What’s going on with the weird MNHQ bumbling?

[MrsTerryPratchett]

A couple of threads have been bumped by MNHQ specifically @FlissMumsnetor whatever the naming convention is. It’s early on, contentious and therefore clickbaity stuff.

Is this a new thing? It’s weird and frankly seems manipulative. Are MNHQ at least checking if these bumped threads are legit posters, because one seemed very suss.

Yes just deleted. Curiouser and curiouser?

This thread has been deleted
We've removed this thread as, after further delving, we realise the OP may not be a genuine poster.

Hello Flissy.

Or is it someone doing voluntary work?

MN has been delving which means someone is around but they aren’t coming near this thread.

Also this ‘Fliss’ reply to a poetry thread (!!) is definitely AI generated:

We'd love to help you resolve this so wanted to reply. We've done a search too but haven't pinned it down as yet..

Hoping someone else will come along and be able to name the poet or poem for you - it sounds good!

So I think the account is connected to a Chatbot, yes.

But why? We’re not scary are we? I think everyone is very polite.

I am very scary

Get someone here and give ‘em a roasting then please!

Hmmmmm. Yeah, weird. Is Site Stuff monitored or do we still have to report it to get a MNHQ response?

Oh God I hope she hasn’t been Susan Delled

This is so profoundly odd that the least disturbing explanation I can come up with is that Fliss MN must have been hacked.

It is very uncanny valley, and what with all the recent AI-related fears and weirdness I do finally start to feel that I don't want to be here anymore. I don't even want my posts to be here anymore, though I guess I am stuck with that.

I think I remember reading a recent thread on here about AI bots using user names that had some reference to classic mumsnet posts.
In the one about the racist boss that has just been deleted was the OP was called something Ballonz - isn’t that a MN in joke?

Would make sense that AI has generated it using harvesting of popular threads and MN lore to look like a genuine poster.

The MN bump thing is just bizarre though as it deleting the entire thread- I have seen amd reported much more obvious dodgy ones that have been left up.

Now I’m racking my brain trying to see if I know that poem which is probably made up by AI anyway. Sigh.

Fliss you ok hun?

And still no word from Flissy.

How about it MNHQ?

Whats going on?

According to google

I think Fliss is a chatbot and went off piste again today, unless actually instructed to bump threads, which seems plausible tbh.

It looked dodgy to start with, which was probably why nobody had replied to it before it got bumped by Fliss.

Perhaps she's gone home - the moderators usually clock off sometime around 11pm

I think Fliss has had a long day and doesn’t want to talk to anyone.

One of the threads that the FlissMN account has posted on is an extremely distressing mental health one (please don't link to it on this thread as it might be upsetting for a poster who appears very vulnerable).
When MN post on these sorts of threads, it is usually with a fixed script signposting mental health resources. But the Fliss post doesn't follow that. I'm horrified by the possibility that an unwell user might have been exposed to this weird (AI??) outbreak

Just goes to show how lazy and immoral mnhq really are.

Imani bot has been bumping and moving threads around in the ttc section just now.

I wonder if there’s any night watch volunteers around who can shed some light

I doubt they’re allowed to spill any secrets @JaneJeffer

Oh completely agree. Always the strangest posts too. It’s only in the last week or so as well. I commented on the racism one agreeing that it was strange that it had been bumped and then it went down