So what's going on here? Rage bait style thread has been whitewashed to remove blatant racism...

[BoobsOnTheMoon]

...and when I queried it with MNHQ I got a very strange answer

This thread started off with an OP that made specific reference to a child with a "foreign sounding name". Several posters, including me, responded to that calling out the racism.

MNHQ, even though the OP hadn't been back to the thread, removed that sentence completely. The multiple replies calling out the racism then made no sense at all. The edit isn't like when a poster edits, because you can't still see the previous version. So effectively it's been whitewashed. Bang and the racism is gone. Nothing to see here.

I was pissed off about this because yesterday MNHQ had told me it wasn't in fact possible to edit a post of mine to clear up the meaning, despite it only being a fairly small error. So I emailed and asked them to clarify what the rules are about editing posts for people after the edit window closes.

I got a reply that didn't really make a lot of sense, telling me that in this case the OP was edited because it "was a significant content error". This is extremely odd wording for removing all trace of the outright racism in an OP, especially where the poster has never posted before and hasn't returned to the thread. The OP actually has a number of AI tells, and is very much edging towards obvious rage bait, and I'm not entirely convinced the poster is genuine. In fact, given the very odd reasoning from MNHQ and the goady style of the post, I'm starting to wonder if MNHQ know that its AI rage bait and are letting it stand anyway, and only edited it to make it less obvious.

So can anyone clear up why this post was edited in this way despite the OP vanishing? Why was it described to me as "a significant content error" when it was nothing of the sort? What's that wording about? Did the poster ask for the bit about the "foreign sounding name" to be removed and if so how come that was ok when other posters are told their posts can't be changed for them? Is the poster even real, or are MNHQ knowingly allowing/collaborating with AI rage bait bots to drive engagement? Something feels really off here tbh.

I feel simultaneously very old and very naive. I didn't think of sites doing this themselves. The rise of chatgpt on here was already disheartening. We are entering an era where absolutely nothing online will be real anymore and what a strange dystopian hellscape it will be when all we have is computers imitating humans in place of the connection and communities that internet forums once created. It's so dark!

The OP has posted before on a couple of the private school threads.
I don't think this is likely to be MN making things up - just someone with offensive views.
But I agree that the MN deletion is an 'unusual' method of dealing with racism on the boards

It’s been going on for years. I’m assuming that the poster’s goal (not saying it was MNHQ, but whoever posted) was for it to hit the daily mail or something with anger about foreigners coming here and expecting charity.

People say they will leave if the site stops helping them/serving their need but it's my much, much easier said than done. I personally have been trying to leave since the Brexit referendum when MN allowed obvious schills to pay every single hour of every day. Alas. I find myself back here again, still annoyed, still here.

I absolutely realise we've been plagued with bots and shills since the Brexit years and before, and the sheer volume of pointless and obvious AI-generated threads on here lately have been overwhelming, but the suggestion that MN staff would be dumping AI slop threads on here themselves adds a whole new layer of depressing to the whole thing!

This. I don't know why MN would edit out the racism, and not just delete the whole thread, like other pp have said. It is not on.

It is all quite odd, however, would mumsnet really make these AI threads to increase engagement? I don't really think so.

Is that because you are unable to find a similar forum to this one? I am getting fed up too.

Could someone from @MNHQ Clarify the 'significant content error' message please?

Yep. I deleted my old account but then somehow ended up back here again.

We only have ourselves to blame!

Hi everyone - we're looking into what happened here and will report back ASAP.

Could it be that the OP posts in their own right with their own username but is also employed as a member of MNHQ staff?

And could it be that they basically abused their ability to edit threads by deleting the racist bit in their own post instead of just deleting the whole thread as you would usually expect?

Having moderators with racist views would certainly help to illuminate why some of the racist content is left to stand!

I would definitely be interested in any recommendations that anyone might have!

This would definitely make sense too.

If that is the case then maybe Justine will give them a payrise so they can afford a £24 gift.

Me too.

Hi all, thanks for your patience while we looked into this.

Just to clarify, the OP didn’t request the change. In this case, the moderator handling a report about the thread misread it and edited the post rather than reviewing the thread properly. That wasn’t the right call, and we’re sorry.

We can see how the edit made the replies look disconnected, and why it felt like we were trying to scrub out the context. That wasn’t the intention, but we understand why people were frustrated by it. The correct approach would have been to remove the thread and look into the OP, and we’ve now done that.

More generally, we’re happy to edit titles or posts where it helps with clarity, as long as we’re not rewriting history. If you’ve asked for an edit and felt we weren’t fair or consistent, please do get in touch as we’d like the chance to review.

We’re taking steps to make sure this kind of mistake doesn’t happen again, but as always, if you're unhappy with any aspect of our moderation, do let us know.

It’s been deleted now for racist and inflammatory language.

Which begs the question of why it took so long when MNHQ were well aware of it, and knew/agreed it was racist and inflammatory at the time as they edited out the offensive wording.

X post with @BeckyAMumsnet

What kind of training is given to moderators when it comes to handling racist posts? I’d have thought it was as easy as delete the post and warn or ban the poster. Can’t imagine where they got the idea to edit from.

@BeckyAMumsnet are moderators not trained on how to deal with racist content?

@PinkFrogss all moderators receive regular, ongoing training, including on recognising and handling racism. We’re following up with the moderator involved today to make sure this situation is fully reviewed and not repeated.

Thinking about this more, it's actually quite hard to believe that a moderator would have so little awareness about how to deal with racist content. Surely that is one of the most basic requirements of the job?

It's also weird that they would explain the deletion using the phrase "content error", given that the OP didn't apparently request the deletion so the content was absolutely what they had intended. Why wouldn't they at least say that they had edited it to remove offensive material?

So I'm back to wondering if the OP is actually a moderator editing their own racist posts under a different username.

@BeckyAMumsnet, can you clarify if the OP of the thread in question happens to work for MNHQ?

Or is it really the case that some of your moderators are as astonishingly incompetent and completely untrained as this error suggests?

Either way, it isn't a great look for MN.

@MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack we can confirm the poster does not work for MNHQ. On closer inspection this morning, they appear to be a previously banned user with a history of similar posts.

This was a genuine cock-up, not a conspiracy, and we’re following up today to understand exactly how such an obvious mistake happened.

So can you explain why the reason was given as "a significant content error" ?

Well the training is either very unclear or the moderator had their own personal agenda. Not sure which is worse tbh

Fair enough, @BeckyAMumsnet. Thanks for confirming.

I think this rather suggests that the current approach to training doesn't appear to be working. There have been lots of concerns previously about moderators deciding to leave racist content to stand even when it is reported, but this particular error is on a whole other level - perhaps new moderators need more supervision from experienced colleagues before they can be "let loose" on the boards?