Mumsnet is getting worse

[LondonMummer]

Seriously. Is it the same few people just name changing or is it really this toxic in the UK? There is so much poisonous Jewish hatred on here. I'm not talking hatred of Israel, just vile antisemitism on so many posts now.

I truly think I have to step away before I lose faith in humanity. Why does MN seem to attract so many hateful posters? Maybe it's the anonymity.

I can't keep calling it out. Im exhausted and actually deeply disturbed by it now.

When I disagreed with their decision to let a blatantly antisemitic post stand, I got a patronising lecture from a moderator on what Zionism is, a telling off and the usual blerb about expressing opinions and experiences and challenging them etc etc. There’s an awful lot of sticking their heads in the sand and hoping it will all go away in action.

Sending everyone a hug.

I honestly think if MN don't reign that whole board in it could legally bite them in the arse at some point (I jest, but it's not inconceivable). They're literally giving a platform to frothing and obsessive antisemites intent on spending every waking minute goading and spreading hate - the coded language is so fucking blatant and foul.

What's especially worrying, I think, is the spread of misinformation which is only possible through the lack of knowledge about the history of the region, people and conflict. It's really sad to see this forum following the same path as Twitter and TikTok. On some threads (many actually) it only takes a few posts before it's gone full blown conspiracy-theory and if asked to support their argument they'll come out with a copy/paste from some paid shill of Iran or Russia as evidence, or tell us to educate ourselves by reading their endless posts of far left propaganda piss articles.

MN either care too much about traffic or they just don't understand/ see what's happening and really need training (it's also possible they actually agree with them though). The pattern is there to trace through individual posters, it can't be that difficult to moderate. I'm not especially 'pro Israel' (although I suppose I do have a natural bias) so obviously I don't always agree with a lot of the 'Israel side' posts I see, but I do feel for every single one of you that's been on the receiving end of the hate and I could write a fucking book about the antisemitism I've witnessed. It's really heartwarming however that even though as Jewish posters (and I include our non-Jewish 'comrades') we also have different views, we're not spitting venom at each other.

No reply, but they deleted the posts I was reporting and told people in general to stick to the thread topic.

If they think the issue is about sticking to the thread topic, this suggests to me that they don't understand this at all, so I think you're right about antisemitism and anti-terrorism training @DownNative

I got a patronising lecture from a moderator on what Zionism is

I don't know if you're Jewish, but if you are, and they know that, then that is fucking shocking.

Each of my links has been deleted. Proving to me that admin are antisemitic as all those links/posts they do not delete are just that!

Remember civilians engaging in hostilities against any military force do lose civilian protection and can be shot. This includes minors throwing various weapons including molotov cocktail bombs and such like.

Although many in the Middle East section talk about "innocent civilians", the Law Of Armed Conflict actually doesn't speak of it. It speaks of civilians and makes my previous point too.

The section is based on emotional impressions and responses far too much to be helpful to anyone wanting accurate information during a live Conflict plus fog of war.

Threads on Ukraine never went crackers like this and I did contribute to that early on for a while. I stopped after saying I expect the end result to be partition of Ukraine to some extent as they cannot force the Russians out by themselves. It was not a popular analysis, but is closer to reality than what some preferred to think. Still, it never degenerated like the Middle East section absolutely has. 🤷‍♂️

How has it come to this? How have so many people been duped by Hamas? Why is Israel so roundly hated, when there are plenty of other nations who are "worse"?

I thought Holocaust education in the UK was pretty strong. Clearly not. Maybe now that the remaining survivors are passing away, it's fading from consciousness.

@PurpleChrayne it's the same posters over and over again.
Maybe a better way forward would just be to completely ignore them on certain threads.
Treat them with the contempt they deserve.

@DownNative I have to bite my tongue from pointing out the obvious on some threads as you know the hyperbolic outrage would drown you off the thread....

Threads on Ukraine never went crackers like this

Threads on covid did. Batshit antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists. MNHQ were the same with 'preferring that misinformation was challenged on the thread' rather than deleting it which was just exhausting for the people who took it upon themselves to do so because it is far more difficult to challenge a bullshit claim than it is to post it.

MNHQ don't actively moderate, they only respond to what is reported, which then puts the onus on posters to do the work for them. Quality of moderation also varies, so something that might be deleted by one mod is left up by another.

Pretty depressing to see links to hate-sites like electonicintifada posted uncritically.

Also depressing to see the slide from 'I don't like what Israel are doing and I'm going to ignore what Hamas are doing' to 'I fucking hate Israel and therefore I am starting to side with Hamas'.

Maybe now that the remaining survivors are passing away, it's fading from consciousness.

I think this is key. Social media and a new generation of social justice warriors see "Zionism" as the greatest evil, the Zionist the ultimate bogeyman and oppressor. Everything is framed within the oppressed and oppressor and it's very black and white, no nuance whatsoever. Something I've noticed is that Jewish Gen-Z is pushing a huge amount of the anti-Zionism narrative in this country (and France and the US) and in doing so they're legitimising both left and right but especially left antisemitism. How many times have you heard the argument that the protests don't have antisemites there because oh look there's some Jews marching too! The younger gen don't have the same generational trauma that we have perhaps, and so have been able to redefine the meaning of Zionism. There were always antisemites in far lefty groups, but not to this extent. They were fringe and under the radar. But also, the links between the left and pro-Palestine groups weren't as strong until more recently either. And this has all been able to happen because of a more general polarised populism over the last decade or so, enabled by social media.

Yes, there are non-democratic countries who behave worse than Israel. Israel has an appalling record of behaviour which just doesn't help, sorry. But really, it could be a fucking socialist utopia of peace and equality to all and I think folk would still hate it because....reasons.

There were always antisemites in far lefty groups, but not to this extent. They were fringe and under the radar. But also, the links between the left and pro-Palestine groups weren't as strong until more recently either

I find the Palestinian flag waving at Labour conferences utterly bizarre. It's a bit .... cultish?

@noblegiraffe It was utterly bizarre, but at the time that was all part and parcel of the cult of Corbyn more than anything (I think).

Is that not a thing anymore? Good to know. At the time there were Labour twitter accounts posting more about the situation in Israel than in the UK.

@noblegiraffe Oh I think they are even more entrenched in their obsessive hatred of Israel than before. But the entryists, Marxist old codgers and tribalists have generally fucked off out of Labour now in disgust and spend most of their time agitating against Starmer "the Zionist". And they have protests now to wave their flags, so don't need conferences. I think a lot of them are sniffing about the Greens now.

There was a lot of whinging from them that it was because of Corbyn's support for Palestine that people didn't vote for him - which is nonsense, They fail to see it was more to do with his absolute incompetence, Brexit and a real fear of what his foreign policy would be (not to mention his alignment with terrorist groups and antisemites) that lost him the election. I think a lot of what's happening in the response to current events from the far left is actually tied up in blaming Jews for his election loss, as sceptical as that sounds.

I think on the point of why Israel when there are other nations doing despicable things and I think a huge part of the reason is social media algorithms right now.

Someone posted on a thread a while back 'I scroll through twitter and I'm seeing a dead Palestinian every few tweets while I'm not seeing any dead Israelis' and of course that's the algorithm on the For You setting - if you click on a picture of a dead Palestinian, it will keep serving you up pictures of dead Palestinians. It can quickly become quite overwhelming. (Incidentally, my 'For You' timeline currently thinks I'm interested in Taylor Swift and the amount of Taylor Swift stuff I'm being served is insane. If I had the slightest interest in Taylor Swift I could easily fall down a rabbit hole and get more and more ludicrous stuff as there are weirdly obsessed people out there).

So people on social media (TikTok and it seems especially Instagram) are being served with endless stories about the horrors in Gaza (and don't get me wrong, there's plenty to talk about) in a way that they're not about other countries.

@noblegiraffe So people on social media (TikTok and it seems especially Instagram) are being served with endless stories about the horrors in Gaza (and don't get me wrong, there's plenty to talk about) in a way that they're not about other countries.

Yes, and we're seeing the proof of that on Middle East Mumsnet. I also think a lot of folk (inc MN posters) are having a really difficult time digesting what they're seeing in those videos, understandably. It's almost a trauma in itself, so they're trying to find some kind of way to make sense of the constant-loop horror every time they look at their phones. So lashing out at the country that's directly responsible and it's supporters (leaving aside the 'who's most responsible' argument) is a way of dealing with the experience. And in turn, going down the rabbit hole and believing everything you hear about said country is almost a coping mechanism. Some exploit it obviously, but not all.

I have just started a thread on "Site stuff" about this... basically appealing to MN to find a way to stop mindless spamming.

You're right, the algorithms are to blame. That, and people being too stupid to realise that their social media feed is governed by algorithms.

I've just weighed in.

Unsurprisingly, it has been derailed!

Interesting to see who’s monitoring the Jewish MN board so closely they knew the moment they needed to pile on to your new thread…
Can’t have us getting out of hand, eh? Why so threatened by an opportunity for insightful discourse, as opposed to wading through the daily parade of ignorance and disinformation?

I've just had a look at that Documenting Israeli etc thread that I'm still on as I contributed ages ago. What a shitshow. Just a ridiculous echo chamber of them winding each other up with Electronic Intifada links, posted as if they are impeccable sources of impartiality. Not even worth saying anything any more, it's beyond that.

I've just had a look at the Site Stuff thread. It certainly didn't take long for some of the worst offenders to pop up there.

I had my posts deleted and was banned for a comment on this thread about these people possibly being mentally ill. It was reported as a personal attack. I wrote to MN to query this, asking what they were doing on here in the first place. It's not as though I addressed it to them directly as an insult. Nor did I mean it as an insult: mental illness (which I later suggested may be an anxiety disorder) is probably a charitable explanation for their activities on MN.

To be fair, MN did reinstate my comment and account. But it's exhausting dealing with this kind of trigger-happy aggression.

I'm truly shocked at MN for allowing it.

I've been a poster for over 20 years and haven't seen anything like this before. Are these echo - chambers even being monitored?

What concerns me is that I tried playing them at their own game and reporting posts. But MN seems scared to delete the most outrageous comments. It's as though denying 7 Oct is fair enough, I mean who knows, it could all have been dreamed up as an "excuse" for Israel's murderous expansion project?!

Same. I deleted my account in frustration (I am the artist formerly known as Alcemeg 😜)