Concerns about racism

[PandoraSocks]

Hi there Mumsnet HQ

Many of us are concerned about the uptick of hatred, xenophobia and racism on the site over the past couple of weeks. Most of the bigotry is focused on asylum seekers. MNHQ will of course delete racism etc. if reported, but this has gone way beyond a few hateful posts.

Links below to three examples of threads which have descended into real nastiness.

Cheers.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/in_the_news/5385273-civil-unrest-whats-really-going-on?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5385914-do-you-believe-there-will-be-a-civil-war?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5386073-to-be-so-fed-up-amd-disheartened-with-all-the-xenophobia?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

I agree with this, and I usually try to do so, unless it's glaringly obvious. But I would appreciate the same courtesy from the moderators when they decide that something isn't racist - perhaps they could explain why they think posts are OK when they decide to ignore certain reports?

Fascinating. @BeckyAMumsnet have you seen this? Perhaps on those occasions that MN do delete racist / hateful posts it would help if a deletion message were sent to the poster so that they knew why. In fact this would be sensible in any case - no point deleting if the poster doesn't even notice sometimes!

Thanks @BeckyAMumsnet

For me, much of the misinformation that I see amounts to hate speech, because its purpose is very clearly to incite racial hatred, but your moderators don't seem to agree. Can you please clarify if spreading misinformation likely to incite racial hatred is permitted within the talk guidelines?

This is one of the biggest issues that I see on mumsnet with regards to these discussions. Malicious use of misinformation to inflame and incite hatred. If you don't like it don't read it really isn't good enough.

100 % agree.

Without seeing the posts it's difficult to answer - but we're always okay to be challenged and will explain our decisions if they're unclear so definitely worth getting in touch directly with your concerns.

Misinformation is sometimes tricky because none of us are experts - and we often look at the wider context of a post. Statistics are a good example - if you caught Radio Four's Today programme this morning, there was a very good segment where they broke down recent stats about migrants and crime, and that's the kind of discussion we think is worth having rather than just deleting all posts because they may have an incorrect interpretation. We do (and have) deleted posts where we think the poster is using misinformation deliberately to inflame a discussion, for example or to otherwise cause harm.

I think we are doing well on this thread to be respectful about it and I hope this doesn’t derail that, but as an example, I have for some years now been having spicy exchanges on MN about trans people. There are SOME posters that I suspect have ulterior motives and who post some things I personally consider offensive. That’s just my opinion, I’m not calling for others to agree or for anything to be done about it. I think MN have made their stance clear and I can choose whether to come here or not.

the racism / immigration stuff is on another level entirely for me. It is open hate speech at times, and to me clearly an attempt to window shift whats ‘acceptable’ to say.

Ive been wondering for a while now if MN think that they are somehow on the ‘right side’ of things with it in allowing posts that a proportion of users believe to be offensive, the way a lot of people believe MN to have been with the trans debate. Certainly the post above from MN doesn’t dissuade me from that view.

If a poster is being deleted for racism (presuming they've not been banned) they're very likely to hear from us relatively early on for such a serious breach of our guidelines.

The CITME board is an absolute nest of antisemitism. I’ve actually reported it to the CST and Prevent on several occasions.

@BeckyAMumsnet totally agree with this.

Some posters are very sly. Individual posts might just hover around the edge of not breaking guidelines, but a look at their posting history will tell a very different story.

Eta: sorry, I should have said thank you for responding! Very rude of me.

Maybe it was him! I think that's what he said but I'm not on Twitter/X

We do generally look at the context (and if you find an occasion where you think that didn't happen and it feels a bit whack-a-mole, then please do mail us) and a poster's history will absolutely come into play here, too.

Becky@BeckyAMumsnet, can I check MN is clear on the difference between misinformation and disinformation?

Oh no, of course not! Sorry, didn't mean to imply that. It just seems to be the persistent insistence among some posters that all asylum seekers are men and a terrible threat to women and children, when ironically it was the white British thugs who were in fact endangering women and children. I really feel sorry for the male asylum seekers as well. It must be totally miserable living in a poky hotel, not allowed to work, with very little money and waiting a really long time for your claim to be assessed and that's without the awful racism as well.

Have you had any success reporting to MN?

No worries!

Thanks for responding. You say that you will explain your decisions if unclear but your moderators don't always respond when specific decisions are queried. So we report racist content, get told that you're "taking a look" and that we are free to "challenge on the thread", and then see that the posts are left to stand with no explanation of the reasoning behind this.

Of course, I do understand that moderators may not always have the expertise to determine when something is misinformation and when it isn't, but sometimes it is really obvious. For example, the one I reported recently was misrepresenting the data that she herself was citing...a quick look at the data source she was linking should have been enough for anyone with a basic level of data literacy to see that it didn't back up what she was saying.

And yes, I am aware that you do selectively delete some posts because of inflammatory misinformation, but I actually think the inconsistency is what makes it worse...people may assume that the posts which are left standing are factual because they haven't been subjected to the same treatment.

If it isn't possible to moderate to the extent that you're actually able to remove racist content consistently, would MNHQ consider cutting out the subjective moderation that you have right now and only deleting posts that are actually in breach of the law? The half hearted attempts at moderation that you have at present create the impression of a moderated site, but then fail to edit out some of the worst content, so it looks like MNHQ is condoning the most abhorrent racist content while simultaneously deleting people for calling other posters "bonkers".

if you caught Radio Four's Today programme this morning, there was a very good segment where they broke down recent stats about migrants and crime, and that's the kind of discussion we think is worth having rather than just deleting all posts because they may have an incorrect interpretation

That is a very interesting example, Becky. Because If I recall correctly, there may be a poster who is continuing to post the "incorrect interpretation" of those very stats, even when pointed to the actual facts.

This is not innocent but a deliberate attempt to continue to smear a section of the population.

How should we deal with something that? They are not technically breaking Talk guidelines.

Taken from BBC:

In the first three months of 2025, there were 6,420 small boat arrivals where the age and sex of the person was recorded, according to Home Office figures.
Of these, 81% (5,183) were adult men.
In the same period, of the 531 child arrivals (aged 17 and under), 427 of them were male and 104 female. There is no further age breakdown, so we don't know how many babies were amongst them.

So not only are most of the adults male, most of the children are as well.

This is the kind of statement deemed ‘racist’ on here, but they never explain why.

Yes, @Piggywaspushed obviously, we can’t always know intent, but we work with the information we have. Anyone joining to deliberately push an agenda can't usually hide for long, though. We don't doubt that much of the misinformation around at the moment comes from disinformation elsewhere!

Just because it’s mostly men arriving doesn’t mean they are more or less of a risk than UK born men

i dont think it’s acceptable to have an immagration policy that excludes all men as the default any more than I think we should have a curfew for all men.

Pretty sure nobody would call you racist for presenting the figures and asking to discuss why. It gets into racist territory when people start to argue that the reason why is because they want to rape British women etc, or that they abandoned the women because they have no regard for women and girls and so on.

I am going to ask you again, very nicely, can you please stop derailing the thread.

If you want to start a thread of your own please do so and let us continue our discussion with Becky.

You have had ample chance to air your views on the threads I linked to, and you have done so. As is your right.

People may call someone racist but that doesn’t mean they are … it just means someone had run out of useful contributions and can’t make a case to get the post deleted

I’m not sure that’s a good idea though. Wouldn’t you end up with a sort of echo chamber where they all start spouting their racism freely? I feel like an immigration sub is a dangerous step to be honest.