Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk

Back to thread
Original poster

Racist post

10 replies

CrazyDuchess · 22/07/2016 20:28

I have reported this thread a number of times and it has been up for hours - please can you delete it now! This is ridiculous

Go to post
MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 22/07/2016 21:19

Hi Duchess,

Thanks for this and apologies for taking a while to get to you.

We have zapped this thread now.

This is the deletion message:

Hi all,

When this thread was reported earlier, we decided to leave it up as although the OP was offensive, we felt that the discussion that followed was interesting and informative and educational for the OP.

However, we can see that the OP has continued in the same vein rather than being open to a discussion and we think it's time to pull the plug.

Racist posts are against the Talk guidelines and we feel that this has now tipped over into just plain nastiness.

MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 22/07/2016 21:32

Hi Duchess,

We never want to cause any upset but we have found that sometimes when someone posts from a naive or ignorant standpoint, it is better to allow the conversation to flow so that others can explain why the OP is ignorant. Sometimes it is helpful and the OP realises that they've been a dick they are ignorant but sadly, this was not one of those occasions.

We're really sorry that this one didn't turn around, we do not in anyway condone racist comments and we will and do remove them.

Apologies for any upset caused, it really isn't ever our intention.

MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 22/07/2016 21:52

Sorry Duchess.

We really do not find it acceptable and we really did not want to cause anyone any upset.

We do totally take your points on board and apologise that we weren't quicker off the mark.

MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 24/07/2016 10:39

Morning all,

We do have a new system in place where reports with words such as 'racist' in them will go into a priority folder that is looked at first. We hope this will help us to get to these cases faster.

We did drop the ball on this one and we are sorry. The last thing we want is for you to feel as though we are disinterested or blasé about reports on hate speech.

We will try harder to address issues surrounding racist comments.
Apologies again.

MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 16/09/2016 16:24

Hi all,

Apologies for the radio silence, it's been a fairly busy day here. Yes, we did fuck up and make the wrong call by leaving the thread up initially, it should have gone sooner. We know that upset was also compounded as it then took us too long to remove it once we received more reports later on.

It is never our intention to upset anyone and we have had a discussion at MNHQ about what went wrong and how to stop it from happening again.

It was a shit storm of events including human error and a shift handover too and so it took us longer than it should have to get to this.

We are in the process of changing our reports system to combat this and to make sure that threads such as this one are dealt with in a more timely manner.

We know we sound like a broken record but we really are sorry that this was left up for so long and we are putting things in place to address this.

Thank you all for reporting and for calling us out on this. We do try our best, but we do get it wrong sometimes.

Apologies again for any upset caused.

MNHQ

RebeccaMumsnet · 16/09/2016 16:45

We do totally see your point.
Last night, we made the wrong call and then had a shift change and it took longer than we would have liked to make the right call.

The new system we are planning would combat this, it involves a triage system and at least two sets of eyes on each report. It's a work in progress but we hope it will help to catch the threads that slip through the net.

MNHQ

DawnMumsnet · 16/09/2016 20:39

Hi all,

I wasn't on duty yesterday. I've just come on shift tonight and seen this huge mess and can only say that I agree with you all - this was a terrible decision, the opening post was awful ("Is it culture?" IS IT CULTURE?!) and the thread should have come straight down.

Have no idea what else I can say now other than that I'm hugely sorry.

MNHQ

DawnMumsnet · 16/09/2016 21:05

Absolutely will be having that word, Duchess.

MNHQ

DawnMumsnet · 17/09/2016 11:14

Hi Badders,

Completely understand, this was too little and far too late.

In answer to your question, yes, I did suspend Dothedance's ability to post last night, and have mailed to explain exactly why I considered her opening post to be racist.

However, the fact that she didn't intend to cause offence, and didn't think she was being racist, and has apologised, is almost irrelevant here. It's us that were most at fault, for not immediately taking the thread down. 'Letting the conversation flow' is pretty farcical when the 'conversation' consists of scores of people saying 'please take this racist bollocks down'.

On a huge site like this, people are inevitably going to make inappropriate or ill-thought-out comments from time to time, whether that be on the topic of race, or special needs, or age, whatever. There are also going to be the goady fuckers who come on to be deliberately inflammatory. The onus is on us at MNHQ to deal with such posts, and such posters, and to respond quickly and sensitively to reports about them.

We utterly failed on this occasion, and I'm truly sorry.

MNHQ

DawnMumsnet · 17/09/2016 19:03

Hi again Badders,

Sorry if that didn't come across right - I absolutely do credit you guys with knowing that difference, that was never in question here. It's our response that was the problem.

What I was trying to say was simply that the thread should have been taken down immediately, regardless of the OP's intentions. It was all kinds of wrong. You were all telling us that it was all kinds of wrong. It should have been deleted as soon as it was reported.

Watch this thread for updates

Tap "Watch" to get all the latest updates

End of posts

There are no more MNHQ posts on this thread

Back to thread