"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.

Things can be outing for anyone who knows the person posting. While a lot of situations are pretty generic, small details and the timing can make the person identifiable.

I know who one person is on here. They have no idea I am here or that I am aware they are here. Not that I'd use anything they post to embarrass or out them, so they wouldn't have to be worried. Privacy is not a given on here.

Intriguing, but surely anyone with a little sense could change or add something to disguise, ie. "After a few years in Japan" for someone who's never left the UK etc.

Well it does happen, I am on a support group on Facebook and someone recognised me
on here from the Facebook group and use to excessively comment any thread I made and misquote things I had written on Facebook to call me a liar even though it was them that had misquoted, I found it quite stalkerish especially as they knew who I was and I didn’t know who they were. It was actually against the group rules to post things from the group outside of the group but I never knew who this person was. I was glad when Facebook introduced anonymous posting so now they can’t see when I’ve posted.

I've recognised two people on here from real life. (And chuckled at their embellished versions of their lives).
There are certain details that, added together, make people recognisable to those who know them well. (Two unusual pets or children's names in combination, another post asking for local information, and another with their job and their partner's job, perhaps one about a hotel they've stayed at, plus a username that then makes sense).

It's not that hard to see through that sort of thing. Also, if you change too many details, you may not get relevant feedback. Or they key detail may be outing. It's a small world.

The people I've recognised enjoy showing off a bit, so they love to talk about details of their holidays, where they live, and how much they earn! One even used their road name and town as their username.
😄

I found my friend’s sister on here many years ago. She had posted about a very specific family situation which my friend has been talking to me about the same day, she hadn’t changed any of the details from those my friend had shared. She also hadn’t name changed and I will admit I searched her entire posting history, she was quite a prolific poster and had posted a lot about the family situation, plus about issues between her and my friend, issues in her marriage and some health concerns/ details I doubt she’d have wanted anyone in real life to know about. She had also posted lots of identifying details over her extensive post history so there was no denying it was her.

After this I had an unhealthy habit of searching her regularly to see if she’d added any new posts, which she always had. She and my friend had a very up and down relationship and she posted about it more than once. After a few months she did either name change or leave Mumsnet as the searches stopped bringing anything up. I didn’t ever do anything with what I’d read, never told my friend (or the sister) but I do feel guilty now as it was obviously quite intrusive. This was over a decade ago and I don’t think I would do the same now in terms of reading her entire post history but it has made me conscious that if I’m posting about a specific situation I should either name change so if I am recognised they can’t find my entire post history or change some of the details so it’s not identifiable as you just never know who might find you. I don’t have kids so I doubt any one I know would think I was a Mumsnet user but I am actually on it most days so who knows who else in my real life may also be using it.

Do this on your own username - it’s fascinating how accurate it is in describing what you’re like 😂😂

I have a child who uses MN and would recognise me fairly easily from my posts.

You have to make up random details about yourself occasionally. Invent a sister or a pet cat to throw people off the scent.

Any decent person keeps it to themselves if they think they've recognised someone. I would never dream of messaging someone and confronting them. They're here to ask things anonymously.

Some people out themselves as they don't realise linking to Instagram or YouTube etc shows their account name.

Not on here, but I did recognise the parent of a child who was in the same nursery year as my eldest on another large forum.

She'd used her child's name in her username as well, and was very specific in her posts. I worked it out from the first post - and I only really knew her in passing.

I have spotted one or two on here before.

Apparently I'm a Kitchen designer with my own business, and many people refer to me by my first name - Karen. They ask for help from Karen at One Plan when they want help designing their kitchens.

Could not be more wrong 😂 Or could it... 🤔

I have both been recognised and recognised someone on here.

Both times, someone living in my town, which is only around 25,000 population.

I've had a family member recognise me before. I found it incredibly embarrassing

I mentioned once I had a key box discreetly nailed to a tree in my garden, and jokingly added that I didn’t want to say what species of tree it was in case it was outing, and someone replied, I presume with a straight face, that you can’t be too careful.

Not really. If you want to track people on here down you can.

I've written loads of things on here where anyone who knows me would instantly recognise who I am. I just don't care though.

Some people are incredibly good at linguistic detection. I was (online) close to someone on another forum, who'd studied forensic linguistics. She messaged me after recognising my style on here. Clever woman!

It's easy to profile me from 18 years' worth of posts on here, despite name changes. I've never done a search on myself, but assume it would only be slightly confounded by the fact that there are other Garlics on MN. I'm just not very intriguing, though 😂 WYSIWYG.

It would be funny to identify forum users who bullshit about their real lives. If I had the skills to do it, I'd be so tempted to drop tiny grenades in my replies to them. Has anyone done that?

Years ago after a couple of name changes someone sent me a PM because they thought they recognised my style of writing in my posts and linked the two usernames.
The scary thing is they were right and I often wonder how much time and energy they’d put into making the link 😬

Yeah like why is a hobby outing? There are thousands of people doing exactly the same things. I don’t care personally, my digital footprint is gnarly.

What does the acronym mean here I’ve been trying to figure it out for a few minutes 😅

What you see is what you get

I think you could collect the information from a username and match the updates for example if they shared location in one post, family in another, job in another and a hobby in another and then all together you suddenly think, ‘That sounds like my friend.’