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Publication of threads outside of Mumsnet

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thinkfast · 23/01/2018 18:39

Hi Mumsnet HQ

Can you please clarify your policy in relation to publication of Talk threads outside of the site.

As I'm sure you are aware, publications such as the Daily Mail have picked up threads and published their contents. Whilst I appreciate that this is essentially a public forum, can you please let us users know whether or not you condone this kind of "outside" publication.

I note that your website terms of use essentially provide that the content of the site belongs to you and that it may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without your express approval.

If you don't condone other media publishing certain threads, are you putting in place any measures or taking any action to try to stop it (and if so, what)?

If you do condone these kinds of publication, could you please give some thought to putting in place some kind of prominent health warning to and protections for posters to let them know that threads may be subject to use and publication in this way?

As I am sure you will appreciate, many of the threads on Talk contain highly personal, sensitive information - most typically about a poster's private family life, on which posters are asking for help or advice and which they wouldn't dream of ever sending into the Daily Mail or the like for publication for commercial gain or otherwise. My view is that if our threads are at risk of publication outside of Mumsnet, we should all be publicly and prominently warned of that fact, as new users, less frequent users, or those that don't read the Daily Mail might not be aware of the risk.

Many thanks

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MNHQ

sandymumsnet · 24/01/2018 12:53

Hi all,

Thanks for all your comments on this thread - as a couple of posters have said, this is something that comes up fairly often, but we're always happy to clarify our position.

The first thing to say is that we definitely don't pass threads like this to the Mail or other sites and we certainly don't have any financial arrangement with them. And in fact, the traffic that comes from the DM is negligible as a percentage of our overall visits.

Unfortunately, though, there’s not a huge amount we can do about other publishers lifting threads like this - they'd likely claim Fair Use and that would be difficult to challenge. It's one of the downsides of Mumsnet being an open site, and as always, we remind everyone that this is a public forum, searchable by Google, legally linkable to - and quotable by - all and sundry. On the upside, this openness means Mumsnet is available for free to anyone who needs advice 24-7. It also means fresh faces, a variety of points of view, and the wisdom that comes from a very sizeable crowd. But it's definitely worth being a bit circumspect with identifiable stuff when you are posting, and making use of the name-change facility if that seems useful.

We find that fellow MNers will often pipe up if they think the OP is giving away a bit too much, which is great. A really prominent warning would, we think, deter people from seeking the help and advice they really need, and that would run against our mission to make parents' lives easier - but we'll look at adding a reminder along these lines to our FAQs, which is where many new posters come before they post.

We hope that this goes some way to explaining things our end - and thanks again for raising it.

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