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.

No it was an AIBU where someone was just trying to let site users not on this thread aware of what happened last night, since MMHQ aren’t proactively letting people know. It was a fairly balanced thread, surprised it has been deleted but now very much seems clear that MN are trying to cover it up as much as possible from site users.

The deletion message was faintly amusing, mind, 'while we check some things behind the scenes'. Hmm. As if someone had posted out of turn, which as far as I saw, no one had, other than pointing out a massive traumatic error and a safeguarding failure

Again, my very best wishes are with last night's nightwatch volunteers.

It hasn't made it onto any of the main newspaper sites or BBC news either to the best of my knowledge, which is strange given how quickly news is reported these days. But we also know MN is quite happy for them to lift stories from here when it suits them...
Anyone would think there was some frantic cloak and dagger stuff going on behind the scenes.

Mine too. They had to see the images repeatedly. Really hope they were able to speak to a therapist today. They & MN users can’t just take the day off work/parenting like a mumsnet moderator could after seeing traumatic images. I cannot overstate how appalled I am.

I for one have had intrusive and unsettling memories bursting into my brain today and I'm sure I'm not alone. But the night watchers had to see everything before deleting. I don't even know where to start with that.

Very disappointing to see the deletion message on the pretty calm thread in AIBU.

It was posted in site stuff by the OP.

Maybe because it was in trending.

Because sadly it's far too common to be 'news'.

As has been said earlier, Facebook, Insta, Reddit, X have all had the same problems, just as hundreds of other sites have.

True, but there was a reddit mod on earlier who explained how they deal with it and it was much better.

Indeed- Mumsnet isn’t what it was, it used to be a tiny community that hardly made money, now it’s turning over millions it needs a different approach. It needs to catch up with other platforms where users are actually safeguarded pretty well.

I don’t want to stay on here if images like that will appear, I don’t ever want to see anything like that in my life!

Cloak and dagger stuff arranging tarriff agreements between US and Mexico, Reform passing Labour in the polls, school stabbings (x2), the latest new PR pics from the royal family, conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Congo - oh and the mandatory footballer stories?

Those are what I'm seeing on my front pages. " UK Women's social media site attacked by arses posting 15 illegal images which were taken down and users banned, follow up with relevant authorities". is not going to outstrip any of those just as it doesn't when the same problem hits just about every other site. This problem is pervasive. It would need a hijack of the palace account to post this stuff to attract press attention.

What is worth discussing is how night moderation works, how mods are supported and how users are informed/advised to report at night. Also whether the response and night time procedures are effective enough and what will be done differently/improved in future - especially user facing changes.

There’s a thread on AIBU referencing bestiality that’s being allowed to stay up. according to the email I got they’re “on it”.

In one sense, it's irrelevant that they are volunteers. Volunteers can still be given high quality training, and professional support. Think of The Samaritans.

Thay is very true. If they were given that support and training. Which i doubt.

The site would lose money and I would guess that's the bottom line. Especially considering a money making website like this uses volunteers to do what should be a paid job.

I very much hope they are given support.

But they also need to be given more powers or access; or at least the ability to contact someone higher up when a serious situation like this comes up.

Reddit filters can be quite heavy handed - you need a mod on hand to release the false positives and can be quite high maintenance depending on the rules of the sub. Auto moderation also triggers a lot of false positives which each have to be followed up.

However reddit is also a $35 billion business with 3-400 million active users each week. They are on a different operating level with entire divisions of Ivy Leaguers building the site and the tools to run it. FB, X, Bluesky et all are all in the same boat with similar expenditure on site software and all still suffer the attacks. Some of their developments do cascade down to smaller sites over time but all are struggling with this kind of content and how to react.

Like most posters I would like a lot more clarity on how this was managed, the actual timeline of events and what will be done in the future but its not realistic to expect the full capabilities of very large sites.

Training can be considered payment, which would make them workers and subject to NMW.

Samaritans is different because it’s a charity.

@Motharunner
"It needs to catch up with other platforms where users are actually safeguarded pretty well"

They really are not. All social media these days is dreadful at it. Have you watched the news recently?

If they paid 10 people a night to moderate, that would hardly eat into their profits… and I imagine would solve the issue. The site isn’t that large. I don’t know why people are treating Mumsnet like a charity, or some poor struggling start up, it’s not.

I, and no one I know has been exposed to child abuse images on Facebook, instagram, twitter.

Jesus H Christ!

Are you literally just slapping your keypad without even reading the rubbish you're typing?

Training is not considered payment.

Volunteers need to be trained in whatever role they've chosen to do.

Anyway, I've reported your libellous claims so hopefully someone from MNHQ might come along and explain to you tomorrow.

I have.

I'm glad you haven't though.