For all of you who don't understand the disgust with the Daily Mail...

[Spero]

I have just been told they have published an article about John Hemming in which they name me. Both my real name and my user name.

Luckily for me I don't care. Luckily for me I decided long ago I would never put anything on line that I would be ashamed/upset/frightened for anyone else to read.

But for lots of people this would be a complete and utter disaster. People post really personal and sensitive stuff on this site about the worst times of their lives, looking for help and support. They must know that.

Note that they never bothered contacting me to find out which category I fell into.

So if anyone wants to start another wide eyed innocent thread - o I just don't understand why you all hate the Daily Mail so much!

Does this kind of thing help you understand a little more?

I will link to the scum bags but only because I hope people might leave some 'helpful' comments about JH.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532649/MP-John-Hemming-banned-Mumsnet-posting-Italian-woman-forced-courts-caesarean.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

The DM is bound by the press standards bunch though who are currently supposed to be on a bit of a drive to protect the privacy of private individuals. Even when an MP is on a campaign against them.

gertrude with all due respect in that case those individuals need reminding that this is a very well-known and public website. Media researchers use this site and have done for ages, a minor flash in the pan about a (backbench?) MP behaving improperly isn't going to have much impact on the public awareness of MN.

gertrude - I share your concerns. If anyone is really worried I know that MNHQ can change names on all posts and remove all messages. I think Riven did that some years ago.

I know spero is trying to protect vulnerable people, she does it in her public access work all the time. I'm also aware that she has countless times on many threads advised people in sensitive situations re family law and safeguarding children that they have revealed too much identifying information, they should ask for it to be deleted by MNHQ. Some have, some haven't.

spero may have voluntarily outed herself on here as she is well within her rights to do. However by association and with clever journalism very vulnerable people who have ongoing legal & other tricky situations could also be outed as a recipient of her advice. That iis what I mean by shining a light. Media attention on the issue of anonymityanonymity online issue=good. Media attention on individual sensitive cases=bad. No one should be the sacrificial lamb for that cause.

Well I think it might well be, but I am not sure. As I understand it spero works in this field, so there is a professional interest. She also gave out her name and location (which is specific enough to instantly identify her professionally) in a post on the relationships forum in 2012, saying that she tries not to say anything online that she wouldn't say in real life.

So she has placed her posts on a higher level than some of the unguarded posts that others might make by putting her name on it and saying that her posts are all but made in a professional capacity.

Statements made in a professional capacity have no expectation of privacy at all.

There seems to be this continuing belief that everything said on social media is somehow without consequence in real life, despite repeated demonstrations that this is not the case. In this case the poster chose repeatedly to give out her personal details on a forum which is in fact far MORE public, than say a newspaper, given that much newspaper content lasts only one day in a limited circulation area and was not published online, whereas mumsnet is accessible instantly with powerful search to everyone in the world.

Mumsnet is not a private conversation with friends over a kitchen table, it's an extremely public forum. People should be aware of that every time they post, and not assume that others will respect their unstated desire for some level of privacy beyond splashed all over the national press.

Spero I think in this case the DM have done an inadvertent service, because people need to realise that this site (and other social media) are extremely public, and that people need to take care online when posting about sensitive matters, because it could be their name being outed next time. That's the reality - not everyone is benign and wants to help you, and when you make yourself identifiable online you are putting yourself at risk.

I don't post on here as a professional.

It is my professional work that gives me knowledge that is useful and I try to use it to be helpful.

I appreciate that may be a blurred boundary and sometimes the line between professional and personal is not clear.

But there was no reason or justification at all for the DM to publish both my personal AND user name. Why not just one? Or neither?

I note with interest that NO OTHER newspaper has published either of my names.

Gertrude - I know you also do sterling work for vulnerable and frightened people. I am sorry if you think that this is going to make trouble for them. All I can say is that anyone who is worried ought to name change or contact MNHQ and ask for any sensitive posts to be withdrawn.

The username + personal name is published here and on JH's own blog. It's in the public domain by your own choice.

I guess JH felt that he signed his name + position to his drunken ramblings, and that he felt you should have your name ascribed to yours, which are made from a professional background and on a website (mumsnet) which is both public + influential and can act to influence both public policy and legal proceedings.

If you were a layperson, then it would be less justifiable, but perhaps he feels that you are part of the great conspiracy of legal professionals + social workers and that your position in this cadre should be pubicly established.

spero it is reassuring that riven has and could get her posting history removed. That gives posters a little more power than I thought they had.

I suppose what I am v.much worried about is it is v.apparent JH wanted to out and hound you. he also decided to out v.vulnerable children in an internationally sensitive case. The DM have followed his agenda and ran with it? Why? Is this a floodgate?

The DM have been benignly threatening MN for ages by reporting verbatim posts. They do not like a collective voice of intelligent, professional women and I honestly think that their agenda is scary.

The DM have followed his agenda and ran with it? Why?

I can't say for sure, but ai think that was a bone thrown to John, as in "sorry, we do have to cover it, but we'll help you out the * in the process as compo, still mates ?"

I fail to see how it was my 'choice' to be published on JH's blog.

But this isn't about me. It is about the wider implications of a national newspaper thinking this is OK.

You can see that it has already spooked quite a lot of people.

I think it was just a story in a very quiet week, buried in the website and barely read until it started being linked to and tweeted. Not used in the print edition as far as I can gather.

story would have been put round by an agency and picked up by interested media.

Once you put your details in the public domain, you have lost control of where they are published.

But I actually don't think the DM give a flying fuck about JH carpe he's a loose cannon buffoon he gives them good quotes ie I'm on the naughty step but in the long term he's Going nowhere. They know that. He's too off piste, they don't need him as a friend! So why out spero?

aga. We seem to be having a parallel discussion.

I don't disagree with any of your points.

The point I am interested in is why the Daily Mail and the Daily Mail alone saw fit to publish both my real name and my user name.

there was no justification or need for that at all. If they felt I was arguing in my professional capacity, they could have simply used my real name.

But they linked the two together to make it very easy for someone to track me down on here.

yes, I had already 'outed' those details, but not to make it so easy to find me. the post person who outed me on that 2012 had her post deleted quite quickly as I recall.

That's what good journalists do. Nothing they did was illegal. JH and his supporters have been crucified on mn. Karma.

Maryz- it's the nature of their job.

ODFOD >>> at EdwardSnowdon. You obviously know nothing about good journalism or karma. Posting goady inflammatory shite all over the place.

Perhaps you'd like to out yourself in the name of journalism?

Yet apparently not the nature of the job of all the other papers journalists who covered the same story. Cause the mail journo is the good one, of course.

all the others must be crap, as they forgot to publish Speros name here and her RL name.

SHoddy work, I call it.

Precisely what degree of high quality journalism is required in order to copy Spero's details from Hemmings' blog, EdwardSnowden? And while they were demonstrating this so-called "good" journalism, don't you think they might have got the fundamental facts right? The Mail somehow managed to allege that he was banned for revealing the mother's name, which was never the case.

If you want to see how a good journalist deals with this, have a look at the report in the Independent. At least that journo seems to have taken the trouble to look at the various discussion threads.

Weyhey, I don't have to bother doing a journalism degree, I'll just stick speros name on my CV!