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.

I'm still trying to process it as although I didn't see the pictures it upset so many people.

Picture banning is a major change for the site. I know nothing about automatic scanning but don't think we'll be told anything else for a while.

I didn’t see the images but as someone who experienced sexual abuse as a child it’s horrifying to read someone saying that they were “only” cat C as if that lessens the impact. Disgusting response.

Yes it is a different topic. So stop hijacking it to promote your own agenda. You don't need to compare the two things. It's not trauma top trumps.

I'm thinking, and of course I might be wrong, that no one at @MNHQ has training in how to deal with crisis situations such as this. Therefore their handling of these horrible happenings is (perhaps) not as smart as you'd find elsewhere on the Internet

It shouldn't be too difficult to provide more training on how to handle the crisis quickly and efficiently and communicate well during and after the crisis

I do think that communication is key

Not only is it courteous to keep everyone involved informed, but keeping your bread and butter (we posters!) sweet, is smart!

I'm really surprised there hasn't been a pinned post or thread from MNHQ. It doesn't need to go into detail, but surely posters who aren't aware of the situation are going to wonder why they can't post images?

It doesn't fucking matter if there are worse. They are illegal snf harmful. Full stop.

As a victim of abuse involving image-taking of that abuse, I am sadly not surprised at the minimisation of the re-traumatising effects of the publication of such images

I am 100% certain that the grooming and manipulation part of the abuse (involving invoking the fawn response) is combining with my experience of significant help by posters on MN during the abuse and making me want to reserve judgement on MNHQ

it is very difficult to reconcile the re-traumatisation of the children whose images were used, plus the re-traumatisation of MNers like me who have already experienced abuse with the knowledge that MNHQ could have learned from previous breaches and events and taken site (and by extension members’) safety more seriously

I hope the past financial saving made on skimping out on paid overnight mods is spent wisely on primarily professional therapy for the night watch volunteers who had to deal with this current appalling breach

and secondarily on strengthening systems to prevent future breaches, including emergency contingency plans as I agree with some PP that this is quite probably a targeted (and exploratory) attack

I also think a significant donation to organisations combating the abuse of children would be appropriate

I have received a great deal of help from fellow MNers, the site has become less safe (as many things do once they become ‘money-makers’)

I think it is an important part of hosting virtual support to many women so I want it to continue as safely as possible

that will require an overall and I hope that is taking place now

I wish it had happened post-previous breaches but we are where we are

finally also saying a bit of a prayer that this breach might be the turning point more importantly for the safety and well-being of the children whose images were published, may the perpetrators be caught and any real-life children saved from further exploitation

💐🕯️🙏🏼

This thread is about use of volunteers to moderate overnight and MN response to what happened. Please please don't start describing (even very generally) what the images were about. I found it very distressing to suddenly read descriptions. I don't want to know what those images contained (so sorry to those that actually witnessed them). If you want to discuss what category the images were, please start another thread with a trigger warning.

This 👆🏼

And I’m sorry this horrible event re traumatised you 💐

Actually I think they should be reported to MN as "contains descriptions of CSA" but I don't want to go back up through the thread and read them to find which ones to report.

Absolutely.

Anyone still naive enough to still behave with the 'fan girl-esque' response should take a look on Companies House and see the millions the site generates, the profits and the dividends dished out.

These people aren't your mum mates sitting round the table sharing a cuppa with you. They're making big money out of the site and need to accept the accountability which goes with it.

Daisy I think a lot of us bring our own experiences to this and I hoped people could be mindful of that without someone having to spell it out for them by disclosing their own history. Sadly everyone was just accused of hysterics and being drama queens instead.

I’m sorry this is way too close to home for you too.

Given the shockingly high percentage of women (men too but this is MN) who experienced csa it doesn’t take much imagination to realise the proportion of us on this thread in the same boat.

Perhaps consider most of the threads about this incident have been pulled on a 'don't feed the troll' basis. The sicko 'troll' who posted the images will still be salivating over the upset caused and fervently hoping MN will now be shut down- which I and many posters feel was the true intent of the attack.

Hundreds of threads in Trending on this subject would delight and embolden said individual and whatever group they came from.

I know pictures adding abilities have now been removed, but has anything official been said about changing the night watch/unpaid workers system?

@Cremeeggtime I don't think they've commented yet on that, only on they are reviewing their systems, alerted authorities

And still crickets with no response from Mumsnet with signposting to or offers of support to those who saw csa images

Please stop calling sex offenders trolls.

I'm not sure if constantly describing the content is helpful.

Again, only what I'd expect; MN is a business and the business will be protected above all else

So why did you just quote and therefore repost it!?

Think about it, GreylingsSkin; if posters reach out to other agencies that brings what happened to a wider audience, and I don't imagine that would be welcome

No one from MNHQ was even available or on call when the crisis occurred. They left everything with some unpaid volunteers overnight and appear to be continuing to do that.