The deletion of the Upfield thread on AIBU

[PencilsInSpace]

Deletion message: Hi all, as there is already an active thread about this subject on the Feminism boards we're going to close this one.

I don't understand or agree with this decision.

1. people often start threads on the same subject on different boards - is it a new rule that there can only be one?

2. Lots of posters hide FWR so might not know what has happened

3. Upfield made their insinuations against all of MN, not just FWR

Can you say a bit more about your decision please?

To summarise

Flora pay MN handsomely for branding, do two product tests with MN and a shed load of advertising in September.

Then contract comes naturally to an end.

Flora then jumps on a woke bandwagon after being targeted by one prominent TRA to get free twitter points. Pretends end of contract is related to values and tweets (see picture above).

Women are miffed and post on here in AIBU. Thread is deleted.

Others post on here to tell those miffed women they are cross with them about ‘too many trans threads’.

The original issue is about a woman who works for mermaids, or worked for mermaids, who is not trans and has taken a transwoman to court for transphobia (thrown out within minutes), tweeting a reply to her by Flora Margerine, saying they have investigated mumsnet, and as a result are no longer working with them, due to inclusion policies.

Justine, or HQ, have tweeted the following.

"Mumsnet will always stand in solidarity with minority communities. We don’t tolerate transphobic comments and will delete any when they are flagged to us. But we do also believe strongly in free speech. 1/3

The discussion of gender self-id and what that might mean for very hard-won women’s rights, as well as the rapidly growing number of children exploring gender identity issues, is contentious. 2/3

We know some people would like us to simply censor this entire debate but a similar number think we censor too much. We’re committed to allowing respectful discussion of an issue that is of particular interest to parents. 3/3".

All the original thread, the subsequent threads and any information is on FWR. If you hide it, you won't know about it. But please don't complain if that is the case.

A second thread criticising flora and supporting mumsnet was started in AIBU and has been deleted on the basis that there was already one thread about it in FWR.

I've just had a look but can't find the thread, I didn't post on it or follow it. It was in the last week or so and many of the regulars posted on it.

It was a little short thread and most women on it were very kind to the OP.

Only someone paying very close attention to FWR would even have noticed it, so your harping on about it is rather revealing. Colour me shocked.

Also it's extraordinary the number of times people say I didn't follow it, read it or talk about any of the points, yet still seem to think their opinion of it holds any weight!

Yes, convenient drip feed after your perfectly comprehensible post a few minutes ago which referenced the general point of many other posts.

The picture are 08:26 was also accompanied by a link to the thread which, funnily enough mentioned the trans debate almost straight away.

You can't discuss feminism while ignoring the fact that the definition of 'woman' has been bastardised so apologies for the inconvenience of women having a reasoned discussion about their own rights.

That's ok to have lost interest, those of us who think it's important are still fighting on your behalf. No need to get your hands dirty

But it’s the deletion of the second thread which needs to be answered by HQ.

Highjacking the thread to make points about why people should be following FWR or wanting to question why they don’t is always going to descend in strong discussion on both sides. And that just takes away the point of the actual topic here.

You are never going to reach agreement on people hiding/not hiding the topic. People have reasons for doing so and just because others don’t agree with them doesn’t make them wrong.

But the point here is that the discussion was brought to the main boards and MN have deleted that discussion. that and that alone is what should be talked about on here, and if possible perhaps even opening another main boards discussion on the topic.

Because now many who don’t follow FWR still aren’t any the wiser as to what the discussion was about, iyswim.

I for one am sick of people saying "I never go there it's a pit of women vipers" and being stupidly unaware of the erosion of our hard won rights. Perhaps MNHQ are trying to raise awareness for the people currently burying their heads in the sand.

I think this is a classic example of what puts many people off visiting the FWR topic.

The assumption that women are 'stupidly unaware of the erosion of our hard won rights' and that people are 'burying their heads in the sand', simply because they're chosen to block 1 out of millions of chat topics on the internet, comes across as breathtakingly arrogant.

Other feminism chat forums are available. Mumsnet is not the be all and end all

I actually think that, given the current climate, it was completely u surprising that a company might disassociate itself from another company that has been targeted by a lot of it’s customers. I think Mumsnet’s response is more robust and brave than I would have expected, and I see no reason why they shouldn’t do a bit of damage limitation for commercial reasons.

I think the fact that so many people say they hide FWR is a much more concerning issue, frankly.

I expect its so they can say "look the tfs are only on one part of the site, the mean old feminists"

This. "Damage" limitation. Is it possible to restore the thread? I know it's been done before with supposedly deleted threads.

NoCauseRebel

The thing is, this thread was started by one of the feminists from FWR. With several others supporting her opening post. Until someone says why are you only leaving the other relevant up on FWR, I hate that place and I'm not going there.

It's the way the thread evolved.

relevant thread

@Whatwouldbigfatfannydo my VI doesn’t define me. I shouldn’t have to declare it at the beginning of a discussion or be accused for drip-feeding because I haven’t. I had no idea someone had posted a picture because, well, it’s a picture. Otherwise I might have posted “I can’t read what’s in that picture, can someone explain?” There are, in fact, numerous postings all over the internet talking about people making pictures more described as those with screen readers cannot read them.

And accusing me of drip-feeding and then expressing surprise that I wrote an intelligent point is bordering on disablist so you might want to have a think there.

Well @MNHQ have remained silent despite being tagged and asked for a reply. It's either going to be ignored, or they're coming up with a placating reply as usual about standing in solidarity with minorities or whatever non statement they think will protect them from the TRAs etc.

While we patiently await a reply, we've been engaging in discussion about several different issues, as is common in chat forums.

BUT really, it was deleted due to trigger happy censorship meaning that HQ are happy to facilitate this harm being done to women. That is an issue which absolutely needs discussed, whether folks' feelings are a bit hurt by it or not.

@TequilaPilates- I’ve just had a look at the thread you mentioned. Not sure if you saw the massive apology in the middle of it from the poster the OP bumped heads with?

FWR RADICAL HERE

Well at no point did I express any surprise about your post so that's a moot point.

As a disabled person myself, I don't need any education on disablism at all but thanks for the concern.

Just seen the Twitter thread by @MNHQ - thank you

I'd still like to know the reasoning behind the deletion on AIBU.

I really really wish I never had to post on a women’s rights issue board again. I desperately don’t want to continually worry about our erosion of hard won rights.

The fact that I now have manufacturers of marg telling me my rights are unimportant and to curb my tongue really really boils my piss though. So on and on I go, worrying and posting away.

The majority of the posts - and almost exclusively all of them in the first half the thread - are about the pertinent issue of why the thread was deleted and what the reason is for doing so. Some people mentioned hiding FWR but that pertinent context.

When name calling started about posters on FWR then others sprang to the defence of that board, and that lead to a wider discussion. On a talk forum that’s a natural occurrence anyway, but it also happened because there hasn’t even been a holding message from MN that this will be discussed in a meeting next week or whatever. I’ve seek the same thing over and over; when site stuff threads get long and there is no response from MN.

Back to Upfield - i can see that at least two journalists have asked questions on their Twitter post. So I imagine this will make it to the press soon, in which case more threads will spring up. It would be good to have an answer about the reason for the deletion before then.

@Datun I take your point, but that is IMO why HQ need to clarify why the thread was left only on FWR when they are well aware that a number of users hide it or have never even contributed to it.

In fact it’s entirely possible that they have the tools to know exactly how many mn members hide the thread and how many who don’t have never actually clicked on the topic... Especially as there are multiple threads on all manner of topics so their reasoning for removing a post because it’s “a duplicate thread” is weak at best.

One of the problems I see is that “concerns” has come to be regarded as dog whistle transphobia. So saying “I think that transpeople should absolutely be able to live happy, safe, legally protected, unmolested lives, but I have concerns about the transing of children, women’s sport and the collection of crime data” has come to mean “I am a massive transphobe”

since no-one actually wants to discuss the alleged flora thing there’s no reason to think that it’s important. It’s not about trans after all.....

Is this thread actually about the issue that a thread was in FWR and so another thread about the same topic cannot exist outside of FWR and then that automatically will lead to a discussion about why it is important to talk about things outside of FWR and that is why this thread was created?

Rather than start another thread about the topic that must not be discussed outside of FWR lest it be deleted for being a third thread about the topic and not in FWR?

So entirely on topic?

Because now many who don’t follow FWR still aren’t any the wiser as to what the discussion was about, iyswim.

I believe it was linked upthread but here it is again:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3714947-Upfield-manufacturers-of-Flora-marg-and-Proactiv-dont-want-Mumsnet-to-buy-their-products-any-more

Read it or don't read it. Up to you.

@tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz ok I’ll bite.

The problem with the trans threads is that the reasoned discussion is lost in amongst what can only be perceived as offensive hateful comments.

IMO the discussion of shared spaces is a perfectly valid one for multiple reasons. But those discussions are never kept reasonable. So while person B’s comments may be considered wrong in isolation, it’s very unlikely that the whole thread remains reasonable about the discussion of shared places.

Purely stating “you’re transphobic and a bigot” in response to someone simply saying that the discussion of shared spaces needs to happen is unreasonable. However, so is stating things like “a woman doesn’t have a penis/men will never be women,” which is just two points I’ve seen made on one of these threads.

The fact here is that yes, maybe what the poster is saying is correct, however there are ways to say it which aren’t going to put people’s backs up.

There have forever been trans men and women. We have all co-existed for a long time, it’s only recently that a small number of radicals have decided that this should go one further, and as such that small number of radicals have turned the whole of feminism against anything trans-related.

Aberhonddu

Exactly. The original comment was deemed offensive and so was deleted so why would Datun post an undeleted post as proof that inoffensive comments are deleted?

It doesn't make sense. A comment was deleted. You could post 100 undeleted comments but it doesn't prove that the 1 deleted comment wasn't offensive does it?

The only way for people to decide if the deleted comment was offensive is to show them the deleted comment, not a comment that wasn't deleted.