You started a thread entitled
'Is it not time now for Mumsnet to leave X/Twitter?'
Then said
Doesn’t feel like his/their values align with any of ours right now!
This reads like something of a demand and expectation. It was pretty strongly worded.
Then you said
I’m actually quite shocked that MN is still on X.
THEN when people said that disagreed, you replied, without any evidence:
Hmm. See my thread has brought out all the Trump/Musk fans
For the record, nobody is telling me who to hate. I’m quite capable of working out hateful behaviour myself. And how anyone can support Musk is beyond me.
That was the post that pissed me off tbh. I'd have ignored the thread otherwise.
I fundamentally disagree with it. I dislike intensely, many of the people who Musk has allowed to use the site, HOWEVER, I don't think always helps to have outright bans. It only further radicalises if too havy handed. It should only be for the most extreme cases. Otherwise you end up creating unintended issues and also making certain views almost 'forbidden fruits' which ADDS to their attraction rather than marginalising them.
Ultimately I think we need to have difficult conversations about and with people who have these views, because their power comes from the fact that they do connect with a level of disaffection in society. They feed off it and weaponise it. Trump and Musk have gained power due to a fundamental failure of the alternatives, who aren't willing to be self critical and more considered where appropriate. This left a political vacuum to be filled with conspirary theories and bullshit.
The solution is to resolve the disaffection - and that requires identifying the elements that underpin unrest. That's usually to do with some sort of sense of injustice. You then produce counterarguments and alternative narratives and you make change to improve things in life. These dissatifactions usually historically go hand in hand with times of poverty, lack of employment/ opportunity, poor quality of life and when large enough groups are struggling in some way. The tend to appear at the same time as large scandals too which expose a certain amount of institutional level self service. You don't get them in times of relative prosperity. This repeats through history. It is not unique to 2025.
A lack of engagement and dismissal of people because they are 'the wrong kind of person' or because they have 'the wrong kind of views' only makes things worse for this reason because it legitimises this sense of marginalisation.
Its only when people have disagreed that you are now saying
Mumsnet are also totally within their rights to do as they wish.
I believe this kind of questioning is also known as a discussion. No?
This is a reversing away from the strength of your initial posts and the attacks you made on others who posted.
There are a LOT of people on twitter who do not share these views. There are many American women who don't identify with the values of Bluesky, who are now on MN and benefit from the good stuff here. Indeed MN's real strength is precisely because it ISN'T the echo chamber that Bluesky and Twitter can be - if it brings in people from BOTH platforms thats a really GOOD thing for women and for ultimately shifting debate ON OTHER platforms (which we have seen MN do before).
Your initial posts did not read as the start of a discussion. It read as a demand that this is what MN should be doing if they have the 'correct' and 'right' values. You didn't want a discussion. You wanted to shame and discredit people who disagreed with you by smearing them as 'Musk and Trump supporters'. I can see a clear back tracking and I want to make that absoluetely clear and how this shaming by association using the propaganda technique of 'guilt by association' is a massive part of the problem which you can not just blame on 'the other side'.
I am done with cancel culture. We are in the political mess we are in with polarisation precisely BECAUSE of cancelation and a lack of engagement with complex and difficult subjects which require a huge amount of nuance and understanding that underlying causes may be valid and need recognition but can manifest in really unpleasant views. However it does not mean that there isn't a valid problem that we should be seeing and should be addressing. If we marginalise we simply stop our ability to offer a different solution and we stop discussion.
I do think some things need to be removed from the internet, but censorship has to be really thought out, and only used in the most extreme cases. Just to highlight the seriousness of the matter. The problem when too many people are being routinely censored is that it loses its effectiveness and it loses that idea of seriousness.
We are not having proper conversations about the limits of censorship and the negative sides of censorship because the mentality is 'that is bad, it must be stopped' and thats too simplist. 'Who decides' and who monitors the censors is a really important question because its about power and control. The comment of 'who do you think you are' has cropped up on this thread - and thats a reference to that concept.
Democracy needs to get its head around people having good and bad ideas is normal and healthy and then talking to make bad ideas less bad through adult reasoning. And that EVERYONE is wrong sometimes. And we need to involve EVERYONE. Not just the people we think are worthy enough or good enough. That includes 'stupid people' and 'very intelligent people'. The best moderation to that is to exposure to a wide range of ideas and values even if you strongly disagree with some. We should be making that the norm.
I'm kind sick of this Super Villian idea. Its not helpful. No Superhero is going to come along and make all the baddies disappear along with their ideas like magic cos the goodies are somehow infaliable. Its ridiculous. Thats not how real lie works.