I'm new to Mumsnet having joined after reading India Knight's Sunday Times article. She said she was very distressed and upset and got slated for it with several people also attacking the McCanns. Being only a few days after the disappearance, I was horrified at the reaction so I wanted to see what other mothers thought and whether anything positive was being done. In my case, nothing sinister going on at all in my joining and I certainly have not attacked the parents.
I did post some news when some MNetters said they didn't have access to the tv news. My work means I have to trawl through news stories all day via databases not generally available on the internet and I get translated versions of stories. There were numerous articles in the Portuguese press which I didn't post as they were so awful. Last week there were snippets of news coming out every few hours and some of us probably did a bit carried away, not through vicarious pleasure, but because we were emotional and desperate for a resolution.
However, the level of personal attacks and, IMO, bullying that happened after that was totally uncalled for. Several posts were taken out of context and those concerned ridiculed. I'm glad things have calmed down now. I've never seen such nastiness, to the point where new threads were set up just to attack people on the Madeleine threads!
The story is now slipping out of view and the McCanns are doing things like the online diary to humanise the story and try keep our interest. Inevitably, this will lead to the public forming stronger opinions about the parents themselves. I hope this doesn't result in a backlash.
There is definitely also a weirdo element - a bizarre story I saw about a mother and daughter who have travelled out to the Algarve to do their own search. They were wearing Madeleine t-shirts and gave an interview where they said 'nothing has affected like this since Diana' and this really was mawkish. I felt physically sick watching it.
Anyway, happy to boycott this thread and apologies for bumping it now.