Political threads, bullying and echo chambers

[TenLittleSweetWrappers]

I just wanted to clarify Mumsnet’s stance on this as it seems really ‘off’.

I’m a long time poster and not aware that I’ve had posts deleted before or done anything controversial.
A political thread came up in my feed so sort of ‘advertised’ to me by Mumsnet. So I had a look.
Lots of posters are on this political thread who know each other well and have similar political leanings. That’s fine, but there were posts supporting anti-immigration and pro posting flags on roundabouts. So I felt a need to challenge as I don’t share that political stance,

Cue the group of long time posters to jump on me, accuse me of goading, derailing, telling each other to ignore me, referring to me as an ‘it’ - or ‘crying to Mumsnet’ when I ask for clarification - and - as a group encouraging each other to post rock gifs each time I post. Any perceived ‘goading’ or ‘derailment’ by me was minuscule compared to the onslaught of animosity from the bullying group.

Mumsnet told me to stay off the thread and to discuss my political thoughts elsewhere.

I’m sorry, but I’ve never come across this on Mumsnet before? I thought threads were public and all are free to post?
It felt like echo chamber, and rather than address the bullying, gang-like behaviour - Mumsnet seems to be accepting it.

I won’t be posting on the thread anymore. But I’m really disappointed that Mumsnet doesn’t moderate these threads fairly or adds them to my feed when I’m not actually welcome to post there at all and they are only for people of a particular political persuasion.

Agreed. I reported at least one personal attack which was deleted but there was little point in engaging with them.

I’m amazed how people cannot just walk away when the conversation becomes circular on an anonymous forum. OTOH I’ve been amazed by this since at least the time of bitnet and bulletin boards so I don’t imagine it will change anytime soon. I suspect liberal name changing aggravates problems on MN and most forums don’t permit frequent name changing for good reason.

The subject of “long running” or “closed” threads comes up moderately regularly, I’m not sure the pub analogy fully holds for all types.

There are threads which are small groups of MNers who may have met, know each other and have entirely innocuous conversations which are meaningless to anyone not involved. The pub group speaking Klingon - its pretty obvious others will have nothing to contribute.

There are the long running threads in topics which are topic specific eg some of the telly threads or gardening type threads where anyone is welcomed if they are interested in the subject. Joining a Christian topic thread to evangelise atheism or Vegan topic thread to extol the virtues of rump steak is plainly a dick moveon these threads. Both these types would be the pub table labelled “garden discussion club get together, new garden enthusiasts welcome”. Again easy to recognise within a few posts.

Then in between there are small groups sharing a particular viewpoint on politics, religion, child rearing etc which look like regular public forum discussions on mainstream topics but are not. In a pub you would have the visual cue of the closed circle of friends, but when these “closed” threads appear in active from a general or wide ranging topic then its hardly surprising people assume it is another discussion thread open to all, not a small group of like minded posters not wanting new joiners. Its this last group which seem to generate threads in site stuff. Maybe a disclaimer in the stem post to say “just a bunch of like minded mates, not looking for wider discussions” would work.

Maybe a disclaimer in the stem post to say “just a bunch of like minded mates, not looking for wider discussions” would work.

Oh my god, do we really need to put a TW on threads for those who can't read the room and get all victimised when it's explained to them?🤦‍♀️

Well, tbf the thread the OP has gotten so upset about has it's actual aim in the actual title itself.

To be fair it’s right there in the opening post of the series of threads OP’s complaining about. She can’t claim ignorance.

The thread in Q has a very clear and transparent title and is on #20 of said thread. A person of average intelligence should be able to deduce the topic + that it is a long running thread from those elements.
OP went on to purposely goad then name chanted and kept 'contributing' to the thread before making spurious accusations on here. They were never posting in good faith.

Exactly. There was alot of purposeful goading as well.

I think MNHQ's statement on this thread made it politely clear that what the OP was engaged with on the other thread simple wasn't cricket.

Trigger warning? Good grief, we have very different ideas of the use of TWs.

On the long running closed type threads it just makes sense for that to be clear from the outset. It saves other posters wasting their time and the thread regulars from having their private chat/bubble burst. It reduces threads like this coming to site stuff.

It is really not obvious on some of the long running threads that new joiners are not wanted. MN is a public discussion forum, if a thread is meant to be a closed group of posters then it needs to be clear from the outset.

As for it being a breach of MN etiquette to post to a publicly posted thread - not unless they are trolling or making personal attacks it isn’t.

I’m talking about the general issue of closed threads as I thought I explained in my post. I see it crop up fairly regularly on site stuff and more by posters confused that threads on a public discussion forum would be closed to posters outside a subgroup.

Maybe OP should have put a message up in her first post of this thread. "I have created this thread to have a moan about some posters on Mumsnet, and if everybody doesn't agree with me about how jolly mean they are then I am going to flounce".

Also, I'm totally loving MN's "Recollections may vary" type post 😆

There's no such thing as a closed thread.

Recollections may vary and names may change 🤣

At least I don't name change just to goad and insult people! Unlike some on this thread it seems.

Just noticed that MN said this:

Repeatedly returning to challenge others, or using new usernames to continue an argument, doesn’t change the guidance.

OH dear OP, were you caught out using multiple user names on the same thread? Very naughty!

I interpreted that as name changing to contribute to a new thread.

But that wouldn't be "continuing the argument", would it? It would be a new argument.

I didn't think people could do that any more?

Mumsnet are undoubtedly aware that infiltration by coordinated groups occurs, but I guess they don't have the resources to investigate and push back.
You see it a lot with "shape the narrative" and other information operations. To the trained eye they're easy to spot.

As it is my post from the thread concerned and MNHQ have commented. I’ve brought this across for context. I am pleased this kind of nonsense is being stopped. Multiple threads were constantly derailed.

I feel like it went full DARVO yesterday. A few people expressed gratitude yesterday for this thread and only really post here now. Lots of people were discussing their experiences. If you DO NOT support Labour, then this place can be awful. People would follow you around threads, goad you, constantly attack you, report you, call you a bot or a Russian troll.
It still happens to some extent. If you want to seriously discuss the increasing welfare bill. Immediately jumped and posters project what they think you said. Serious concerns about immigration. Jumped as flag whatever or flag on roundabout lover. Insert abusive names and accusations here.
High earner worried about COL and tax? Don’t you dare post here. Be thankful you’re not eating gruel. Shut up and get off here. What’s the phrase? Read the room. A genuine concern about money, tax questions, schooling questions, insert lots of people swearing and hurling abuse.
Yet somehow, this thread, full of people who have been paid up member of both Labour and Tories. Voters across all political spectrums. Differing opinions across as things. The only thing truly in common is that we don’t think the Labour government at this moment is working. Some of us knew it never would. I didn’t, their only plan was: “Not the Tories.” Their flagship policy (VAT) was based on spite. I am a teacher and knew it was a terrible policy based on spite.
Yet somehow, we are echo chamber of bullies. Like I say talk about DARVO and gaslighting.

🙌👏👏

Depends on how many registrations you have.

Fair point. If people can really be arsed to log in and out of different accounts in order to sock puppet, good luck to them. I'm not really sure what they get out if it tbh!

I stay logged in always because i can never remember one password, never mind multiples.

ETA- although I change my user name roughly every week or so. But the IP address is the same )

Where are the ‘flag shaggers’ on that thread? I haven’t seen any. They’re all anti Labour. That’s the common theme. Nothing about flags..

And how many browsers you have open.