"This could be outing"

[TalkToTheHand123]

Is it me or are people not seriously paranoid? There are millions of people in the country so people getting jittery believing they could be outed over personal statements seems a bit daft.

Yes and no - I posted a thread when I left my partner years ago, and some busy body thought it worth telling him what I’d posted based on their columbo skills

Maybe they do know a lot of people who use MN? It’s a hugely popular forum and if the issue is specific enough it could be outing

otoh - your partners hobby (cycling or golf) is probably not outing

Sometimes yes, but I have on at least two occasions seen posts where I’m 95% certain it’s someone I know because the facts were so specific.

I recognised a friend once. She has a very niche job and the other details were clearly her.

and i have had someone recognise me as i replied to a thread with a story they recognised.

but yes my dh’s hobbies are not at all outing.

There's a couple of people i know who know that this username is me.

But I only use it for general replies (like this) or when I've posted about my late son (I think my first post was about him, hence the name)

I name change if it's anything that I wouldn't want people in real life to know about, like work related, health etc and thats very rare

I’ve recognised a friend on here

I've recognised two people on here (and confirmed it with them, and everyone name changed).

As long as people insist on doing searches for unrelated previous posts no one is going to feel safe enough to be completely open - it's meant to be anonymous, can't people respect that?

I’ve been recognised twice over my many years on this forum, and identified a number of people ranging from a sibling ( who I didn’t know was on MN) to a parent of a child I taught. It most definitely is possible.

I posted something really mundane once. Mundane like that I like Wallace & Grommit or I make a nice stew.

Really, really mundane.

I got a PM telling me I’d outed myself.

People have been outed so yes some things are outing….

I recognised a friend on netmums correctly and I use netmums once every decade sooooo

Info can be cross ref'd with previous posts.

Yes there are millions of people. What proportion do you think it is okay to be identified and how great does the potential impact have to be for them not to want that?

The DH’s ‘outing hobby’ ones are nuts, especially given the wealth of information /specifics usually shared alongside which I suppose if someone was that way inclined could be used to identify or ‘out’ a poster. Certainly, the usual naff golf, cycling, rugby LD running, climbing, train spotting, orienteering hobbies - are unlikely to give the game away ffs

I mean, unless it’s an extremely rare hobby or interest such as exploring Japanese poetry via the medium of mime and single finger levitation / or whittling chess pieces out of bananas I mean c’mon!

Things I’ve posted would have been really outing if the people in the situation had read it. It would have been obviously me. I change my user name and in the situations I describe I’ll change non key information that doesn’t distract from the key problem.

There was a parking thread this week where the OP wouldn’t draw a diagram as would be outing 😂😂

You can cross post stuff but also now with AI you can ask it to tell you everything that’s available about a poster.

Ive intermittently changed my name on MN after some doxxing shit yeeears ago.

But some don’t.

There is a poster on here who talks about being a therapist and I’ve idly wondered before whereabouts. I asked ChatGPT to tell me everyone about x name on mumsnet and it came back with a MASSIVE history going back to like 2007/2008 summarising everything or new about her, which was a lot.

So yeah, all the information over time can be outing.

I do roll my eyes sometimes - eg one time someone didn’t want to admit they were a teacher as they thought that would be outing… but other times I do get it. If it’s a very unique situation, and you combine it with info in your other posts, it might be easy to identify you.

I know for a fact that if people who know me were to happen to read all of my posts AND comments, they would absolutely be able to identify me. One or two things alone aren’t identifying, but when you start to add in a few more facts, it’s a lot easier. I know I’ve commented the number, sex and ages of my children, I’ve mentioned the town I’m from, I’ve mentioned who I work for and possibly how long, I have mentioned bits about the job I do, the fact I grew up in the pub my parents ran, specific situations with friends/family and so on. On their own someone might suspect, together they’d probably feel pretty confident.

So if someone wants to change their name for privacy, go for it. Amend a few details as long as it doesn’t affect the advice being given. But if you are going to post then be completely vague so people can’t help - don’t bother!

I have been identified and have identified others on threads ….

Out of curiosity I’ve just asked ChatGPT about my own username - someone who knows me would absolutely recognise me from what it said! Have to say though, I did quite like the nice things it said about me lol!

I was pleased to see that it said it would NOT attempt to work out who I was in real life though. I would hope that someone couldn’t give it a prompt to actually do that.

15 years ago i was outed on a similar but different site... and they sent the police to my house for a welfare check. DV, ofc.

He was on the night shift but it absolutely makes me paranoid for sure even all these years later.

Both of my sisters immediately identified me by my previous username because it referenced my favourite book! Luckily I'd never slagged them off on here!

I really really want to post about a friend on here, but she has a million grown up kids who also have loads of kids each, hundreds of enemies/acquaintances, her life is so horrendously chaotic and specific to the point where you would think I was making it up and more importantly - I can't be arsed to name-change.
I don't want to risk it I'm a coward .

Any one individual post is unlikely to be outing, true.

The potential problem comes when someone thinks a scenario in a post sounds familiar, and then looks up the poster on advanced search and pulls together all the different bits of information they’ve shared over lots of different posts. That could build up a mosaic of personal details that could be outing if the wrong person was looking at it.

It might be paranoid but it’s a big part of why I change my username every now and then.