"on mumsnet this week" in the Mail. Is this a new thing

[jujumaman]

Came across this this morning when I should have been working

Is this a new weekly rip-off by the Mail? Or has it been going on for months and I'm behind the times as usual

I'm not quite as virulently anti the Mail as mnetters, find it silly rather than the end of civilisation as we know it. But still ...

That's a real shame FAQ and exactly the point I have made.

FAQ - so...you post on a thread that is lifted by the DM. A DM reader sees your comment and thinks: 'hmmm that FAQ person seems like an interesting character, what else do they have to say?'
So the DM reader logs on to mumsnet and does a search for you and then trawls through all your hundreds of posts and is able to build a picture of who you are.
Even then you would still be a faceless stranger on an internet site - it's only if they knew you in RL that they might, might put two and two together.
How likely do you think that is?

With respect FAQ, what do you think you have to say that the Daily Mail will be interested in? If it's anything sensitive, just namechange. I really don't see why people are getting their knickers in such a twist.

Nancy, all it would take is soemone to think, that sounds familiar, come on to the site, search for more info and can then use all info gathered to potentially bully/ embarrass the poster.

But you'd have to be the only person in the Uk with that specific problem in order to make anyone suspicious.

I don't know how many pregnant women have lost their job - more than one I'd have thought.

"With respect FAQ, what do you think you have to say that the Daily Mail will be interested in? If it's anything sensitive, just namechange. I really don't see why people are getting their knickers in such a twist. "

But it doesn't have to be sensitive things that you would consider name changing for that you wouldn't want printed in a national newspaper. It could be the very thing that you mostly come to mumsnet to get support for - like others have said SN, or a stillbirth, or infertility. Why should someone asking for support in an area such as that namechange? And why should someone asking for support in an area such as that have their story printed without their consent?

Well Nancy - I was recognised by someone on MN - someone close to my family (judging from the details they knew about me) - they were really quite nasty to me on line and revealed stuff that only someone close to my family would know.

They didn't even need the help of a newspaper they'd flicked through and spotted my name in.

Perhaps I'm biased - but I think the chances of the same thing happening again to me, or to someone else, are quite a lot higher if my MN name is printed along with a quote in a "juicy" thread lift on the DM.

I know I'm not the only person to have had malicious comments from people that have joined after presumably lurking and realising they knew someone. I'm certain I won't have been the last - and I'm also sure that having a regular column will increase the risk even more.

that's what I mean. Lots of people might make a connection, thinking they know how that poster is and they actually don't. They will try and make the "facts" they find on mn fit the person they think it is. What if the person quoted has mentioned something sensitive on here and an ill-educated bnosey parker interferes? What fallout from that?

Hasn't Justine struck a deal whereby they won't run any thread that may identify somebody?

it could be that the DM might agree to run the chosen thread by Justine first. It's in their interest to keep in with her...

Agree nancy that the chances of such a coincidence are small and I doubt Femail is read by many businessmen who may have ill treated pg workers but that wasn't a risk the op was knowlingly taking. Such incidents do tend to shatter the illusion of privacy which MN encourages. I suspect that while many posters do take due consideration of the public nature of the media when starting a thread, it is much easier to get drawn in and become less guarded when replying particulary to apparently sensitive or specific circumstances. There are two issues here - whether the lifting of attributed posts is bona fide journalism, with or without reference to MNHQ, and whether some threads relating to certain issues should not be up for such scrutiny, unless thsoe involved have agreed. I suspect that the column won't last long in its current format as can't believe it would sustain the interest of the public at large.

if you seek your support for sensitive tropics on an open board you cannot expect or hope for privacy and anonymity.

if you want/need privacy and positive regard then do name change.do be circumspect.be aware before you hit post message there are many potential readers

what is said on MN does not stay on MN

Nancy, the journalist responsible cannot even get her facts right. She attributes quotes TO THE WRONG PEOPLE!

Anybody fancy a cat and pigeon moment?

I've developed a tool using Google which allows the connecting together of bits of information using fuzzy matching - so let's say you knew the town I lived in and my mumsnet name, you can cull everything online which is listed on Google and download it all. You can then analyse it. The analysis bit is ahem revealing. I can tell you when certain mumsnetters go to bed, when they get up, what time their kids go to nursery and where etc. Even if they haven't revealed this info online you can infer quite a lot and we are after all, creatures of habit and routine

(Yes I know, you won't like reading this and why am I doing this - actually it's for a completely benign reason and I will not be selling what I've made or releasing it into the wild) But I do know I'm not the only person doing something like this (and I'm by no means the best at this or the furthest down this road. If it helps, it might help cure some nasty diseases in a few years when applied to medicine.)

I don't give a shit about the Daily Mail - my MiL reads it - presumably Bunty is out of print these days. I don't see a bunch of halfwits who have the research ability of a dead squirrel much of a threat myself

The point is this: we are all giving out far too much info. Now is the time to have a grown up debate about what privacy is these days and whether we are willing to sell it - because sell it we are here - MNHQ are providing the forum service in exchange for exposing us to advertising and also obviously any other sources of revenue they can think of.

It's worth considering what it's worth to you. Now I have certain areas of my life which I'd like to keep private (they aren't the family bits incidentally), and I'm now aware quite how compromised one may become on this and other sites. So I'm going to be having a little think.

I would welcome some intelligent debate on what you think you are entitled to privacy wise because I think there is a middle ground here - how would you all feel if Justine for example said 'take what you like but only quote anonymously i.e. mumsnetter 1, mumsnetter 2 etc. rather than usernames'?

Have to make my urchins pass out now....

does cut and paste of MN constitute journalism- definitely not. it is shoddily executed and lacks originality.

should consent be sought - hard to argue for discretion and privacy on a public forum

i do understand the ouch factor and that one wouldn't want to see posts emerge on DM

however today news tomorrow chip wrappers and all that

"if you seek your support for sensitive tropics on an open board you cannot expect or hope for privacy and anonymity.

if you want/need privacy and positive regard then do name change.do be circumspect.be aware before you hit post message there are many potential readers"

And then get hit by shouts of 'Troll' and have any useful advice or support overwhelmed by people trying to prove that they were suspicious first... Especially if you keep the details vague...

"I don't think it is particularly lazy to identify an issue - before which you probably have to read loads of threads. Then read a thread with hundreds of posts - pick the relevant ones, take out the identifying bits, write and intro. It's not Pulitzer prize stuff but at least there's some work involved."

Justine, I'm sorry, but that is a load of bllcks as I am sure you know.

I am sorting out cricket kit and making a curry for supper, but in between (5 minutes) have taken the DM premise "Celebrities taking longer maternity leave amid growing workplace anxiety. Here's what the mumsnet posse say to someone who...."

Then I have gone on Employment and looked at the thread titles - 'Finding it hard to tell my boss I'm pregnant"; "Advice for my pregnant cousin re:work"; "Redundancy after maternity leave".... Hmm, I'll pick one... (my opening sentence is so broad I could be covering any aspect of work and pregnancy here). A few cut and paste quotes (only a couple of replies on each thread), stick a sappy sentence on the end about how being pregnant shouldn't affect your employment rights, and collect my 50 quid before putting the potatoes on to boil.

I could pick any story in the news and there will be a thread on MN about it (hey, there's even a topic called In the News. Hooray!)

MN is so loved by journos seeking easy copy because of its straightforward layout. It is so easy to navigate. The thread titles give a good precis and you don't need to trawl endless posts. The first three or four will give you the gist.

I think the thing that irks, especially in these tough economic times, where people are posting about being genuinely hard up and often struggling for work, is that some are making a few quid from eavesdropping on others' conversations.

And breathe....

My absolute bug bear is lazy, polemic journalism.

My nasty encounter on mumsnet was caused by a mistaken identity - or so she claims. Apparnantly another leftie liberal teacher had upset her on another forum, so se searched for that poster and found "her" expect it was me. This poster then spent some time starting threads with the intention of getting me on them before embarking on spectacularly cruel attack. My partner thought it was someone we knew in real life so was about to contact the police about certain threats. This poster had the wrong person and yet caused much upset.

'lots of v good mnetters are journos '

Who's a bad mumsnetter then?

'If you post on here I think you have to realise that it may well end up in the press and that it may not be interpreted as you wish. Of course mnhq won't complain about it - their business model needs as many hits as possible. People have mortgages to pay and staff wages to pay - they're not going to complain about free publicity'
true, but how many posters would they get if a sizeable number of us decided not to post anything interesting again? MN needs advertisers and user base. And the sort of poeple MN want to sell amrketing space to are looking for the people who stick here because of the whole non censorship thing- fear of reading your stories in the DM is a form of censorship through fear, surely?

At least itr's in MN this week- if it were retrospective I'd be in hiding.

Ionlyreadthe dm- I remember that, I contacted MN at the time as I was worried something very, very odd was going on. Seems that I was indeed right.

whosold-ages ago i was on a thread and a poster did indeed find out RL identity using details gleaned on MN.the other poster was gob-smacked.fortunately it was a decent poster demonstrating that it could be done,and deleted thread

I also think (repeating myself until a copyright lawyer comes along) that it's not so clear cut that it's fair use. They are using it as copy, not to report on or review.

Just by way of another example, if they did a discussion on 'how to save £100 a month on your bills' from money-saving expert, with just the journo's point of view at the end, I don't think that would qualify as fair use, would it? But what's the difference?

Ionly, you are the perfect example of what I was trying to explain.

but it makes so much more sense that somebody would be recognised on here than they would be in an inoccuous DM column about fake tan....

'
"if you seek your support for sensitive tropics on an open board you cannot expect or hope for privacy and anonymity.
'
sadly that'sprobably true

Any dieas where I should look, anyone? Nope, me neither