation or click on any link that they are promoting. I simply can't trust it to be truthful.

So, back to old fashioned asking friends and family or just using my nous and reading about the product on trusted websites.

What have stepmums, bitter men and TRAs got to do with anything?

It’s ok to object to illegal and deceptive practices you know - there isn’t some sort of morality threshold below which you just have to put up with being conned, lied to and fobbed off. Consumer law is there to protect everyone, not just people whose behaviour and views you approve of.

I know, I find it baffling that anyone is leaping to their defence.

It's one thing to just not care about Mr-wormword-car -salesman levels of trickery. We all have different values.

But I can't imagine anyone other than perhaps a MN staffer themselves thinking there's anything defensible about this

Well they're very silly if they think they can just edit the posts and hope that's enough... They SURELY understand that people have actual copies and there's an internet archive...

If they were that bright they wouldn’t have gone down the path they did… ;)

This thread is in active now but the previous one wasn't when it was being regularly posted on

Not surprisingly both things can be true

For future updates, maybe imagine you are posting to a bunch of intelligent, informed, cynical, disappointed and very pissed off grown ups, many of whom are lawyers or work in marketing / advertising / promotions. Pretend you give a shit about your users and try to hide the fact that you think they’re morons. Ask yourself - am I about to make a tit of myself here? It’s actually toe curling, how badly this is being handled.

It's baffling isn't it, @NormaMajors1992coat? MN blatantly treats its members like mushrooms: keeps us in the dark for as long as possible and feeds us shit.

Careful guys, I criticised the appearance of a couple of known Mumsnet defenders and got a 'Mumsnet Calling' email

Very interesting 🧐