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How is misinformation handled on MN?

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PinkFrogss · 04/10/2025 15:13

Hi @mnhq ,

One of the talk guidelines is “No trolling, misleading or deliberately inflammatory behaviour”, and on the reporting function “misinformation” is an option.

With this in mind, why when posts are reported for being proven as misleading and full of misinformation are they allowed to stand without even an amendment or MNHQ note added?

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MNHQ

BeckyAMumsnet · 04/10/2025 16:28

Hello @PinkFrogss That’s a fair question and we quite understand why it's not always clear cut. We do remove or edit posts when there’s demonstrable misinformation - for example, false claims about health or identifiable people, or if we have strong reason to suspect a poster is not acting with good intentions. Though there’s an important distinction between deliberate misinformation/disinformation and posters simply getting things wrong or expressing opinions that others strongly disagree with.

Where it’s the latter, we generally prefer those points to be challenged within the discussion rather than through moderation, as open debate usually helps correct inaccuracies more effectively than we could by deleting posts.

We’ll always act if something is clearly false and harmful, but otherwise we try to keep the door open for robust debate while encouraging posters to challenge ideas respectfully and, even better, counter with reliable sources.

MNHQ

BeckyAMumsnet · 04/10/2025 17:28

PinkFrogss · 04/10/2025 17:14

Thank you for the detailed response @BeckyAMumsnet, how do you generally judge whether or not a poster has good intentions when making misleading posts based on false information?

Perhaps I’m just a bit more cynical than most when it comes to people’s ability to post in good faith about certain topics!

You're welcome, @PinkFrogss. There are a few things we look at when deciding, that we won't go into detail about but it's fair to say it's usually pretty obvious when someone is not posting in good faith.

No harm in being cynical - and we certainly don't blame you - though our approach is generally to take people at face value until such time as we can't... if that makes sense!

Re pp's comment on reverse threads - we don't really consider this misinformation - though it is certainly misleading. People may do a reverse for the very best of reasons but in general we discourage it as most MNers dislike this behaviour.

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