Chat thread 5 🐥🍲(Mumsnets could do better cont…)

[EllaDisenchanted]

@stomachamelon @humdingerydoo @diamond82 @missconductUS @quantumbutterfly @comedycook @25milesfromhome @olderglaswegianlivingindevon @beretinparis @edithstourton @sharonellis @towerofsong @purplechrayne

I’ve tagged a few people to start off the next thread. Please tag anyone else I’ve missed.
I felt bad calling it Mumsnet could do better 😬

That's a good question. I am not Jewish, but under various names since 2023 have exhausted myself trying to counter the ignorance and spite on the CITME board and elsewhere. I came here to experience a bit of support for the relentless struggle and share the acknowledgement of how difficult it is. You can't do that on the main boards because they are full of aggressive lunatics.

In fact, I deleted my original long-standing MN account after being chased and intimidated across boards by some particularly nasty posters whose responses were blatantly aligned with terrorism. You may recall that MN in the year or so after 7/23 was terrifying - I wrote to MN expressing concerns about the obvious manipulation of the forum, e.g. endless spamming threads with fake stories posted direct from X/Insta with no commentary. It looks as though these threads have been deleted retrospectively, but at the time the damage continued to be done. (I sometimes wonder whether MN responded to some kind of better-late-than-never regulatory pressure.)

Doing my best to battle antisemitism on MN is something I cannot sustain for long, as it depletes me emotionally. I sort of do it in phases, and then retreat and applaud those who are continuing the struggle! I did ask permission to post on this forum, and have turned here when I just needed to feel some friendly voices around me, because otherwise you just feel punch drunk after a while.

The first reason that I occasionally post here is because I was invited to by other Jewish posters here. I wouldn't have known about the board otherwise. Secondly to offer support, particularly as fewer and fewer Jewish posters actually post on the main boards. What I see directly from Jewish friends and colleagues in my real life, and more widely on social media is that Jewish people feel isolated because non-Jews dont get in touch to connect and support. This seems a better place to do that, especially if the main threads are too painful & infuriating for Jewish people to do battle on all the time. But I think we're all conscious of not intruding on this board and will happily step out.

Yeah, @Beachtastic I don't think there are very many safe spaces online for people who vocally disagree with antisemitism, specially when it's thinly veiled as "just" anti-Zionism, so can definitely see why people would find their way over here for a bit of a reprieve from constant hate and gaslighting.

Your efforts and support have been much appreciated. You too @Cparrot, @SharonEllis and many more. You're never going to find a group of women who all agree on everything, including the purpose of this board, but at least we all have hatred of antisemitism in common!

Hope those in the UK are all enjoying this bank holiday weekend! My kids are driving me bananas and there is Lego absolutely everywhere. I fear my feet will never recover.

Lego is brutal, I miss/don't miss those days 😁

I’m also very grateful to hear support from non-Jewish posters on these boards. I don’t hear it very often in real life - most people I know are broadly supportive if asked, but choose not to get involved. So it means a great deal to know there are people willing to speak up.
I really appreciate your efforts in condemning the dangerous posts and threads that have been rampant on Mumsnet since 10/7, and I’m sorry that doing so takes such an emotional toll, I think many of us can sadly relate to that.

Because those of us non-Jews who support you sometimes like to post our support directly, and because sometimes it helps to post about this topic amongst supportive people.

This is the first time in my life that I have felt unwelcome in a Jewish space.

You’re not unwelcome at all

Thank you!

ETA, I am aware that there are a lot of non-Jewish posters out there who do a lot more than I do on the CITME threads. Those threads are absolute cesspits and I ran out of rope with them many years ago, under various other usernames.

I’ve been on these threads since 2022. I hope this is true for me as well.

I'm not Jewish either so hesitated a long time before posting here as there's no way I want to cause any offence or tread on toes. However the situation in this country (and elsewhere) has become intolerable, it really has. I decided I need to do something, even if it's only a small something, to try to push back against it. I've also had a long time fascination with Judaism and the land of Israel and have tried to learn what I can about the history. My best friend at Uni was Jewish, she was a riot and we had the best time!

I basically want to post here because I want you to know you aren't alone and that there are non-Jewish people who do care and want to show support. But yes, MN is a tough crowd and it can be very hard to endure the constant barrage. Also I get that this current situation may make you all want to close ranks against outsiders, but please resist that, we want to extend the hand of friendship.

Mumsnet has finally responded:

"We do understand that some antisemitic tropes can be subtle or coded, and we try to approach reports carefully and in good faith. At the same time, we need to moderate independently and apply our own Talk guidelines consistently across all topics, which can sometimes involve judgement calls on borderline posts.

We do appreciate the suggestion, though, and we’ll keep it in mind."

So in short they're not interested in improving.

Absolutely. I think many of us really appreciate your updates especially. Hope you are doing well.

Very disappointing.

I came off Mumsnet for a bit as I couid be reading a post on something completely innocuous and unrelated toIsrael/antisemitism and I’d see replies along the lines of ‘but there’s children starving in Gaza’. I was trying to avoid all the obvious political posts too.

Unf it didn’t last long but I was proved right earlier on a post about a sad case of a murdered child in the UK.

Also v happy to have supportive non-Jews on here. Please stay!! The last thing we need is to be exclusive (tbh I’m not even keen on Jewish schools even though I sent my DC to a Jewish secondary). I do think it fosters less inclusion, but now you ‘have’ to do it or your kid will be the only Jew in the village and potentially get subjected to anti-semitism or at least get the Gaza BS shoved down their throat. I know this from friends’ kids’ experiences - some have moved their DC to more supportive schools.

Thank you. I'm just glad that it turned out that I had something to contribute from time to time, thanks to my long-ago military training. And I am doing well, and am fully recovered from my heart surgery last December. I'm almost done with cardiac rehab as well.

And I have to say how much I've enjoyed getting to know a group of women whose religious and cultural background is so different from my own. It gives me hope that we all really can get along despite those differences.

Such a poor response.

Just wondering if anyone has contacted the CST directly about the issues? I think they can work to get some posts removed especially if it’s the same users, although I may be mistaken.

I hope it’s ok to post this as a non- Jewish person- appreciate opinions will differ about that.

I’m someone that has been very active on the CITME board (defending Israel & Jewish people) but spending time on that board makes you feel grubby after a while from contact with so many obnoxious people with despicable views I would avoid like the plague in real life.

I’ve made the decision not to start any more threads on there as they all end up the same way, however objective I try to make them. I’m just posting here to say that I agree with people saying it’s disappointing that MN mods don’t take a stronger stance against antisemitism as it feels like the “job” of countering it has been down to posters like me and many of the users I recognise here from the CITME board.

We all get tired/ground down by the challenges of that board in the end. MN moderation team aren’t taking a proactive stance on antisemitism at all but are just relying on the “report” function to delete anything too blatant.

Anyway, I’m waffling. Peace to all of you but especially to anyone in Israel or with family or friends in Israel.

I think you've nailed one of the issues Twiglets - the reliance on reporting. First it puts the responsibility on others, Jewish and non-Jewish spend ages trawling through threads even if we aren't commenting, to report stuff. Its also why reporting to CST was tricky. I have been in contact with them and they asked to see examples. You can send screenshots of individual comments but MN will argue that the most openly antisemitic stuff gets deleted (eventually). But that doesn't deal with the overall impact of the dog whistles and the volume, the obsession with Israel and complete lack of proportion, which we know is motivated by antisemitism and cant be dealt with by reporting individual posts.

Thank you @SharonEllis

In future I will only report personal attacks - the constant rude & inflammatory comments on that board infuriate me, even when not directly made to me ( which they often have been!)

I will leave the blatantly antisemitic posts up for everyone to see so it is obvious that MN is not properly moderated against antisemitism but relies on reporting. I think with how bad that particular board is, there is a case for MN mods to follow it themselves - and make it transparent they will delete anything against site rules. That would probably be enough to send the worst offenders to a different site to spew their nonsense.

Sadly, I just don't think Mumsnet cares. Its evident that they don't take moderation seriously and aren't investing in it proactively (as shown by the incident where child abuse images were uploaded and took hours to remove).

They've actively made the site more aggressive by seeking to monetise it while not dealing with the issues. The extremes can be see in discussions about Israel and Jews but it extends to every part of the site now.

I used to report posts that were wildly anti-American - Americans are all thick, grabby, poorly educated, don't have proper food, etc. They never took down the posts, no matter how vile they were. I would point out that if someone posted the same things about Germans, Vietnamese, etc. they'd be gone in a flash. It never made a difference.

I eventually concluded that it was because of implicit bias on the part of the mods. They think all of those things are true, so they don't see a problem with them being said. I think the same thing happens when antisemitic posts are reported.

I agree with you about implicit bias on the part of the mods.

Possibly straying into dangerous territory here by criticising the mods but I think some of them would benefit from more training on recognising not just antisemitism but other forms of automatic bias against certain countries (America being one as you very rightly point out).

They would feel far more protective if the bias was against Muslim countries in my opinion, and persistent negativity such as you describe would be seen as racist.

Very poor response.

I agree with the thread title, MN could do better, much better!