Why so much hate on MN?

[Oncetwicethreetimesmore]

@MNHQ
Why so much hate on MN?
Posters hiding behind complaints about the government, presenting themselves as reasonable actors, to push hate about asylum seekers, people with disabilities, benefit claimants..Mostly the same names all day everyday.
I am told to report - MN just not interested.
I am told to hide the thread..
Why isn't moderation better?
I know this will always exist and exists on other platforms but MN makes no effort to even try to anything about it.
You can't really sell MN as a caring, supportive site with all this stuff offered on a daily basis in active.

baselessly accusing them of being sex offenders simply because they are trans is hate.

I've never seen this. I've seen discussion of actual transwomen who have been convicted of sex offences, eg Katie Dolatowski. That's fact, not a matter of baseless accusation.

I've seen discussion that allowing men into female single sex spaces increases risk of women being attacked. I've participated in those myself and agree with that view. Given 99% of sex offences are carried out by males, it's not rocket science to see a risk there.

What I haven't seen is anyone accusing a person of being a sex offender 'simply because they are trans'. The posters on FWR are well aware that trans is a broad umbrella and includes, for example, autistic children.

But using dehumanising language talking about floods and parasites and invasions is hate. Spreading false narratives that demonise whole groups of people as criminals and rapists is hate.

I agree that terms such as 'parasites' are dehumanising. I've not often seen posters 'demonise whole groups of people as criminals and rapists', though I have seen a small number of posts that would amount to that and are clearly racist. Those are usually deleted, thankfully.

I have seen discussion of statistics from other European countries that seem to show that certain offences are disproportionately high amongst migrants from some geographical areas. And discussion around cultural differences relating to the treatment and status of women, amongst some people coming from certain parts of the world. Where this is fact, it has to be ok to discuss it. In a democracy, free speech and access to accurate facts and data are vital. It cannot be the case that the potential for increased risk to women should be hushed up and made taboo. Women matter as much as men. Yet I have seen posters try to do that. Discussion should not cross any line into racism, of course.

Well, lucky you for not having seen it, I guess. Seeing it made me feel really disheartened and demoralised about how much more inflammatory, hostile language and rage-baiting there was on mumsnet since I was last here regularly. But maybe I was unlucky with the threads I clicked on.

The people I most often see making those type of sweeping, unnuanced statements are people complaining that it's what others are saying.

Generally I feel they are mischaracterising views that are actually more nuanced, or where concerning an individual or specific group, are in response to a specific incident.

That doesn't mean I think the views are necessarily right, just that to mischaracterise them as blanket and unnuaced "hate" is misleading and unhelpful.

Mostly I assume these posters are genuine but suffering from their own biases where they read and/or remember what they expect to rather than what is actually there,

But sometimes I do cynically wonder if at least some of these people are trying to get those claims frequent enough to feed into LLMs, search engines and commentary as "facts", either to discredit MN as a valid source for woman-first perspectives (which god knows is missing enough on the Internet) or to force MN into draconian and one-sided moderation to protect the brand.

Thanks for this. Mnhq have been good at holding the line on allowing a range of political views.

Absolutely agree, it's always posters saying this is what others do, but it's rarely backed up with any evidence.

Ah, I'm sorry to hear that, there are some unpleasant posts and posters, to be sure. Also lots of impassioned debate, and some excellent support, often.

I agree with this, MNHQ have a difficult job to do, but do it very well overall, IMO.

I’ll not forget they held the line when attacked over advertising wrt women’s rights. And some of the statements about women on the issue.

It’s good to be backed on a fairly hostile often male online world.

Absolutely, it would probably have been far easier to have caved in the face of the rage and intimidation, like most other forums and organisations, but they did the right thing for women, and I'm very grateful.

we won’t remove a view simply because other people strongly dislike it.

That isn’t the issue and misses the point. One of MN’s own guidelines is regarding misinformation. Even when data is provided to evidence the sharing of misinformation MN very, very rarely deletes the comments.

Misinformation is dangerous in misinforming others, leading to bias and untruths standing.

@AtHomeWithThe the bar would need to be very high to delete posts on the basis of misinformation. On many topics the truth is hotly contested, MN could be entering an absolute minefield if they took it upon themselves to wade in delete untrue posts.

So why is misinformation one of the reporting categories?

Absolutely. Even when, for example, people post links to Twitter accounts that are known to only exist in order to spread disinformation mnhq doesn't delete.

How would MN be able to investigate each and every source and take upon itself a duty to authenticate them? On what basis and with what resource? How would they ensure accuracy? How would they ensure they made the right calls and toed the line between authenticating and censorship?

It would be an utter minefield for them and one that would require enormous resource. I can't see how it could be anything other than utterly unworkable.

That's as may be - but it is a reporting category.

I am not sure they themselves know the difference between mis- and dis- information.

They used to be good at removing disinformation on the anti vaxx threads that popped up.

Yes, but they're only going to be able to jump on the most obvious examples, aren't they? They can't play internet cop for everything.

I don't know betty - ask them how they do it! All I am pointing out is that we can report it. I wonder how many posts reported under that category are in fact deleted.

Absolutely, and people should report anything particularly egregious, IMO.

That's a fair point, actually. Perhaps MN should add a community notes type feature?

@sherbetlemonade , I thought I’d made myself clear. I don’t think everyone on the left of politics is woke, which is a group of people who adhere to a set of beliefs because they are the current group think. I would find it quite difficult to put myself in a solid political box because actually I have some strong beliefs that some people may describe as ‘woke’ for instance I’m a very strong supporter of animal and gay rights, socially I’m very liberal but fiscally I’m strongly Conservative. I read around subjects and make up my own mind, sometimes as a result of additional information I change my stance.
It’s always helpful I think to ask questions rather than make assumptions.
I really hope that you are not suggesting that all those who align with the right of politics are racist? I certainly am not and neither are most Conservatively minded people. I find any suggestion that I may be racist deeply hurtful. I lost my mum ten years ago but she was so proud of my colour blindness as a child and I bought up my boys to judge people for who they are regardless of their colour or religion and I am extremely proud of them for their lack of prejudice.

Personally I'm not defining hate as things I don't personally agree with. I'm referring to genuine hate, because unfortunately some posters do post hate, the genuine sort. Just wanted to emphasise that.

Mnhq deletes stuff. Posters will always want them to do more to make the site align with their views, but it’s fine as is. There’s always X or BlueSky for community notes type stuff mentioned below.

Mn is its own thing tg.

I agree there is sometime genuine hate, but as Eastern says, when it’s genuine, it’s deleted if you report it. You do need to report it, though, they won’t automatically notice.

Posters will always want them to do more to make the site align with their views If that's your view, presumably you're including yourself in that statement?

It isn't always deleted though. And no, I don't just mean stuff I personally dislike.