Page 14 | Update from MNHQ addressing the recent images posted on the site

JustineMumsnet · 2025-02-04T12:13:10+00:00

Hi all, There have been a number of threads discussing what happened re the posting of CSA images on site and so I want to be absolutely clear: we would never seek to shut down reasonable criticism and we're taking on board all the feedback and will be carefully considering how we can improve our procedures and moderation to prevent this happening again. As a temporary measure, we have suspended all image posting and will soon be implementing AI filters to flag illegal/disturbing images before they appear on the site. We’re also liaising with external specialists to see if there are any further tools we can employ to help us prevent this from happening again in the future. We reported it to the police first thing the morning after the attack and we have a follow up meeting with them tomorrow. It's also pretty clear from what we can see behind the scenes that there is an ongoing, coordinated effort from trolls to further inflame these discussions, and cause as much disruption as possible. We are taking steps to remove bad faith actors, but we know this can be frustrating for those who just want to express your views about what happened. If you come across any posts that seem designed to stir up more conflict rather than contribute constructively, please do report them - your reports really help us to act swiftly. Many thanks for your patience while we work to sort this out.

RainbowZebraWarrior · 04/02/2025 20:46

BloominNora · 04/02/2025 20:19

58 results - mostly just explaining who they are - looks like maybe one additional thread questioning why they are not paid

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Here's the original announcement from MN about the NW starting back in 2014. Plenty of questions and concerns raised on this thread alone. From 9 Years Ago.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_night_watch/2015451-Night-Watch-begins-this-evening

Then there's the NW sub topic itself. 42 pages of reports. Buried among those pages are plenty of people who were also concerned about the system and the NW staff themselves. The NW thread is under the 'Mumsnet Stuff' topic. Plenty of folk who have been here for years never even knew it existed and didn't know there was a dedicated page to raise the alarm. I have previous experience of being a volunteer moderator of a much smaller site. I worked out that if you reported a post more than X number of times as 'Spam' it would automatically be hidden. This was not and is not common knowledge, however.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_night_watch

Night Watch begins this evening | Mumsnet

Hi all, After months of discussion, the moment has finally arrived: the much-anticipated Night Watch will begin active service as of this evening <...

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_night_watch/2015451-Night-Watch-begins-this-evening

MuddlingThroughLife · 04/02/2025 20:50

What have I missed? What are CSA images?

crowgift · 04/02/2025 20:55

@BloominNora we were sitting ducks: the site did not have the appropriate filters. I've mentioned elsewhere that I remember when images of mutilated corpses spammed the site and had assumed that various filters were put in place then. This was preventable.

IncaDove · 04/02/2025 20:56

MuddlingThroughLife · 04/02/2025 20:50

What have I missed? What are CSA images?

Read the thread.

ShamblesRock · 04/02/2025 21:09

SoupDragon · 04/02/2025 20:10

Unless you did that before they suspended registrations

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I did it shortly before I posted, so as of 19.50 it was possible to register a new account.

maudelovesharold · 04/02/2025 21:12

You don't yell at a building owner for not having smoke alarms and sprinklers when they have just put out a fire and are trying to stop it re-igniting!

Well, you probably do if you were caught in the fire or you live in the same building.

EducatingArti · 04/02/2025 21:16

BloominNora · 04/02/2025 20:15

Is she? Where?

She said

"NightWatchers are long-standing, experienced Mumsnet users who live in different timezones and who very kindly have offered to help keep an eye on things overnight. They do have some admin tools to manage situations (they can hide posts and threads and suspend users) and we are looking at ways in which we can augment these tools, including improving alerts when a thread is being widely reported.

It’s worth noting that many large platforms rely almost entirely on volunteer moderators.

The issue on Sunday night wasn’t night watch controls or moderation - it was that these images could be posted at all. Even if this had happened during the day, they still would have appeared on the site. That’s why our focus is on preventing this kind of content from being uploaded in the first place."

That doesn't say they aren't considering it does it? If, in three months time, they still don't have a decent UK night-time moderation system, then fair criticism, but the continual haranguing over it now is silly as it is a policy decision which needs HR, contractual and legal input and cannot be announced on a whim.

You don't yell at a building owner for not having smoke alarms and sprinklers when they have just put out a fire and are trying to stop it re-igniting!

Edited

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To me, that implies continuing to use Nightwatch Volunteers.
Had she been looking into the possibility of paid night time moderation she could have said so. Her statement seems to imply to me that she feels the Nightwatch is adequate. I'm afraid I don't, even with improved automatic systems.

kittensinthekitchen · 04/02/2025 21:41

BloominNora · 04/02/2025 19:02

It really is amazing how many people are so vocal about the NW volunteers needing to be paid now....after the fact! I would love to see the links to all your previous posts asking staff why they didn't have paid nighttime mods, but I won't, because there aren't any!

From the intro link up the thread NW was introduced in 2014 - so has been in place and worked for over 10 years - Justine and the team cannot be blamed for it not working following an unprecedented incident in over 20 years of MN existing.

The first focus is and should be focusing on what needs to be done to practically stop this happening again - which from Justine's updates, it seems they are:

Removing the ability to post pictures
Strengthening the filters
Lowering the auto-hide threshold for reported posts
Making sure someone senior in on hand overnight

I'm sure that after they have got that in place, they will look at how to moderate the site overnight on a paid basis - but that will take time as they will likely need HR advice to determine the right contracts for unsociable working hours (or over seas workers) and actually recruit to the posts.

I didn't see the incident play out last night, thankfully, and I haven't been on MN a huge amount today, but it is being mentioned everywhere, and this thread has been in active since it was posted - I fully support the team deleting the multitude of threads that keep popping up and just using this one - firstly because multiple threads on the same topic are annoying, they are difficult to mod where there are such strong feelings.

However, most importantly even just discussion about CSA images may very well be triggering for some people who are survivors of it, so keeping the thread in site stuff and not allowing it to pop up all over the forum is the right thing to do.

The only slight criticism I have is the lack of signposting for those affected - a locked thread at the top of each subject forum with relevant support links would be good.

Well here's two of mine.... just from this username. I won't look up other usernames because it's none of your damn business.

In fact, I can't upload them of course because images have been disabled, but feel free to PM me for them

EducatingArti · 04/02/2025 21:45

I'm also really not yelling at anyone. My posts have been asking questions about what MN are doing, expressing concerns about things and summarising the issues as I see them. I'm not yelling at Justine or anyone else but I am concerned that the procedures she has outlined that are now in place or are in the process of being put in place are insufficient. I have explained my reasons for thinking this. As far as I can tell I have been polite and clear in all my posts.

Mumtobabyhavoc · 04/02/2025 21:47

It's not just the images posted. It seems there are many threads re certain hot topics that are designed to stir up hate/prejudice/mistrust. That needs to be addressed, too. As it stands, many such threads go on and on. To me, it seems a lot of supportive posts on these threads are fake.

kittensinthekitchen · 04/02/2025 21:58

Mumtobabyhavoc · 04/02/2025 21:47

It's not just the images posted. It seems there are many threads re certain hot topics that are designed to stir up hate/prejudice/mistrust. That needs to be addressed, too. As it stands, many such threads go on and on. To me, it seems a lot of supportive posts on these threads are fake.

Actually, this is about the images posted. Yes, there are (plenty) other issues also, but what happened here the other night, and the aftermath of it is abhorrent.

Images of Child Sexual Abuse (i saw someone who was forced to view them describe them as Category 1 - do you know what that means?) were hosted on Mumsnet, a leading parenting platform, for a period of time, and the procedure in place to deal with it has been shown to be not fit for purpose.

It is completely reasonable for people to be questioning how the fuck this was able to happen, and expecting the CEO to take responsibility for ensuring that this sort of content is not forced upon their users and staff again.

Justine's lackadaisical-sounding response (or lack of it) to discussion around this, along with her assurance to the press that she has signposted to support for moderators of the site, whilst ignoring the numbers of users who have been affected by this, suggested she continues to see the people who use this forum as the freeloaders she once described them as.

JaneJeffer · 04/02/2025 22:02

You don't yell at a building owner for not having smoke alarms and sprinklers when they have just put out a fire and are trying to stop it re-igniting!
And you don't blow smoke up their arse either.

BitchinTwinset · 04/02/2025 22:10

crowgift · 04/02/2025 20:55

@BloominNora we were sitting ducks: the site did not have the appropriate filters. I've mentioned elsewhere that I remember when images of mutilated corpses spammed the site and had assumed that various filters were put in place then. This was preventable.

Was that on MN?
I've been in innocuous comment sections and Facebook posts for online games and seen all sorts of gross porn images posted (nb never CSA) and had been under the impression that without some sort of even very basic filter, any chat thread/ forum/ comments that allow images to be uploaded would see this (porn/mutiltation images) happen immediately, and frequently.

So I guess I'm surprised if there weren't any image filters whatsoever on here already!

ChonkyRabbit · 04/02/2025 22:12

BloominNora · 04/02/2025 20:08

Really - Would be interesting to see them - following yours and another poster's comment about there being threads in the past I did a search for "Nightwatch" AND "paid" (also "Night watch" AND "paid") going from Friday last back to 01st Jan 2020 - there were two or three threads specifically about the subject and a scattering of odd comments on other threads - on a site as busy as MN it doesn't seem like a lot at all!

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Just say "apologies for my silly comment" and stop trying to move the goalposts. It's not a weakness to admit you were wrong.

BloominNora · 04/02/2025 22:21

@ChonkyRabbit It wasn't a silly comment - I have not been able to find more than a handful of threads specific threads plus a few odd in the past five years - certainly not 'many' as you claimed - given the number of threads and posts made on this site each day.

More than happy to engage in evidenced discussion but I won't respond to any more ad hominem replies.

Mumtobabyhavoc · 04/02/2025 22:24

kittensinthekitchen · 04/02/2025 21:58

Actually, this is about the images posted. Yes, there are (plenty) other issues also, but what happened here the other night, and the aftermath of it is abhorrent.

Images of Child Sexual Abuse (i saw someone who was forced to view them describe them as Category 1 - do you know what that means?) were hosted on Mumsnet, a leading parenting platform, for a period of time, and the procedure in place to deal with it has been shown to be not fit for purpose.

It is completely reasonable for people to be questioning how the fuck this was able to happen, and expecting the CEO to take responsibility for ensuring that this sort of content is not forced upon their users and staff again.

Justine's lackadaisical-sounding response (or lack of it) to discussion around this, along with her assurance to the press that she has signposted to support for moderators of the site, whilst ignoring the numbers of users who have been affected by this, suggested she continues to see the people who use this forum as the freeloaders she once described them as.

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Hi, I was pointing out a co-issue. Either I was unclear, or you misunderstood?

CalicoPusscat · 04/02/2025 22:25

@crowgift 😮

were they from a war?

kittensinthekitchen · 04/02/2025 22:25

BloominNora · 04/02/2025 22:21

@ChonkyRabbit It wasn't a silly comment - I have not been able to find more than a handful of threads specific threads plus a few odd in the past five years - certainly not 'many' as you claimed - given the number of threads and posts made on this site each day.

More than happy to engage in evidenced discussion but I won't respond to any more ad hominem replies.

Edited

"I would love to see the links to all your previous posts asking staff why they didn't have paid nighttime mods, but I won't, because there aren't any"

Yes, it was a silly comment, one which can be proven - and you have admitted - is incorrect.

JoannaGroats · 04/02/2025 22:34

murasaki · 04/02/2025 18:20

But being insulting achieves nothing. It's totally valid to ask about changes, and criticise what was in place, but personal remarks aren't really in the spirit if improvement. Which is what we want. And are likely to result in fewer updates.

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Awwh, is “Justine” going to pout and refuse to let us share her toys?

carconcerns · 04/02/2025 22:35

The initial responses read in a really grovelling way,,, I find this attitude on here really odd, similar to how people who are UNPAID volunteer their time freely AT NIGHT to mod a site making the owners millions. Let us doff our caps eh?

ForPearlViper · 04/02/2025 22:42

Apologies if I am repeating what others have said, but it appears to me that all Mumsnet's communications are more 'how do we make this go away asap' rather than 'how do we do really effective crisis management to reassure our users'.

For a start all Mumsnet official messages on something so important should be pinned at the of every board. Members should not have to seek them out.

Next, now is not the time to be whining about 'bad actors' on the site. The site has been crawling with bad actors in recent months with all the disenguous threads on Trump/immigration/Southport/grooming gangs/etc. Nothing has been done about it. But we now get the bad actors stuff. There are very suspicious posts asking members to share their (or their daughters') highly sensitive experiences. Then we get photos of people's 'poorly' genitals. Even GPs' practices ask patients not not to share such pictures by their secure systems. But apparently it is OK stick your vulva on the open internet via Mumsnet. The most enthusiastic moderation seems to be reserved for users who criticise Mumsnet.

I think maybe Mumsnet HQ needs to spend a while reflecting what values they want their business to reflect. Right now it is saying unprofessional.

carconcerns · 04/02/2025 22:44

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JoannaGroats · 04/02/2025 22:56

It really is amazing how many people are so vocal about the NW volunteers needing to be paid now....after the fact! I would love to see the links to all your previous posts asking staff why they didn't have paid nighttime mods, but I won't, because there aren't any!

The majority of people didn’t know. And maybe, just maybe, those who did thought it was down to the people running the multi-million pound business to sort this out, rather than an issue where site users had to intervene.

JoannaGroats · 04/02/2025 22:58

The issue on Sunday night wasn’t night watch controls or moderation - it was that these images could be posted at all. Even if this had happened during the day, they still would have appeared on the site. That’s why our focus is on preventing this kind of content from being uploaded in the first place.

Come on - you’re making a fool of yourself now. And fools don’t earn personal fortunes or millions of pounds.

I’ve seen fairly innocuous posts zapped within minutes during the daytime thanks to minor disagreements. Your system left images of child abuse live on the site for several hours. It’s embarrassing that you’re trying to claim this all could have happened in the day.

maudelovesharold · 04/02/2025 23:16

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I keep thinking of Justine as Amanda (Motherland) with her acolytes - “budge up, Anne!” casting Liz as the ‘bad actor’…

I’m rambling…it’s late.