"on MN this week" in the Daily Mail

[StealthBearWipesBumOnDailyMail]

Thread no 2

whatever if your so confident that none of your posts will come back to bit you on the arse when your kids are older or if someone that doesnt much like you finds what youve written well done.

but you can search for stuff in the daily garbage with google as well.

just out of interest which is higher up the search results for sacked for being pregnant.

Wannbe, I don't want to be because I don't as is my choice.

I have decided that the risk of being identified here is one I can take but that the risk of being identified when oublished in a newspaper is not one I can take. The risk thing is just basic maths really.

Thank you! I am confident in that!

(And I know you were being sarcastic btw!).

Seriously though, does anyone actually think that with 800,000 unique users per month that what they write is 'safe' or that there is 'small' risk of someone they know reading it? Imagine gathering 800,000 random people together, and then reading your posts to them. Wouldn't feel so 'intimate' and cosy then would it? But you have to have an accurate perception of the levels of privacy. And as I said before, MN has been REPEATEDLY mined for info. For example, Caitlin Moran was (is?) a regular poster and often quoted posts in her column, with posters' names.

Do you think wannabe?

I read about all sorts of odd things I would never enconter in the papers- polo matches and all sorts- just because it is there.

Further evidence I am odd I suppose

yea but mumsnet has 800,000 visitors a month i bet they dont all go on chat. and yeah even if they were all together and being told something i said then the chance of one of them knowing or recognising is still smaller than if you put 2 million people all together.

mumsnet by business ownders for everyone

'
If you don't want to be identified by people in rl then perhaps you should be questioning why not. '

you amke it sound sinister! you've beena round SN long enough to know why someone like Peachy might be upset by that without anything actually malicious going on

By WoodwardandBernstein on Sat 15-Aug-09 12:50:31
aitch;

you could argue that the posters boss could be a mumsnetter.?

care should be taken when posting on here, if you are worried about being identified, don't post.

a RIDICULOUS point.

sweetness CHOSE to post on MN, so that responsibility lies with her.

she did NOT chose to post it for the 1.5m daily readers of the daily mail.

that's teh essence of the whole objection.

Good post Aitch

The otehr aspect is that had X informed MNHQ, and MNHQ amde us aware we could have included that into our risk assessments (which are of course individual: I might accept a 10% risk that MIL reads my posts, not sure i'd be happy with double that)

That breakdown in communications is important

Aitch, that's true. But I do think that people forget the public nature of this forum, and do post more carelessly than they would if, say, they knew their employer was going to be reading. Because it feels cosy, and 'among friends'. But the reality is that MN is not safe in terms of knowing who is going to read your posts, as is the case with the majority of internet fora, and I think it is good for people to remember that.

I think the idea of locked 'rooms' is a good idea, especially if they are non-googleable.

dont forgot that 1.5 million is online readship figures. bet printed version has a few more million

you know I wonder if a lot of the problem would be solved by removing the facility to search by nickname? Since that is how individuals can most easily be identified - piecing together lots of disparate bits of info to get the whole picture of the person.

elliott - that's what I suggested - sort of - making that search only accessible if you have paid for CAT.

Possibly for some elliott but for me a part of the objection is simply that I do not wish to be fodder for a daily mail column, thanks but no thanks!

tbh i kinda think that's our choice again. if i know that the DM is posting 'this week on MN', if it's widely known that a column is knocked up once a week off these pages, then it's up to us to decide what we want to do with our more personal identifying details in a post.

it's the fact that this happened without telling mnhq and giving them a chance to give consent or otherwise that staggers me. that is an infringement.

because whatever anyone says about MN being a business etc etc there is NO WAY that their consciences would have let them approve it without at least contacting sweetness first. it's just basic fair dealings, and business or not, i think MNHQ has always been decent to us first and foremost.

ho hum, it seems to be the way life is going, exploiting people too vulnerable/stupid/ill-informed/desperate/helpless/unthinking to protect themselves while criticising them for being vulnerable/stupid/ill-informed/desperate/helpless/unthinking. you can see it here.

i'm still waiting for the Dv threads to be printed in loaded for their entertainment.

Thin end of a wedge IMO

lilly sorry wasn't meant to sound like that .

One of the reasons why ttr was started for instance was so that sn posters had somewhere to post where they felt safe, so this has clearly been an issue to some before the daily mail got involved.

How often do people namechange to post sensitive information because "I don't want to be identified in rl."?

You are no more identifyable in the daily mail than you are on mumsnet. And if you will be friends with people who read the daily mail then you have only yourself to blame.

I think that rather than getting outraged about this, people just need to take a step back and face the reality that when you post your inner most thoughts publically, you are essentially posting them for anyone to read. If you don't want people to read them, on mumsnet, the daily mail or otherwise, then don't post them.

elliot, you are probably right! I tracked down a poster who was winding people up/upsetting people this week, and telling fibs about her qualifications. (They were far from what she was claiming - and purported to be an expert in certain areas.

Just by taking info from a few posts, I found her website, her facebook, her address, CV, phone number, details on her kids, husbands place of work etc. To do this, I typed 3 words into Google!

Obviously she was then warned on line to address her privacy settings! She was activitly seeking publicity in her line of work, but it made me take a look at what info I have the public domain!

sorry lily, I haven't read every post...
I don't think we can do anything about 'not being daily mail fodder' , I'm afraid I tend towards the 'poster beware' pov. Doesn't make me feel fantastically happy, but I think we need to eb aware that the internet is NOT rl...

it is utterly fatuous to say that it has been a problem on here with 800,000 users per month prior to this but to deny that it becomes a worse problem with 1.5m per day.

Mind you - no searching on other posters would make trolls harder to spot.

perhaps mumsnet could get a risk assessment trainer to come on and talk to people about risk and increased risk.

mumsnet mostly read by parents, teenagers falling into bumsex threads while googling for porn and journalists

daily garbage read by much wider audience in much larger numbers = chances of being recognised by someone much higher duh

Aitch- completely agree!!

I think there should eb a line drwan in the sand here.

Mn are happy to court the media- justine said so earlier. they want more of this to happen.

But there is agroup of people (me and maybe some others-maybe not) who feel not happy about this and are reconsidering how they will proceed if they stay on MN.

BUT there isa whole back catalogue of stuff that was said prior to this admission by Justine that would not have been said in the same way had we known of this desire...

So we need to be able to extrcate ourselves from the situation if required.

I know the t and cs said they could, but they have only more recently become such up fromt media tarts about it TBH.

(can't think of a better phrase, sorry)

exactly, DUH.

plus it's their DECISION to post on MN. not so to write unpaid for the DM.

True wannabe, and trust me TTR is doing well today LOL

BUT how would we identify those people at need of a safe sapce? Are lockable rooms as welcoming to those early on in the system? How many people breeze straight into SN without perhaps a few comments in other palces first where they may not feel able to in the future. Coming to terms with a dx is certaionly a gradual thing.

I do think the locked room will help those of us already here, and is the best option, but I am sad for those I think will miss out.

There's always within MN been a sort of 'embargo' on causing problems for vulnerable posters which I expect X would abide by, but if other papers / media take a shine to the idea (and guess what- plenty of people don't know about MN, that is the truth, how many times do people look at me askance and say 'what, you mean netmums?')

I dunno, all just usings really, who knows