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 hope that proper professional support will be provided to the poor volunteers who you put at risk last night.

I also trust that the site will never again be left in the hands of unpaid and untrained volunteers. It is an unacceptable risk to both the volunteers (to whom you have a duty of care) as well as the users of the site.

This was not an unforeseeable event, and it is disgraceful that there weren't better safeguards in place. However, now it has happened, you absolutely must take urgent steps to ensure it can never happen again because you will be liable for harm caused as a result.

No worries, easily done. 🙂

Volunteers are unpaid. They're not necessarily untrained.
Not a criticism and I'm not supporting their use on this site.
Particularly if they do not have access to paid employees who can implement protocols available during the day.

The whole volunteer moderators thing feels exploitative in a profit making business. There are times it's justified, such as people trying to acquire work experience (though only for a short time imv), and in the charity sector.

However, volunteers should still be completing appropriate training for their role, and in the past I have had to have an honorary contract to work as a HCP on behalf of a charity.

I agree. But also, what are the actual hours of 'overnight'?

From what time pm until what time am is MN not staffed by people who have the knowledge, ability and authority to deal with shit of the kind that occurred 'overnight'?

I cannot express how disgusted and appalled I am about this whole thing.

I've never understood why a site that allows photos to be posted relies on post-hoc community moderation, i.e. removal only when problematic content is flagged. It is surely time for this to end.

I was treated to a close-up photo of someone's arsehole with a pilonidal cyst yesterday, on a thread which had no indication of that in the title, and without a 'sensitive' filter on the image. And I thought that was bad enough.

Surely MN should now remove the ability to post images, or at least ensure that posts including images are pre-moderated, before being released on to the thread? The cost would certainly be less than those associated with prosecution, which is the current risk, and enforced closure.

Justine was on Radio 4 last week - think it was the Adam Fleming Anti Social programme. She was talking about how unique MN is in that over 90% of its posters/content is generated by women. Of course there are bad actors who will be angry at that and will target their rage at the site.

I'm extremely glad I missed all of this. And for a predominantly female site, not paying the (probably) female volunteers is not a good look.

Unpaid doesn't mean untrained but the events of last night demonstrate that the nightwatch volunteers don't have adequate training or adequate support.

This is not a criticism of the volunteers. It is a criticism of Mumsnet management who are putting profit ahead of the wellbeing and safety of users of the site and who are exploiting the goodwill of the nightwatch volunteers while putting them at risk.

No company with a turnover of over 8 million should be exploiting free labour.

No company profiting from user generated content should be allowed to operate without robust filters and round the clock vigilence.

I thankfully never saw any of the images but I did see the threads on the night watch board they were reported on. At one point the night watch volunteer apologised for the time it took to hide the images as she was shaking. I'm not sure if that thread or message is still there but i thought it was appalling for a volunteer to have to deal with this.

For the period I was awake (I also had a sick DC so awake sporadically through out the night) I could see they were really trying their best and I wouldn't put blame on them.

I really hope MNHQ is offering support to the night watchers. How traumatising fir them.

Really don't understand why there isn't at least one paid moderator 'on call' overnight to support the poor nightwatchers and provide the additional powers they don't have

Totally re-miss not to have that back-up

What the actual fuck? What sort of sick individual/group would target a parenting forum and post CSA images? This feels like an attack of some kind, as well as deeply distressing for those who saw it (and just, I don't know what to say about those poor children in those pictures. 😟)
I had something a bit dodgy happen a few years ago. Flirting in PMs with someone I assumed was another woman who asked me some very weird questions about my niece, which I reported. Made me feel a bit weird for a bit.

I'm so shocked at this this morning and extremely glad that I didn't see such horror despite being on the boards quite late last night.

I too will not criticise the night team who must have a huge job on their hands. However, this has to stop. These people should be paid for their time and supported by professional IT staff. I can't believe that there are not more robust systems in place to prevent perverts from posting CSA images.

I'm so sorry for anybody who saw these, including staff, and I hope you get appropriate support.

They’ve never disclosed that. They don’t want to make it even easier for trolls

So they acknowledge that they are leaving the site vulnerable while it is in the hands of volunteers. Absolutely negligent and they deserve the legal repercussions.

I saw them. Couldn't sleep so was browsing. Awful

I'm so sorry for anyone who saw these images, I can only imagine the panic that the NW felt trying to deal with it. All the training in the world wouldn't prepare you for this, which is why technology must be used and not humans.

Me too. Woke up for a wee around 2.30, couldn't get back to sleep (perfectly normal for me) so I came onto MN. Normally I'd be ready to drop off again after an hour or so but here I am not having slept a wink since. 😫

I'm so sorry , this could be so so damaging for anyone who saw them . MN really need to support everyone affected.

You’d have thought at the very least, NW would be able to escalate to a member of actual staff who could then take over. Surely all it took was a quick phone call.

I can still post an image this morning and presumably there is no system yet in place to check it in advance.

And how do you propose that? AI? While I am ALL FOR AI managing some of this, how do you think it is trained? Usually people paid a pittance in a developing country to tag images as infringing or not. Even then, it isn't perfect. I study this stuff for a living.

Yes, it should be left to professionals to deal with, but that's why I would propose using time zones to benefit the site's users. Because at the moment we don't have anything overnight in the UK.

On the off-chance that this person or people cannot be traced and stopped quickly, I'd have thought disabling the ability to upload photos even if just temporarily, should be the first thing that would be done.

It is an offence to share a link to images of CSA. Even the police do not encourage that you share a link with them - I've dealt with this professionally a number of times.

It is in no way unheard of for images along these lines to be shared and if anything, it's a surprise that this is the first such attack for MN. It's also shocking that there's no plan in place to protect against this, however. For a period of at least a few hours last night, MN and it's servers hosted CSA images.

There has been guidelines and protocols around night-time moderation for this type of thing for over 15 years. They tend to be voluntary to avoid being punitive ahead of sites becoming profitable, but also because there is a tipping point where the reputational risk of this type of thing sets in, and most places would not accept that risk. It's therefore not usually needed to mandate that there is coverage.

Volunteers without any training in this type of thing; who have limited access powers, are not the answer. They did as best as they could, but at least one was encouraging people to frantically share illegal links last night; which both directs people to the thread - there are a lot of people who will click to see what is happening/how bad something is, just look at rubberneckers - and is illegal for the person sharing.

MNHQ will undoubtedly be busy reporting this appropriately and handing over the tech details needed now; which may well include details of the response and how long the images were hosted for, it's not uncommon to be asked for that. If there's a court case, the people moderating may well be invited to give a statement or attend - I have had to, several times, for similar and varied images being posted on brand sites/Facebook pages/etc.

But it's a matter of time before the press pick up on this, too.