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

Uh-huh. Are we just here being taken for mugs? Both by the shit stirring OPs with their bad faith agendas and by Mumsnet telling us to get stuck in so they have busy boards and a viable business?

I think MN ought to differentiate between misinformation and misinformation. They certainly did during Covid and as recently as Southport and I'm not sure why that changed.

I have had the same response when challenging ableism.

They do for anti-vaxxer rubbish too. Online racism is just as bad as anti-vaxx stuff, so they should be coming down harder on lies about ‘Islamification’ , ‘two tier policing’ and ‘shutting down free speech’ nonsense. It does lead to debate and clicks however, and their bottom line is advertising revenue, so I’m cynical that they will do anything meaningful wrt moderation.

Yes, and when I have reported posters like that, I have been asked to report every single individual post.

Me too.

Uh oh. I’ve had similar. Reported a deeply unpleasant poster (yeah, I know that’s subjective) and was told to - paraphrasing - ‘feel free to engage’.

I mean, that was LAST poster on earth I wanted anything to do with. No thanks.

Are people not allowed to voice concerns about things going on in their communities?

I imagine it comes down to volume - particularly with the growing impact of AI bots - and cost. Unless they can harness the power of AI to tackle the issue, they probably won't want to invest in the resource that would be needed to tackle the problem. And at the moment, it's much more cost effective for them if other posters challenge the lies for them for free.

There may come a tipping point, though, where enough people decide that the site is no longer useable because of the poor moderation.

I would strongly urge anyone who does decide to leave MN to contact their advertisers to let them know why you're leaving the site. Money will be more powerful than ethical concerns when it comes to this issue.

Of course they are. Are people capable of voicing concern without being racist or spreading misinformation?

If so, then they can crack on. That isn't what this thread is about.

Back in the day, when all this was fields, blah blah, MNHQ used to dislike ‘bun fights’.

Maybe we’re seeing a moderation policy shift to encouraging them?

Or, hopefully, we’re seeing a less cynical once-barely-perceptible gradual moderation drift that’s now hard to ignore.

Yes, they are allowed.

Yes, of course they are. I specifically mentioned that ^^
What they shouldn’t be allowed to do is wang on about ‘Islamification’ etc or produce dubious statistics about immigration to imply that one specific race is responsible for those concerns. I don’t think they should be shut down for voicing concerns, but they do need to be aware that sweeping generalizations can be harmful - not just in a ‘hurty words on the Internet’ way, but in a ‘trying to burn down places of worship and accomodation’ way.

Yes, I tried to report a whole thread once and suggested that it just needed pulling. I think they deleted the post that I had clicked against and didn't bother to read the rest.

I agree

plus

MNHQ used to boast 10 million 'unique users' which was then quietly changed to 8 million and then/now not mentioned to presumably even less

Advertisers must have noticed too

Guess that's why the site is overloaded with ads [and has become unusable for a chunk of posters] to keep the clicks coming

I completely agree. I’m not one for limiting what people say and I have no issue with discussion about immigration, but too many posts descend into pure hatred and racism and they are not addressed properly. Serious and damaging untruths about immigration and immigrants are left unchecked and unchallenged. It’s not ok.

@Saucery articulated my thoughts far better than I did!

People should be allowed to express disquiet about what they observe to be happening in their communities. They should not be allowed to spout racist twaddle.

Absolutely they should be able to talk about their concerns. But definitely not by spouting ‘racist twaddle’ and/or peddling misinformation - either naively, through ignorance or wilfully.

I abhor racism (in any form) and really think MHNQ need to do more to eradicate such posts and posters.

That’s for MN moderation to act on and imo they need to be sharper and less complacent about it.

Totally, totally agree. The idea that things should just be challenged on the boards is only OK to a certain point, Out and out racism should not be tolerated, or left up to MNetters to police.

I agree with the problem but not the solution. An immigration sub-folder could be viewed by people as helpfully about immigration - we actually do see lots of posts about where to live in the UK or about immigration problems / issues. I wouldn't want to even accidentally expose decent people to the ravings of the rampant racists. We have a sub-folder for people with disabilities, and how often is that taken over by the rampant ableists - something MNHQ also never do anything about.

I have said it before, and I will say it again - I firmly believe that the unacceptable intolerance and hatred routinely peddled on the site, if not directly welcome, is definitely happily tolerated because it feeds clicks and therefore money.

But if there were to be a sub-folder I would like to see it labelled more clearly than just "immigration".

Not that I expect it would stop the racist crap being posted everywhere.

Yes, of course they are.

they shouldn’t be allowed to voice “concerns” about what isn’t going on in their communities.

such as one poster who stated that some parts of the UK operates under sharia law.

or that all asylum seekers are illiterate as if they were educated with good jobs they’d just get a visa and come here legally.

that sort of shit.

I have said it before, and I will say it again - I firmly believe that the unacceptable intolerance and hatred routinely peddled on the site, if not directly welcome, is definitely happily tolerated because it feeds clicks and therefore money

Yep.

Misinformation is difficult however - facts can be true and at the same time misleading for example, or people can repeat data from sources they trust. -and deleting the later will simply push people away from discussion

that is what the feminist board did well for many years - they sought out facts from reputable sources; their statistical analysis was very strong

and they finally had the emotive vote when the whole issue was brought into the limelight

but it took some people a lot of time and effort digging out sources and doing the analysis and pushing for data to enable that to happen

I'm pretty cynical about everything these days, and torn between hiding out at the Winchester till things blow over, and my irritating desire to challenge the hatred.

I don't understand how the factually incorrect things are allowed to stand, and I often ruminate on the wholesale deletion of the "State of Fear" threads during lockdown because of the "far right" fear generated mainly by just asking questions in a time of real uncertainty and confusion.

The political zeitgeist seems to be going in a very concerning direction, as extreme right wing opinions are now allowed to stand.

Whether it's racism or ablism, it's dressed up with "economic" concerns quite often, and the targets are the least economically powerful.

And my sky fairy comment applies to the anthropomorphic bastardisation of spiritual concepts. The idea that "my superior God is watching and I will smite you to appease him and he will smite you too" is one of the most damaging things to the human psyche in all of history as far as I'm concerned and I won't apologise for saying it has no place in politics.

How about a "racists and xenophobes" board?! That would do what it says on the tin.

Though curiously, even the most rabid of racists seem not to want to identify as racists. I'm not sure why when they don't bother making any secret of it.

Sadly, I think you're right. The hatred is tolerated because it feeds clicks and helps to generate revenue. So maybe we all need to stop clicking...

Yeah I mean there has been blatant racism in the past too but these are three active threads...good idea about a sub forum

My mum, bless her heart, was mortified recently when she went out recently with a bag for life that had a union jack on it. It was her fancy bag for life too, made from a hessian material. And someone, in all seriousness, pulled her to one side and said 'I don't know if you are aware, but that symbol stands for Far Right now.' Said in dramatic sotto voce tones.

People are quite raving nowadays, I think mental health plummeted for many during covid and has never recovered.