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.

This is exactly right. The level of outrage about what Justine has and hasn't said today is getting ridiculous.
I imagine that she knows what is involved in running a website and is completely serious about correcting the various failings that allowed last night's criminal posts to be made.
We aren't entitled to be told everything, and we certainly aren't entitled to be told it NOW RIGHT AWAY.

@GreylingsSkin I think contacting the media is the only action that is going to spur MN to implement any significant changes.
They're certainly not going to bother updating on here .
So I'm glad to hear that yo're doing this.

Another poor response from MNHQ.

This will likely happen again tonight (the thought of it makes me feel ill).
MNHQ need to remove the ability to post images RIGHT NOW because, if it happens for a second night and there were preventative actions MNHQ could have taken but didn’t, even on a temporary basis, then it’s gross negligence.

It seems pretty clear to me from the responses from HQ that users can have no expectation of safety on this site in the short term.

The lack of clarity about a) how problem posts should be reported after hours (what hours? Are details of how to use the Night Watch posted on every thread?) and b) how posts should be reported legally when they contain such images as those posted last night, means that users are open to committing offences of the worst kind themselves, in any attempt to carry out post-hoc moderation.

I cannot believe that @JustineMumsnet is happy to allow the status quo to stand (users being able to post unmoderated images direct to the live site) while it is clear that this compromises the legality of the site and the safety and legality of posters. Advertisers will, I am sure, be just as unhappy to learn their ads appear on the same posts as those illegal images as they might be at a temporary loss of revenue while the issue is sorted in a permanent way.

Simply putting a moratorium on new posters adding images is ridiculous as a measure - it must be so simple to program bots to open new accounts and just wait for time to elapse before posting their first images that it is no deterrent at all.

Image posting must be disabled to avoid users being traumatised, and incriminating themselves, when this happens again.

At the very least, people DO have the right to be told NOW RIGHT AWAY what they should do tonight if more of these images appear on the site. Or maybe there isn't any point in answering that because nothing has changed.

Mumsnet has had years to sort this issue, to make a safe environment for it’s members. It hasn’t and because of relying on volunteers rather than paid mods, and not putting in safe filters used by other sites, many people saw traumatising images of CSA. There has been no support offered to those affected, and you are damn right I’m going to the media because they won’t change until there is media spotlight on the issue.

The person who did it now has solid evidence that the mods go at 11pm and it's essentially a free for all. Everyone is terrified to link to the threads in night watch as it's a crime, so they can essentially do what they like. Horrific

But they hold our data so I think they actually do owe us an explanation right away. Especially those poor users who saw the images.

They can't make it totally safe -you are unrealistic and unreasonable to demand that

It's always an ongoing war

It does seem like the night watch need a tech support lead on hand and I would hope HQ will look into making that more robust

Just posting for an update. Such an awful situation. I hope this will be resolved quickly.

At the very least, people DO have the right to be told NOW RIGHT AWAY what they should do tonight if more of these images appear on the site. Or maybe there isn't any point in answering that because nothing has changed.
I don't know we do have any rights with regard to what MN communicates with us .Do we ?

They have - post a link to the thread on the Night Watch board.

It isn't 'committing a crime' to do so, nobody's suggesting posting the images or a direct link to the offensive post. Just the thread it's in.

I agree. People are getting very pitchforks at dawn and I can't help but feel some are almost relishing the opportunity to be so outraged. I really hope some emergency measures are in place by tonight, such as temporarily disabling the photo uploading feature. But putting more permanent and robust screening measures in place, plus finding overnight paid moderation staff can't happen at the click of Justine's fingers.

They'll have been tied up all day with lawyers, forensic IT people, the police, crisis meetings. It's a shame it's taken something this awful to highlight that they should have upped their game years ago, but I'm pretty sure they will know they need to up their game now.

Just give them a chance to get on and do it now. People will be watching, so they can't afford to brush it under the carpet or put in any half-measures, and they know that.

I agree, I do think it would be wise to completely suspend image posting til things are put in place.

@AlbertCamusflage I imagine that she knows what is involved in running a website
If Justine does know what's involved in running a website it's not very evident ( to me at least)at the moment .
The use of volunteers to moderate for long periods, their lack of "teeth" and the lack of awareness for posters about the volunteers role is one example that she's not sufficiently aware of the dangers.

I think it's outrageous that at the very least MNHQ have not temporarily disabled the ability to post images!

I feel really sorry for anyone who is moderating tonight.
I wonder what the legal position will be if MN users/mods are subjected to similar images tonight, given they have had ample opportunity today to put preventative measures in place. If it happens again tonight MNHQ can't say they were not warned.

Image posting should have been suspended immediately. That is the first thing that should have happened this morning while more stringent measures were put in place. A permanent member of the HQ team should be on duty tonight, and every night, until a permanent solution has been found.

Volunteers had to deal with the most horrific images last night with no support. Could you have done what they did last night? I know I couldn’t have.

The response from MNHQ is not good enough. There were steps that could have been taken as soon as they became aware of what happened last night. Why haven’t they been taken?

Posting a link to a thread containing CSA could very well be considered distributing it.

You’d be frightfully unlucky to be prosecuted but stranger things have happened; and that’s almost irrelevant anyway…

MN is far, far too big to rely on members sharing potentially illegal links to volunteers who are unequipoed to deal with CSA and may not want to open threads after last night.

@oneofmeiscutebuttwothough my point still remains. Whenever there have been security breaches, criminal offences, the swatting attacks etc Justine has engaged and it's just ending up as a 20 page pile on with nothing she says being accepted.

It's a free to use forum, so I doubt you do have many rights, no. I imagine the official advice right now is that if you fear seeing offensive content tonight then don't come on the site tonight. And the same for tomorrow night and every night until they've got a solution. You are of course completely free to not use MN at all if you do not trust it. Your choice. It's hard for them to say much else without sounding flippant or just parroting platitudes, but what do you expect them to be able to pull out of the bag in less than 24 hours, that gives us all the guarantees we are after?

I think suspending the ability to post images while all the additional measures are put into place would be an acceptable interim solution.

I do believe that posters would be less "pitchforks at dawn " if MN responded in a different manner.
Don't tell us how busy you are , don't ignore the many comments about revising the volunteer system, about disabling pictures etc with a put down remark aimed at one cherry picked post saying it would be foolish to go into detail .