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.

How does it work with Special Constables in the police, they're volunteers and must receive training.

Also, this has me quite concerned about the governance and risk system at Mumsnet.

They hold a LOT of very confidential information, personal stories and people sharing their deepest darkest feelings. People do this anonymously, until someone hacks it and then what?

I’m really questioning leaving, which isn’t me flouncing, it’s genuine concern.

As I said before, I’ve been online since 1996. In all that time on various forums, newsgroups and social media I’ve never seen anything like that.

Indeed, I’ve never heard of anyone, EVER seeing child abuse images on any of those platforms.

Also thinking of the volunteers who had to deal with this without training. My DH has had some pretty hardcore vetting before evening starting on training on how to deal with these things/support along the way etc.

@C8H10N4O2 I didn't say that I expected it to be front page news in the same way as Gaza, school stabbings or Kanyes wife not wearing any clothes but considering DM are happy to find space somewhere on their website nearly every day for a story lifted from here about a poster and their mil then yes I find it off that there is now radio silence that a massive sure predominantly used by women has been attacked.

Shutting down the other thread is basically corralling the issue into a space the mainstream media don't trawl.

@murasaki Yep. I agree.

I’m not one for conspiracies at all, but I don’t think that what you have said is outside the realm of possibility either.

Have a call with a journo friend tomorrow
from a publication that doesn’t repost stories from mumsnet so not compromised. Will also be emailing the press teams for their main advertisers too, hopefully some pressure from their advertisers will force change, no one wants their ad next to CSA.

Just noticed that should say massive site. No idea why autocorrect changed it but too late to edit now.

A few years ago I reported a thread which was getting a bit vile (talking about children) but it had been reported before the nite watch took over and MNHQ didn't see anything suspicious at the time. The OP escalated their handiwork as time went on and I argued with NW but they said they could/would not take it down as HQ had already looked at it and it was ok.

I was astounded at the level of graphic detail they were leaving up under the guise of 'HQ' have already looked. I think looking back now they were not allowed to hide the thread as HQ had previously left it up. Either that or they had so little understanding they should not have been NW.

The thread disappeared as soon as HQ turned up in the morning, but it was about 6 hours too late.

I can't believe nothing has changed in terms of what NW can do

In a week's time ask half a dozen non MNers if they have heard of this incident. Its unlikely anyone will know what you are talking about. This stuff is pervasive enough that it doesn't make the news unless connected with a conviction or major court case including a celeb.

I've seen this kind of content posted to major platforms but a week later the only people talking about it will be those who actually saw it or were part of the group affected. In the context of biillions of worldwide SM users the chances of one individual seeing the content (unintentionally) are small but that doesn't mean there is only a little of it. The ability to generate images artificially is still growing and very rapidly.
Use of this category of illegal images (rather than the usual dick pics and inflated breasts) to attack non related groups instead of sharing with kindred perverts is more recent and accelerated by the new abilities to synthesise images

They don't have the same tools at their disposal as paid mods, though. All they can do is hide a thread and they can't see the reports generated by the report button so have to get the message indirectly, from people who actually know this.

Don't the DM and MN have an official relationship of some kind? Might explain why there is no story there about it.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/mumsnet/index.html

Accounts don't even a have to be hacked actually.

A couple of years back a regular MNetter logged in using her own details and found herself in someone else's account.

I remember they started a thread about it, saying that had they wanted to they could've gone all through that MNetters private messages and name change history.

It affected a tiny minority if I remember rightly but I don't remember what HQ said the problem was.

Blimey, it was 6 years ago!

I wasn't making any points about M N's profits or what training ME volunteers currently receive, just saying that volunteers can and sometimes are given high quality training and professional support, as a PP's other example of Special Constables demonstrates very well.

*MN's
*MN

sorry, bringing up training was not correct in this case - you can’t do training to enable you to do your volunteer work. The police is a statutory body so definitely acceptable to volunteer for it.

https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage/who-gets-the-minimum-wage

Voluntary work
You’re classed as doing voluntary work if you can only get certain limited benefits (for example reasonable travel or lunch expenses) and you’re working for a:

• charity
• voluntary organisation or associated fundraising body
• statutory body

@ShortyShorts

😂 why so cross?!

You’re far too invested in the workings of a multimillion pound website.

It is far from clear that the NW can be considered exempt from NMW, whatever you want to believe.

Yes, training is permitted to undertake voluntary activities - but can also be considered a benefit in kind, depending on what it entails.

But I concede that the pp was talking specifically about training to moderate, so my comment was irrelevant. Note, not incorrect, just irrelevant.

you CAN do training.

They are explicitly exempt in the legislation

Agree with this, I'm just learning about what happened now from this thread and another one and it's horrific that CSA images can be posted and not be taken down for ages.
There definitely needs to be a better system in place, as things stay up far too long sometimes.
It's not on that people are saying " you have control over whether you see stuff or not" - how exactly if it's in your face on a thread you're reading?!

Seriously can not believe people are arguing that posters just have to choose not to look at CSA images.

But if you are reading a thread about soup, for example, and a Category A CSA image appears on it, how do you have any control whatsoever?

It only takes a millisecond and that image is imprinted on your brain forever, if you have any sensitivity whatsoever.

It seems very bloody-minded to blame the users for this. "Oh, just look away." It's too late by then.