Fake threads

[HeadDeskHeadDesk]

Hi MNHQ

I am one of many posters who, in recent months, has noticed and often commented on the sheer volume of posts, usually in AIBU, that have had all the hallmarks of a fake thread designed to drive traffic.

They read like those long-winded 'dilemmas' posted on Bored Panda or 5 Minute Crafts or similar, that pop up on our facebook feeds. The issues are always along a similar theme, some sort of family problem or dilemma that is bound to divide opinion and lead to a fierce debate on a long running thread.

I can always spot them. They are posted in the morning, the OP usually has no other posts under that user name, or just one or two anodyne responses on other people's threads within the previous 48 hours to give the illusion of a regular poster. Even the user names chosen seem to follow a predictable theme. There is rarely, if ever any further engagement on the thread they've started, even though they have asked for advice and opinions for this 'problem' and got 10 pages of feedback. If there is any engagement it's brief and not as involved as you'd expect it to be. Again,I feel this only happens once people have voiced misgivings that the thread might not be real, as if to reassure us that the poster is genuine, but there is clearly no real interest in engaging in the thread they started.

Usually when people call out the OP on a thread for possibly trolling, lying or making up stories, MNHQ starts smacking wrists for troll hunting. Yet I've noticed when it happens on these 'baity' sort of threads, there is no reaction from MNHQ.

Mumsnet, I'd like to know the truth because I feel like we are being taken for fools just to keep your site turning over and your advertisers happy.

Do you, or do you not PAY for people or bots to create content in the form of fake threads? Either content creation services, or people who already work for MNHQ? Yes or no?

Or do you use AI to make them up and just post them yourselves?

It’s AI firms training their model, I’d bet my house on it. There’s nowhere more raw, genuine or more disparate on the internet than big forums like Mumsnet. They’re everything AI wants to be but isn’t (yet).

Same with the one misspelt word on the title, it is only ever one

You need to report fake posts, not accuse on the thread. That's been the MN way since it was all fields here!

They keep cropping up on my Facebook feed. Likes, clicks and comments make money for someone.

I’m not sure whether I’m actually reported or whether mumsnet has its own system that flags up ‘troll hunters'

MN is post moderated.
If something isn't reported, nothing can be done about it.
It's always been like this.

They can usually spot PBPs though, but only after someone reports them first.

We don’t create threads ourselves, we don’t pay anyone to do it, and we don’t use bots or AI to seed traffic. We’ve never done this

That's odd to read because I thought it was well known that contrived threads were the norm in the first few weeks after MN started. It literally was a deliberate strategy to try to get the forum started for the founders to just waffle on pointlessly at each other & half invent conversation points out of no real actual need or issue.

So ok, that was 2002, but saying "never done this".... mmmm... yeah, ok, sure.

You could be onto something there. AI companies are employing psychiatrists in an attempt to stop their products driving people insane but this cognitive scientist makes the case that what they actually need is mothers.

ps: the AI / LLM training is happening all over the place in all sorts of ways wherever people interact digitally and there's any angle to monetise their engagement. It's rampant.

Meanwhile we are all enduring actual environmental harms to endure their crap training, while governments enthusiastically subsidise it. Arrrggghhhhh....

I strongly suspect this is why we can't block posters too - we would mess up the system of rage baiting.

There is one particular poster who name changes and posts nonsense on Politics, The Royal Family & Chat to get responses. She thinks she's being clever, practising her debating skills for a hypothetical Oxbridge tutorial. She is a bored teenager who also gets genuine support for a long running saga on Education. You can spot her posts a mile off. She posts the same Education threads on TSR as well.

It’s weird because, up until now, I couldn’t have spotted a fake thread even if the user’s name was FakeThread.

But recently, I’m feeling suspicious about lots of the threads on here. It feels like there’s been a shift (either in Mumsnet posts, in me, or both).

One day recently, there were three new threads on the Dadsnet topic. Each thread had a bloke describing at length an issue regarding their life. There were a few replies then, on all of them, someone posted about a book they’d written, specifically to help men. 🧐

I have very much noticed the increase in one post wonders.
There has definitely been an increase just lately.
Complete waste of time and I hide immediately.

So many started at 3am where OP never comes back.

Also, stories which just enrage posters and/or where the OP is ridiculously helpless. These threads push the emotional buttons and get huge engagement.

I know exactly the type of threads you are referring to and they have become very obvious and tedious of late.

Its always some issue that has come up recently on MN but then exaggerated, its like they get their ideas form real threads and embellish them a few days later. I've seen it happen several times. Its always some dilemma that they know will stir people up and the OP never, ever comes back to comment on it.

I know people have lives and are busy but why start a thread thats so full of apparent emotion and angst if you then cant even be bothered to read the replies? So obviously fake.

Its pathetic - dont people have better things to do in life?