Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Site stuff

Join our Innovation Panel to try new features early and help make Mumsnet better.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

Linking Sensitive Threads to Social Networking Sites

163 replies

WhenwillIfeelnormal · 21/02/2011 14:26

Please can you take a look at this thread in AIBU which explains the rationale behind this appeal.

When Mumsnet decided to provide the facility to link threads to Facebook and Twitter, several of us had grave reservations about this move. When it was clear that Mumsnet was going to continue with the policy, I started a thread asking for you to consider removing the buttons from the most sensitive discussion boards, such as Relationships, Bereavement and SN. Others made similar requests and you were kind enough to agree.

At the time, I said that just removing the buttons without having a permanent request and rationale on display, might not be enough to dissuade posters from linking sensitive threads to those sites. Unfortunately, no such written appeal has been displayed.

Last night a poster decided to link a very sensitive thread on to Twitter and the issue for me is not about privacy. The OP in that thread is pragmatic enough to know that what we write on here can never be considered private.

The issue is more to do with human consideration and making a decision not to invite Twitter followers to gawp at another person's distress.

Could you please consider writing a policy on this issue, with clear expectations about users' behaviour, including any penalties that will occur if this is transgressed. Could this policy also be reinforced at the top of each of the non-Twitter/FB linked boards please, because it is evident from the AIBU and sensitive thread concerned, that many users hadn't noticed the absence of the FB and Twitter buttons on those boards.

Thank you.

OP posts:
Stupiditysquared · 21/02/2011 16:48

I agree with the OP, but then perhaps I would.

It's a given that if the item is on the internet, it is there in the public domain.

It really was a cruel act to tweet that thread as the product of trollery or prudery. I believe the term used today was 'the sealed up vagina brigade'. You know, that's hurtful. It's a pretty bitchy thing to do tbh.

And I don't believe that it would be difficult to police this for a nanosecond. If MN were to have a policy that sensitive threads shouldn't be tweeted or shared on other sites, then all it would take is for someone to report it. Much as posts are reported on here. Yes of course the offender would be free to wander in and do similarly malevolent things. But only as a non-member. And isn't it right that in a community there should be some form of sanction?

wannaBe · 21/02/2011 16:59

ss report it to who? "dear mn hq, someone tweeted this thread last night - can you deal with them please? Their twitter name is Sid smith btw." Most tweeters don't have the same name as their mn name, so how are mn hq supposed to know who is a mumsnetter and who is just a lurker?

Anyone who thinks this is easily doable is clearly naive wrt the extent of the internet.

Stupiditysquared · 21/02/2011 17:04

Wannabe, the one thing about Twitter, and FB is that pretty well all the MN identities are known and shared. So, pretty obvious really. If not obvious, then it'd be a problem i agree. But as things stand? Natch

ThePosieParker · 21/02/2011 17:05

I have the same id.

noddyholder · 21/02/2011 17:07

I thought twitter was for people who had such fascinating lives to document their every move and didn't think they would need to get threads from other sites to bulk out their tweets.

ThePosieParker · 21/02/2011 17:11

Gasp....are you implying my life isn't practically WAG like?

wannaBe · 21/02/2011 17:13

I don't have the same ID.

afaik most people on fb use their rl names not mn names.

The only way you can stop people posting about threads is for mn to remove their twitter/fb pages in order that they not post about threads either. You can't say to people "please use the twitter buttons to tweet about threads on this, this and this topic, but not on these ones. Oh and mn hq will tweet whatever we like, wherever we like." And furthermore, you would have to police peoples' conversations outside the internet as well. What about off-board email lists where mn might be up for discussion among users? people on msn? people who know each other in rl? You simply cannot police it, and there's no way mn will disassociate itself from fb/twitter.

Ultimately the onus is on the poster to not post information they don't want out there in the public domain. Given that mn clearly stipulates they can use your posts for their own means, they could publish them in a book and you would have no recourse.

Blatherskite · 21/02/2011 17:14

and what's going to stop someone signing up to Twitter as Stupiditysquared or WhenwillIfeelnormal and retweeting sensitive threads?

It's unpoliceable.

DinosaursHateUnderpants · 21/02/2011 17:20

SS - there is no way that you or MN know all the MN identities on FB or Twitter, no way.

Rannaldini · 21/02/2011 17:25

mumsnet themselves use twitter to get people to come along and join in on bunfights
they post threads onto twitter

we use twitter to have fun and it feels like a community there bizarrely. People are generally a LOt nicer

sometimes we tweeters want to join bunfights and because of this we sometimes mention mn threads to each other

it is the internet

if something is private and you will be known for it change your details
have 6 children
live in the Isle of Man/Sheepey
don't keep going on about privacy on an open internet site

Stupiditysquared · 21/02/2011 17:31

i did change my details. Probably not significantly enough, but i did do that.

Didn't mean that I expected a fellow MNer to tweet a thread that IMO shouldn't have been, and calling me and others variously either a troll or a prude or whatever. Really getting off on someone else's distress. Bit sick and IMHO not what MN should tolerate.

Absolutely easy to identify the perpetrators here. They have the same MN IDs.

ScaredOfCows · 21/02/2011 17:36

I suppose the equivalent of playground gossips and bullies will always be around. Shame though, since the actions of some take away from what is, or was, a great forum, and mean that lots of poster will not any longer post about anything of any meaning. Which in turn reduces this site to shallow and lightweight.

wannaBe · 21/02/2011 17:37

so an identifyable poster tweets a thread on twitter (under the same name as her mn username and gets banned for it.

So she sets up another twitter account in the name of other well liked/perhaps not well liked user and tweets a thread in that name and that user gets banned for it. How do you suppose mn are supposed to know that that username is actually the same person as the mn username? Not to mention all the trouble people could cause for other users by simply replicating them on twitter in order to have them removed from mn.

Can people really not see how unworkable any kind of policy on this is?

DinosaursHateUnderpants · 21/02/2011 17:38

May have been easy this time, but it won't often be easy and if you aren't policing everyone then it's just not doable. And I still don't understand how MN could say that you can't link to threads on FB or Twitter when that link is freely available on a public website elsewhere - how can it be private when it's on a site that is public? It just can't.

DinosaursHateUnderpants · 21/02/2011 17:39

I see it wannabe. I really do.

Stupiditysquared · 21/02/2011 17:43

You could make it MN policy not to allow tweeting of sensitive threads. No-one's asking MN to have an active policing role - it wouldn't be possible. But when someone steps over the line, and it's known (as it mostly is) who that person is, then surely to goodness, we can stop that sort of behaviour?

I say nothing about the ethics or morality about laughing about someone else's distress. Because clearly, to some posters, that's a total irrelevance.

DinosaursHateUnderpants · 21/02/2011 17:44

And I have every sympathy for those saying that's it's not right to tweet or link to sensitive topics, but the fact is that it is totally unenforceable with any kind of 'penalty'. All MN can do is warn/advise against doing so and appeal to better nature, but it won't be infallible by a long way.

wannaBe · 21/02/2011 17:49

and who is going to decide what is a sensitive thread.

And what if, as happened in riven's case, every mumsnetter on twitter tweets it? do you ban them all?

Tee2072 · 21/02/2011 17:52

SS, it isn't mostly known. Also, you can have as many Twitter accounts as you have email addresses. And it takes 10 minutes or less to set up an anonymous email address and twitter name if you want to tweet sensitive threads.

If I really wanted to Tweet something sensitive from MN for whatever reason, I could cover my tracks from MN in about 15 minutes tops. The only thing that might be the same is my IP address and I all I'd have to do there is change computers. And I have 3 of them in my house. I wouldn't even need to move from the sofa, actually.

There is nothing MN can do.

This is probably why they haven't posted on this thread.

BaroqueAroundTheClock · 21/02/2011 17:57

actually if you post "dad found wanking in the bathroom" on a UK search on google it's 4th on the list........so a lot more public than a tweet or a FB (unless they happen to be a tweeter or a FBer who has their setting to "everyone"......which I think is very very few MNers)

BaroqueAroundTheClock · 21/02/2011 17:58

How do you define "sensitive" though??

Tee2072 · 21/02/2011 17:58

I am afraid of what the first 3 links might be, Baroque. Hmm

BaroqueAroundTheClock · 21/02/2011 18:01

actually only one of them is dodgy, one is "dearcupid", the other is another forum.

BaroqueAroundTheClock · 21/02/2011 18:02

actually if I take off "moderate" search and put it on safe search it's the top link

ThePosieParker · 21/02/2011 18:02

It's not fourth on my list.