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.

It’s become increasingly clear that MN want to keep this as quiet as possible, to the extent that they don’t even want their actual members to know it happened.

Was The post above deleted because it was a previously banned poster. Why isn’t it acceptable to try and make sure everyone knows what’s going on and that the report feature doesn’t work over night?

Fucking hell. I have read some victim blaming shit in my time but this is up there.

What about Gaza? Ffs. Those are horrific images too. Scrolling social media on Twitter on FB with images are part of the post is like a box of chocolates. You don’t know what you’re going to get. Reading a thread about soup, and seeing images of CSA is not the same thing at all.

Shame on you for minimising the horrific experience that I, and others, had because Gaza. Ffs.

Because despite the fan girls response this isn’t a community but a massive commercial interest that primarily serves its financial interests. That isn’t an insult or attack on hq but a simple fact. @GrammarTeacher

Could posters PLEASE stop describing the images of child sex abuse?

I appreciate that a particular post was provocative but please report, and don't respond, re-quote or describe contents.

This thread is on Site Stuff so MNHQ should be responsive. You'd hope.

Minimising CSA because of Gaza is fucked up. You don't get to tell people what is traumatic just because you voluntarily view images that most people would find disturbing.

Justine is accurate (sort of) when she says 'pretty much all of the images were deleted within an hour.' but her statement is a misleading. Whether it was worded purposely to minimise or not, I've no idea, but I'm mindful of her position in terms of the expectations of her advertising clients etc. Most images were probably removed within an hour of that specific image being posted, yes.

But what actually happened is that they were drip fed onto various threads over a period of time, so as one was dealt with, another would appear an hour or so later. All in all, there was the potential to unwittingly open a thread and see the images across a four or five hour period. Some people have described it as MN being 'flooded' with images and that is not an accurate representation of what happened. But what's important to acknowledge is that it could have been and it seems there was nothing in place to deal with that.

This was precisely because of the limitations of the Night Watch reporting system. Many posters were not even aware that NW was a thing, or how to use it effectively. The NWs have the ability to hide a thread until MNHQ take over in the morning, but that relies on posters understanding how to contact them, and it's not through the usual reporting channels. There has always been some sort of informal understanding that these volunteers would man the fort overnight and temporarily suspend/hide any dodgy threads they were told about. In the days when MN was much smaller with a much more low key profile and without the international reach it has now, that may have worked. The site has grown and changed hugely, as has the risk of cyber attacks, but nothing on the overnight moderation and IT management front of MN has changed at all.

It seems there was no system in place for the NWs to escalate to MNHQ if necessary, even if it meant waking someone up at 2 am. Or if there was, then there wasn't adequate training and guidance in what constitutes a sufficient reason to do so.

The compounding factor is that as the NWs are a handful of volunteers with lives of their own to get on with overnight, we can't have confidence that they will pick up on things as urgently as the situation might require. Clearly they are not like security guards sitting in front of a bank of screens monitoring CCTV all night long just waiting to jump into action.

So obviously, in a nutshell, we need:

1. proper 24/7 moderation by people with the power to do more than simply hide threads at some vague point in time after reporting. They need to see reports immediately and act swiftly in whatever way is most appropriate to immediately shut down and contain the problem.

2. some sort of screening process of images before they can be posted, even in the daytime, and preferably one that does not potentially expose a member of staff to traumatising illegal content.

3. ideally the ability to screen links posted, especially if an account is newly set up and a link is posted in the very first post.

I know nothing MN does, no matter how much they spend, is a cast iron guarantee that nothing this offensive will ever slip through the net again. People need to be realistic about that and acknowledge that even the toughest measures will not make this site, or any site, impenetrable to bad actors with the determination and the technology to create havoc. That is sadly the nature of the internet, with AI and cyber terrorism/warfare on the increase. And we don't want the site to be like some others, where you can't even post certain fairly innocuous words or images without some filter picking it up and blocking it because it can't discern the difference between images of breast feeding and soft porn, for a blue tit from a woman's tit for example.

But we do need much more than we currently have. We do need to at least be able to stop the sleazy, perverted little men in their bedrooms from reaching us and just plopping their abusive filth into threads. MN has been woefully underprotected and over-exposed for too long.

Anyway, I have confidence that this will happen now and I don't think the continued public whipping of Justine, banging on bitterly about how much money she's made and acting like she's complicit in modern slavery for using volunteers is very helpful. I swear some people are more motivated by a desire to put the boot in over that that than by a genuine desire to add constructive suggestions to help things be better going forward.

MN is no worse than any of the major social media platforms.

What other social media platforms don't have proper moderation overnight?

Quite.

Well a number don't have proper moderation full stop

.

yes that was my only intention and it was difficult to do without a basic/general level of description but I apologise if it upset anyone. Please report if you want it removed. I'd edit, but it's too late for that.

Then they will be equally exposed and may reap the unfortunate consequences. We are talking about what MN needs because MN is what we all use.

Yeah and we all know how the 'anything goes,' 'no censorship' approach goes...

I thought better of MN. After the very serious data breach a decade or so ago, when thousands of personal details were leaked (and bearing in mind some of these posters were very vulnerable, had posted about DV, being a lone parent etc) I de-registered in disgust. I wasn't one of those personally affected but I was really shocked at the lack of robust security settings and then the minimisation of what happened. I rejoined a few years later, thinking perhaps things had improved. I've found MN useful over the years for tips, practical advice and sometimes discussion about tv and books. I actually find myself wondering now whether the site should be taken down. It's no longer a friendly community. Tips and advice about parenting, discussion about tv and books can be found elsewhere. The really serious stuff on MN, where people post about the vulnerable or tragic situations they're in - these people need first and foremost to be protected. MN is no longer a safe space - it probably never really was, but it's now so glaringly public that it isn't that maybe it's time is over.

The report button does work overnight, it just won't be seen till the morning.

No the accusation was that all or even most other platforms do this much better than MN and I disagree

All platforms are playing cat and mouse , and some are far worse than MN

I do think the night watch needs a complete overhaul - they apparently don't see "reports" and need to be reached a different way - madness ; and I am not sure they have the technical skills to shut things down if needed - IP addresses , new thread creation etc etc

But MN isn't worse than any other platform

But if people want it closed that's a great message to be given out

I don't want it closed ; I want it improved

I'm not minimizing it. The point is Mumsnet isn't worse than other sites which leave horrific content up of children and innocent people being killed. Mumsnet removed the content as soon as possible, and they've passed all the information to the police. It isn't their fault there's some sick bastards out there, and this could happen in any social media site where people can upload images.

Unfortunately using the internet means there's always a risk you could come across something upsetting or traumatizing.

I still feel so unsettled by all of this, and don't know what to do about my account.

Obviously this is very serious, but apparently so many people are comfortable with either describing the images in detail or minimising what happened. I just feel so sad that this could happen, and that it's being minimised in the way that it is

But this
You'll understand that we're not going to detail every troll countering measure here. That would be foolish I think.
shows the true measure of how little they can be bothered to engage.

I disagree. It makes no sense whatsoever to warn the perpetrators of what MN are doing to prevent further attacks by detailing it on here. So long as we know they are taking steps, what difference does it make whether they list everything they are doing or not?

Why isn't this in the press?

Strong PR game?

2 reasons.

1. attacks like this are unfortunately horrifyingly common and unewsworthy.
2. MNHQ are trying to keep it under wraps

I feel the same.

There are plenty of other discussion forums and social media platforms out there. I have literally never heard of this happening on any website ever.

@Lookuptrees for me it's the lack of any urgency and the almost cover up of the entire thing. Threads about it are being taken down and nothing has been made 'public' so to speak. I'm terrified to open threads now