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 think so, too.

So people give up, and the 'challenge it on the thread' model becomes 'this shit is totally left unchallenged because no one left can be arsed' model

Absolutely this. It's draining doing so so people give up.

Absolutely. You lose the will after a while, because it feels pointless.

I would agree with that. But on the flip side there are an awful lot of posters who simply call you a racist for writing anything less than glowing about immigration. They say they’re fine with ‘genuine discussion’ but who knows what that is as I’ve never seen them engage with it.

Irl I will challenge and educate even though it rankles. But on here I agree it is tiring and I don’t think mnhq get it.

I don’t want to challenge endlessly on the thread. I do because I can’t let lies stand. In case someone else reads the thread and believes the lies.

This for me too. It just feels so depressing to leave things standing

Thank you for doing it. Thank you to everyone who does it.

I used to challenge stuff much more than I do now. I still do occasionally, but mostly, I just scroll on by because I have lost the will. It feels like you're fighting a losing battle because there are more racist posters than ever before and they're much more brazen about it...almost proud of it tbh. I think they are further emboldened because they know that the moderators aren't really bothered and that most of the racist content will be left to stand. Meanwhile, the decent posters just fade away because none of them have the energy to deal with the aggro.

It's sad, because MN was a great site for a while. Rather like Twitter, it seems to have had its day.

I'm definitely spending a lot less time on here.. Which is a good thing really

This is all mad. On a thread about women in pink waving flags a perfectly decent post was made by someone with experience of working with refugees, showing some facts and the more human side of the refugees.

It was deleted by MN while various frothy posts remain. It's all mad.

What why? Why was that post deleted?

I saw the thread but didn't see the post. I do know that poster has been doing great work counteracting racism on MN.

That makes no sense at all. Can you encourage the deleted poster to ask for an explanation?

Maybe MNHQ made a mistake? Though I think more than one of that poster's posts were deleted?

No idea

I've PM'd them

Perhaps. Goodness knows.

Seriously now does anyone know of any alternative forums that are worth joining? I have been on MN for nearly 20 years and have always enjoyed the different sections at different times of my life. I need to find a new place to go.

Jeez, what have I just read?! I don't know whether to laugh or cry. But yes, I see which poster you're talking about now, and they have absolutely been doing a grand job of trying to challenge. We need people like that.

But then they get deleted. This is why I would prefer to have no moderation rather than crap moderation. It's the worst of all worlds at the moment.

I feel the same.

Unfortunately all social media is being hi-jacked by such posts. Redditors are also complaining about this at the moment too.
I would support all such threads being moved to politics or deleted.

Yeah, I've been wondering the same but wasn't sure if we were allowed to talk about it here.

I asked ChatGPT and it did come up with another suggestion that I might investigate.

ha I thought you were being cryptic about what the thread was, but no, found it. What on earth? I didn’t see what they posted but have seen them on other threads

Reddit is good but anti-immigration topics are creeping in there very regularly lately too unfortunately.

There is a very useful Menopause sub and a Geography topic I like .

Is it one that's already been mentioned on here?

ChatGPT came up with MetaFilter, which I hadn't heard of previously. No idea if it's any good, but ChatGPT's description made it sound interesting. I might check it out.

Suspect it might be more of an American user base though.