It's time to rethink the Night Watch volunteer system

[TwigletsAndRadishes]

After the truly awful photos that have been posted on MNin the early hours of this morning, which I will never un-see, I think you need to have a different policy for overnight moderation.

The site is big enough and money-making enough to support a better system by now. There really needs to be proper 24 hour IT cover. At the very least, the Night Watch volunteers should be able to call a member of MNHQ who is on call overnight who has the ability to either deal with the issue or shut the whole forum down until it can be dealt with properly by the IT bods in the morning.

It's only been a handful of threads affected this evening, but it could potentially be a major spamming of dozens or even hundreds of threads next time. This site is used in other parts of the world in different time zones where more people risk seeing the grossly disturbing content than a relative handful of us up at 3am in the UK.

The current system relies on posters reporting any offending theads and hoping that a volunteer will pick up the report in good time and hide the thread. This morning one of the threads affected took far too long to be hidden, not that I am blaming an unpaid volunteer for that.

The problem is, do we actually trust them to do the right thing? Or do they need pressuring? Because this should not have even been possible in the first place, let alone so ridiculously easy.

And as for telling people who are upset to effectively go and calm down…did you see the images? If yes, what is wrong with you that you aren’t equally upset and equally demanding proper answers and actions? Because as of right now, I can still post images. Nothing whatsoever has been done to safeguard the users of this site from further breaches. And if you didn’t see them, good, but you have no idea what other people are going through right now as a result of this.

If those in charge and the way they do their thing were competent and ethical this thread wouldn’t be here.

I'm so sorry to the night watchers. You should never have been put in that position and left at risk in such a way.

I saw them for a matter of seconds and my mind has been tortured all day.

That's a good idea.

Not quite sure why you keep saying to close the site though. Just log off. You can't just turn it off and back on like it's a phone.

Seriously? You think a reasonable reaction here is “meh, so I saw images of child abuse, but it’s the internet innit, so what can MN do, it’s just the everyday perils of being online!”

Of course no site can completely guarantee anything - I get that… but I think it’s a reasonable expectation for them to take strong and effective measures to prevent abusive images from appearing in threads!

I don't think they were out of their depth.

They made exactly the right call and stopped people spamming the boards.

The PP said the staff member 'panicked' but they just did what was necessary 🤷‍♂️

However, I've been against NW volunteers from day one, as I think a forum this massive should use paid night staff.

Of course they should be able take the site down if needed! If they can’t, they need to sack their IT dept!

But the ad revenue…

Well, if that’s the reason for the inaction, MN needs to be closed down…

Those saying it could happen on any site need to be aware that that is exactly why every major site should have emergency protocol for when it does happen. Not tell me when I wake up and then we’ll talk to our lawyers.

Im pleased I found this thread. I started another not realising this was running. I saw them and still feel sick and disturbed.

Nothing is done instantly. I'm not sure what you're expecting. The user has been reported to the police. I have no doubt there are things happening at the back end where we aren't privy too.

There's is absolutely no point in repeatedly posting making yourself more upset than you are already.

The site isn't going to be closed down while things happen. The only thing anyone can do is log off and do something else.

I've said it before. Mumsnet does need moderaters. The internet is too big and twisted now to be self moderated.

So you keep saying. You're very insistent in the site being closed.

And the email response from MN included the awful vile words that disgusting creature put on the post. Ffs!

This is not on MN as well as being no doubt extremely distressing is implicating innocent MN users in criminality

Robust action needs to be taken urgently

Reported a minimum of 10 hours later. Do you really think that’s an acceptable standard procedure when children’s images of their trauma have been hosted on a massively visited website? There are real people in such images and no way of knowing if their abuse is ongoing. Hence immediate action is expected.

This is very true.

I know some people don't want to hear it, but it is.

All that can be done now is to wait and see what MNHQ and the police come back with.

One of those threads was mine, about the bizarre Bianca Censori outfit. The images must have hit that thread after 2am, I can't quite remember when I fell asleep, but pretty sure the thread was hidden by half 4 when I woke again. I'd a notification that there were 80 odd posts which I thought odd for the middle of the night, but I couldn't see them.

I actually feel sick knowing just how close I was to seeing that, and that ppl engaged in a thread I created for a bit of fun ended up actually seeing them. I'm so sorry, especially to the Nightwatch who would have had to see them repeatedly, I really really hope you are getting support!

Historically, mods being volunteers has worked well online, because they are motivated by improving & securing a platform they love. Not just here, everywhere. But it has to stop, mods need the maximum of training & support, not to mention access to every site tool there is.

The moment that first image was posted the entire site should have gone down & a notice put up explaining why. Then the entire thing can be passed on to the authorities & professionals to minimise exposure to the images, blurring all recent posted photos etc & allow trained people to filter them out. Disable photo uploading & then the site could have been brought back.

No, that's not what I said, and I think you know that.

There should have been someone online who could access reports and close the threads and ban the user(s?) immediately - just as they would if someone posted that during the day.

The only way for MN to completely rule out the possibility that no one will post vile images is to stop pictures being posted. But that's completely out of step with the rest of the internet and probably wouldn't be popular with users.

They should absolutely have better processes in place, especially at night, but saying you expect any website to be "safe" is amazingly naive.

You’re joking? Wow.

Would you expect the same of Facebook / X?

For all any user knows, there could already be processes in place to stop illegal images being posted. Unfortunately these type of blunt tools aren’t foolproof.

Not joking at all. I was possibly the first to report about 11.15pm and just looked at emails from this morning and there it is.

I reported at the same time and have had the same email from MN, complete with the wording.

I agree night moderators shouldn’t be volunteer, it’s pretty grim on a site that is female focused and lots of discussion including some site campaigns about unpaid women’s work, women underpaid in the workplace etc relies on unpaid users at night to do the work.
also the fact that lots of the craziest shit happens at night as everyone knows it’s unmoderated at night.

Sorry! That is so out of order and telling.