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Original poster

Warning when a thread has been picked up by newspapers

2 replies

Boohootoyootoo · 27/04/2019 08:06

It really concerns me that when a thread is picked up by a shitrag newspaper, that people just KEEP posting really personal stuff on there.

Is there no way of marking a thread - changing the heading etc to say that this is now more public than expected and your stories are likely to be published?

Obvs we all know these forums are public spaces but once something is actually published - isn't there a responsibility to let people know?

I've tried my hardest on the vasectomy thread which is now on the Sun online but people keep posting personal details without RTFT.

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MNHQ

EstherMumsnet · 28/04/2019 20:42

Hi there,

It's a hard one because we have no way of knowing which threads will be picked up and published elsewhere, so can really just reiterate the usual warnings about being careful what identifying information you publish online. But we'll flag this one with the team to see whether anyone has any ideas.

MNHQ

HebeMumsnet · 29/04/2019 11:35

Hi again Boohoo.

We've just had a chat about this. We do see why you've suggested it and we do regularly contact the OP when we spot that a thread has been filched by the press (and actually, we often will break our usual rule about not deleting whole threads and zap them if it seems like a really super-sensitive thread). In terms of the other posters contributing, again if someone reported their post once a thread had appeared in the papers and wanted it gone as they had privacy concerns, we would usually be happy to oblige in that circumstance.

However, we would be a bit concerned about putting any warning in the title or anywhere obvious. Mainly because we think that might lead people to think it's 'safe' to post on any thread without that warning. In reality, though it doesn't happen that often, a thread could suddenly find itself in the papers, or a user quoted, at any time and it might well be a few hours or even days before we knew anything about that. We wouldn't want people to assume that if there was no warning there, the thread definitely wouldn't be in the papers.

Also, we think that, newspapers aside, in general it's best to post assuming the world can see it. The entire site is open for anyone to view, so we always remind people to only post comments they'd be happy to be read, or to ensure they aren't identifiable by their username or the contents of their posts. We think, again, that adding warnings to some threads could give people a false sense of privacy on others when that's really not the case.

Hope that explains our thinking a bit anyway. Do shout if you've any further questions about this.

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