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 seems to be taking MN a long time to post something on this thread .

Exactly this. Those of you saying ‘we shouldn’t jump the gun and stop people posting pictures’ etc I suspect would say differently if they’d seen the images. Imagine if that was your child?

This isn't a case of "certain groups want women to lose their safe spaces", this is about a safe space not being safe because it's being run for profit and not in our interests.

I created my account here because I wanted some support in the last weeks of my pregnancy, and then now while my baby is in hospital I can lean on people. It doesn't feel safe knowing I can open my threads and see those pictures, or knowing they can be posted anywhere.

@MNHQ we really need a statement on this now, and something needs to be done.

Me too. Even confirmation that they are aware and have started dealing with it.

I think the disgusting use of the term child pornography has done a lot of damage. It seems to inure people to the reality of what these photographic and filmed records really are.

Here you go MN
A nice bland message for you to c & p.
We can assure everyone that we're reading and taking all the comments on this thread very seriously.
We are currently supporting all those at MN who have been affected by these horrific images and are busy cooperating with the authorities.

@mnhq you really need to urgently put a warning up on the site to advise people of the current danger of seeing such content, until you properly have this under control

I've been here years and this morning will be going no further than this thread as I can't risk it.

We need protection from you, and a statement (even a holding statement) urgently.

I don't believe they can actually see reports. They rely on posters posting on the Nightwatch board, or tagging them in the thread. Of course, most users don't know this and hit the report button, which doesn't get dealt with until the moderators are back on duty in the morning. Meanwhile Nightwatch gets the flack for not dealing with reports quickly enough. And when I say flack, I mean posters on this thread accusing them of soliciting CSA images.

I imagine they are pretty fucking busy behind the scenes right now. They've emailed those who reported threads to say they are speaking to the police (and their lawyers I imagine) and I'm sure there will be a statement in dure course.

Hello, all. First off, we want to apologise to anyone who saw these images overnight and huge thanks to our night watch, whom we'll be in touch with separately. There are some good suggestions on this and other threads about the situation and we'll discuss them today. While this is fortunately a rare occurrence, obviously we don't want it to happen at all.

We are reporting the user to the police and will be back later with further updates. Please bear with us while we do this.

While you're discussing the suggestions are you leaving the ability to post pictures up? So it could still happen again - even though you're aware of that risk now? Just want to know whether it's safe for me to open threads at the moment or not.

I usually come on at night while in bed . Last night unusually I didn't. I had no idea this could happen and now will always be wary and a little frightened. How awful . I'm shocked this could happen on what I thought is a safe site .

Then the AI needs to be used, doesn't it?

I'm not an IT bod, but was just thinking of solutions for overnight. If there were paid mods overnight in conjunction with auto-hide, it wouldn't be storing it up for the morning either.

i'm not sure the frothers are vast in numbers overnight,

Clearly this situation needs addressing. I hope MNHQ are on it.

@mnhq let me try to help me be a bit specific in what we users need URGENTLY

• assurance that registration of new users function is suspended until new controls are in place
• assurance that picture posting is temporarily suspended until better controls are in place
• assurance that ALL images posted in last 24 hours have been screened and removed if offensive /illegal
• a warning on HOME screen that there is a danger of exposure to this type of content and to come back another day/time.

Thank you

Spot on. It's a very flawed system. I'm concerned that the NW are receiving unfair flak on various threads. I hope they are being properly supported by MNHQ.

I agree it's time to relook at the volunteer system.
Sounds awful I'm glad I missed it

I think they’ve emailed SOME who reported threads. I reported the 11pm thread and haven’t received any communication from MNHQ but I can see they’ve posted a message further down this thread so satisfied with that. 🙂

Lets hope this event leads to changes in how board is monitored.

Absolutely. In fact, surely it needs taking offline until all the above has been addressed.

Frothers? Have you or any of your family or friends or your or their children been the victims of csa?

Not saying that’s necessary for someone to grasp how serious the failures are but maybe keeping such people in mind would help you not to flippantly dismiss people who do grasp the seriousness as frothers.

It’s absolutely appalling that something like this was able to happen.
MN HQ should put robust system in place for checking photos and web links, and I don’t mean volunteers. It should be professionals. I’m sure there are legal requirements to provide the system of protection and owners of the site are legally responsible for making sure that site is safe.

Are you getting the night watch volunteers who had to view and deal with this support?

@swallowedAfly I think that poster was referring to the people who report all sorts of threads for rubbish reasons as per the poster they quoted, not those upset by it. Poor use of the word in this context perhaps 💐

Thank you MNHQ.

In the meantime I’d suggest warning users not to open any threads, as there is obviously a risk they will be subjected to the same images that some of us saw last night.

I wonder whether MNHQ are having problems atm. They can't fix the freezing glitch and it has been reported for some time now. I have no faith that they will be able to stop these images.

I narrowly missed those images last night. A site that is primarily for women and children and they are not protecting children at all.

I will only go on this thread and no others until @MNHQ can clearly tell us how this will not happen again.

I am sorry but that response from MNHQ is not good enough.