MN - too lenient on hate speech at present

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Yesterday Amnesty International launched an urgent research campaign into the rise in hate speech Yesterday the UN High Comissioner urged Britain to urgently stop hate crimes

People need to call it out when they see hate speech on mn. There has been plenty recently. It can take courage when so many supporters then pile on though, but you don't need to get into an argument. A simple statement rejecting what they say, without quoting them, is enough. Just simply not saying anything then waiting several hours for mn to delete it adds power to their voice. People always need to report things to mn.

I am concerned that mn are not dealing with things quickly enough at the moment. They must be swamped with reports. I think that an option to report for hate speech should be an explicit available reason and those reports should be red flagged as urgent. The more hate speech that is seen, the more that it tacitly gives others the go ahead to say the same.

I've seen examples of a post being deleted, but the poster not being banned - despite them having said something that is so irrefutably xenophobic, that nobody could interpret it otherwise - and this concerns me. All that teaches them to do is to learn to moderate their language, so that they can get their messages across more subtly. This allows an insiduous tolerance of hate speech to creep across the boards.

It is important to allow freedom of discussion. It is wrong to allow xenophobia, racism and hate to proliferate. It's a difficult one to reconcile, but the balance needs to shift.

MN you could also help by cooperating with amnesty international in recording and reporting incidents to them.

[Blistory]

MNHQ say it's fine to refer to all trans women as men. It's only singling out individuals that's not allowed on here. You're only allowed to insult a whole group

Hardly. They simply allow a discussion to be had. And it's important because right now the transnarrative has me matching a definition of 'non-man' rather than 'woman'. MNHQ allow women to say fuck that to the transnarrative and don't mistake it for women saying fuck you to people who are trans. Big difference. About as big a difference as there is between women who have prostate glands and those who have ovaries.

[WindyMillersProbationOfficer]

Well I find trans women referring to themselves as women offensive. It cheapens my biological reality.

[Queenbean]

Don't we find sometimes that whole threads get hijacked because of one comment that someone has made? Ie, the beetroot thread where the op said she'd given her husband 2 small pieces and he'd yelled at her.
It went:
He's a dick
He's a dick
He's a dick
Maybe he's got sensory issues with food?
He's never mentioned them before, he's a dick
Now you're being disablist

In that instance, is it really a case of calling it? Or do we just have to take a sensible approach that not every single instance is an ism. I'm not belittling the genuine times that agism / racism / disablism occurs but deleting the obvious hate speech ones is good - but those on the fine line, where do MNHQ stand? What is good debate and what is too far?

Is using the phrase "beyond the pale" grounds for being deleted? Is use of the word idiot? We could go with some guidelines about exactly what would and wouldn't be tolerated, because I'm sure not everyone knows the origins of all words and don't want to be accused of hate speech; and as suggested above, reported to the police

[Atenco]

"beyond the pale" = AFAIK refers to when the English only had control of a few parts of Ireland, including Dublin and the English ruled the area around Dublin was called the pale while beyond the pale was dangerous for the English and their allies.

[ErrolTheDragon]

I'd always assumed that 'pale' was merely in its sense of a fence, having never heard of the Pale before. I would never have guessed it might be considered at all offensive, as it makes sense without any historical connotation - akin to 'overstep the mark' . If phrases like this occur then I'd hope the first response would be a helpful link to derivation.

[Atenco]

I can't imagine what would be offensive about the expression, as you say, Dragon, it means to overstep the mark. My historical context was to show that there is nothing offensive about it at all

[KatherineMumsnet]

Hi all,

Just popping on to say that we are discussing this thread here at MNHQ, and we've not forgotten it! We will post again as soon as we can.

[cozietoesie]

I appreciate it when use of words is challenged - it gives me pause for thought and reflection on my own attitudes and the possible effect of my words on others. Which is surely what discussion ought - at least partly - to be about?

But having thought about it in this way, I will continue to regard 'beyond the pale' as an acceptable phrase.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Thanks KatherineMN.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Thank you Katherine :)

[KateMumsnet]

Hi all - just to let you know that we've had a close look at our processes here and we think we've identified some ways to improve our response times on these kind of reports. We're going to get these changes made quickly and then we'll test for a while - hopefully we'll see an uptick, but if not we'll think again.

Thanks all

MNHQ

[Samcro]

badkitten well done on starting this thread and getting a good response from mn hq.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Good, thanks for the prompt attention to this.

[TinnTinn]

Would really like to see some examples here. Or even just the gist of what was said in the hate speech.

It's very difficult to comment without knowing the specifics of what you considered hate speech on here.

[Samcro]

hmm you want examples!!
but then it would be deleted as hate speak

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Fab stuff, Thank you so much mn team :)

[TinnTinn]

Ok, so do you mean name calling? Racist abuse? Bigoted views?

I'm really struggling to work out whether you are being over sensitive or whether it is genuine hate speech.

Obviously I am not advocating hate speech in any way whatsoever here. I am trying to understand what you mean.

[Atenco]

If you want to see an example of hate speech, do a search on travellers, where an entire ethnic group is negatively stereotyped

[PortiaCastis]

The on!y hate speech I've seen has been during the past week.
Thick
Uneducated
Morons
I reported and most of it has been deleted, after all I think because someone has an opposing view hurling insults negates any debate.

[TinnTinn]

So would this be a case of:

" are all assholes and I think they should be put in prison/killed/whatever"

"I had a really bad experience with and this is what happened....."

"I don't like the fact that do this"

Or would this all be considered hate speech?