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 absolutely the right thing to do. I am sorry you weren't able to do it sooner. I'm a former police officer and was also a comms and contingency manager for a government dept, and it's what we had in our IT contingency plans for such awful instances.

Thank you @JustineMumsnet, it is later than it should have been implemented, but I’m glad it’s been done.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe I don't think you're comprehending quite how serious this is? It's not just "someone said something upsetting", this is CSAM being posted to a forum.

It's an unmanned website, largely unmoderated out of hours - and in the public domain. That risk is entirely known, even if someone hasn't been on mumsnet before.

Personal responsibility. That shouldn't need to be said.

I think it’s clear that those minimising this didn’t see the images.

I do think this is a reminder to everyone that nowhere on the internet is 'safe' and we can't rely on online companies to pick up the pieces when things go wrong. It took me 2 minutes to find info for victim support which posters who needed support could have done themselves instead of expecting Mumsnet to do it.

Probably a good time to remind your kids to be wary of opening links and to talk to you if they see something that is upsetting.

These things shouldn't happen but they do, on X, Reddit and other sites, it's up to us to keep our wits about us. There is no reason why anyone needed to see more than one or two pictures last night but some would have been there for the drama instead of doing the right thing (reporting and logging off).

I don't think you're comprehending just how much control you have over seeing those images...

My @ is switched off by the way.

Hopefully I won’t be able to post a ( safe) image..

Phew!
I cannot.

That’s a good move.

I don't need to see the images to understand. Child sex abuse is enough, just those words is enough. No minimising there.

I won't be here tonight, won't be clicking on links anywhere here. Because I don't want to see them and mumsnet might not have this sorted yet.

OK, they've disabled images, but that message was still tone deaf.

What else do you want added?

I'm sorry but people had no control over it. It was posted on random threads. The moderators of the website have a duty to deal with this.

That's great. Thank you.

Hmm, 12 hours to comment and not even an apology? That's not really good enough is it? I am so glad I didn't see these images but from what I've read on here they would have been very triggering.

But it clearly became very clear that people were posting pictures on multiple threads. I opened one thread on site stuff last night which said what was happening so I turned it off. Once people had seen a picture or two AND threads have been started saying there's a problem there is no excuse for seeing any more imagines.

A proper apology, an answer to what they're doing about the poor nightwatch who had to deal with it, and all of that more quickly than this afternoon.

The moon on a stick, I know.

Just here for the dramaz then?

The rudeness on this thread and the breathtaking arrogance too.

This is an attack on MN, on a space where women gather, share information and resources, support each other.

Shutting down MN or disabling functionality is giving the attackers exactly what they want. Albeit may be temporarily necessary while solutions are being implemented.

I agree with pp that the attack is ongoing, with some posts here aiming for maximum damage to MN.

The images of CSA are being used as a weapon. However, if distributing CSA were the sole aim, then closing or curtailing MN and other women-focused spaces will only allow CSA to proliferate more freely.

MRA would be delighted to have it shut down-one of the reasons why MN needs to react seriously and comprehensively

It wasn’t the same users seeing all the images!

Blood by the looks of it.

Ironically with the acronyms used on here I initially assumed CSA meant Child Support Agency.

It was only when someone spelled it out that I realised.

But mumsnet is doing that, aren't they? They've said they are doing what they need to.

I'm going to leave them to get on with that.

@YesHonestly I was responding to someone who said that users had no control about seeing multiple images when of course they did. They didn't need to stay on mn.

And I will do the same.
I think the millions of users who won’t be aware of the issue should be warned too.