Getting sick of people accusing threads of being fake

[vivarevs]

Why do people do this? I keep seeing it more and more. I don’t doubt there is some shite on here but if people doubt the integrity of a poster they could just report to MN instead of derailing threads. Or just don’t respond. It’s especially common if the op doesn’t immediately come back and update or answer questions….as if everyone spends their entire life on MN.

I thought troll hunting was banned on MN and this is pretty much the same thing.

You forgot the humongous drip feed, which will appear on page 2 ,where the dsis was married to the OPs DH originally and the 16 kids are in fact the OPs , but the OP wanted a career.

You keep mentioning derails OP but I wouldn't agree that "I think this thread is fake" is a derail at all.

But I do think we should be able to report derails, actually, where they take threads totally off topic, often where the discussion is important and relevant and it makes the thread lose momentum.

Just my opinion. Oh, and I suppose I should also say that yes, I think there are a lot of fake threads and they should be called out.

It’s almost as if MN want the threads to stand so people engage with them - not sure what else would explain the crap ‘moderating’. Anything for traffic these days.

I do agree @vivarevs Some people just don't seem to believe anything on here now, and I think the majority of threads are genuine. I think they're pretty much all genuine on most of the boards.

I dont have a problem with people commenting on that.

If its a thread I start and someone replies with something I find irrelevant, unhelpful, rude, I just ignore it and reply to other posters

I dont know why people get so invested.

I agree and I would also argue that MN has as much of a duty to stamp out misinformation and propaganda as Facebook and other social media sites. If they want to be a responsible business they should have policies in place to fully address the negative impact on society this stuff has. They should be actively identifying accounts that have been hacked or that have strange patterns of posting.

It’s also a risk to their financial health because it drives away the exact users who make MN a unique selling point. Otherwise people might as well go on X.

I've reported lots of threads that I feel to be fake to MNHQ and not received any response. I would be using the "not a genuine poster" option.

Also for those who don't see the purpose of pointing out possible fake threads need to cast their minds back to the days before we knew about airbrushing touch-ups and soft focus lighting, when we were impressionable young girls 😥.
We needed it pointing out to us so we and our daughters /nieces know it's not real and be able to manage expectations.

Now that's a derail 🤭.

Nail on head.

This place is long past the point where it can make any credible claim to be any sort of "responsible business".

The sheer volume of blatant antagonist users, whether they be bots, "trolls", shills, disinformation accounts, socks, rage-baiters, and the resultant toxic mess they create, is clearly by deliberate design, or at least indifference, because it suits the clicks = revenue model.

It's also clearly well beyond the point where it could ever be reeled back in, so it's only going to get worse and continue the slide toward being nothing but a totally irredeemable swamp. I'm finding myself questioning more and more why I spend any time on MN at all.

Because there's no point in reporting them. It's not in mumsnet's interest to delete them as it all adds to their revenue. I've reported vile bigoted posts a couple of times but they do nothing as a bit of casual racism/homphobia/transphobia etc is apparently not important as long as it generates clicks and revenue.

I think there are more fake threads now. Long rambly threads about implausible situations. Not great.

To be fair, sometimes the same is posted word for word on a new thread hours or days after the original thread so clearly by the same person and for no reason whatsoever.

I agree that sometimes people are accused of faking it when a story is so outside the norm that it is hard to comprehend.

Do people actually sit there reporting threads for supposedly being fake. It’s a bit curtain twitchy and obsessive. And who has that much time on their hands. Surely it’s a sign that you’re spending too much time on the internet and should get out in the real world.

I've been here a few years and suggest you go back and look at what was posted 12/18 months ago and compare with the woman who demanded a taxi driver drove a certain way, the woman pissed off because immigration laws want her to earn money, neighbours autistic son over the last couple of days. Posts that are ridiculous, clearly bs and the op often doesn't return or does in a different guise. Ie the taxi one where 'taxi drivers shouldn't use sat nav, but know every route" was a reply.

So many are posters posting one click bate argument and not replying

We could all do with a bit of a head wobble, but that almost certainly includes you for going out of your way, twice , to low-key insinuate that we're all losers.
Nice try though 😉.

👏 👏

I think that’s the issue. What, for you, could be difficult to comprehend might be a real life scenario for someone else. People keep talking about this rise in fake threads - which I don’t doubt with bots and AI and the rest of it - but nobody can give a clear demonstration on how they’d know for sure other than saying ‘it’s obvious.’ Because the fact is we can’t always know for sure.

Just because a post seems unusual or incomprehensible to you in the perspective of your life doesn’t mean it’s not true for someone else.

I remember posting about my IBS issues once. An embarrassing subject I felt I couldn’t really talk about in real life but may find some solidarity on an anonymous online forum full of grown women. Within about 5 posts i’d been accused of being a poo troll and people were saying ‘don’t engage with the troll’. It was so offensive and insulting.

And I have actually seen a few posts be taken down recently after several posters accused it of being a man/fake post and it was eventually removed so I accept it does happen and MN do (sometimes) appear to respond. But I don’t think it’s the case for all posts and it’s very unfair and disheartening to the poster if they are genuine to be met with accusations of fakery.

Honestly, if someone's first ever post on a parenting forum is something enormously provocative with a clear political motive (usually to sow doubt in the government, create division, or simply enrage people by suggesting the country is going to the dogs because of immigrants/vegans/benefits claimants) then it's not a huge leap of faith to question its veracity.

That begs the question of who posted it. Some may well be genuine. Most look and smell like they've been created to destabilise public discourse, so there's a good chance they're the output of Russian, Chinese, or Iranian troll farms. This is literally how they work; it's not a secret.

Other posts are ones which might not obviously benefit a rogue state seeking to destablise us, but might perhaps be designed to generate rage all the same; the ones whose purpose can only really be to drive traffic and engagement. Advertisers are motivated by raw numbers in engagement, not the quality of the engagement. So click/rage bait it is.

I was trained to apply critical thinking (no prizes for guessing which business school I did my MBA at). I do it more on Mumsnet than in any other walk of life at the moment.