The MN Mail Column - what we think, and what we plan to do next...

[JustineMumsnet]

Evening all - sorry for general absence today - niece's birthday do, packing for hol etc, etc.

So, thank you to everyone for your input on this particular issue. It's been a thought-provoking debate and clearly strong views prevail about exactly how much of a enhanced security risk publication of this column means to Mumsnetters.

We tend in broad terms to come down on the side of the risk being pretty much as it ever was fence but we also buy the argument that there is certainly an increased risk of identification/embarrassment or worse for the OP of a chosen thread - particularly if it of a very personal nature.

We would say as we always have that you should always bear in mind this is a public forum, searchable by Google, legally quotable by all and linkable to by all and sundry.

Clearly having an open forum brings with it risks but it also brings with it great benefits we've always felt. Openness means volume of users and volume of users means Mumsnet in its many guises is available to anyone who needs advice 24-7. It also means fresh faces, differing points of view and debate, and the wisdom that comes from a very big crowd - wrong or dangerous advice doesn't tend to last very long on MN.

Whether the risks outweigh the rewards for each individual only they can decide. Clearly there are basic things you can and should do to protect yourself (ie not reveal basic contact info, namechange to reveal personal stuff etc etc). And bear in mind we are always happy to delete injudicious posts - just report them if you're worried about having revealed too much.

Putting the general risk stuff to one side however, we recognise that many folk (understandably) have qualms not just about being quoted in general but being quoted by the Daily Mail in particular.

If I could just reiterate that this column was not our idea and neither did we know anything about it until it appeared. Neither the journalist involved nor anyone from the DM contacted us about running it beforehand. (And if those of you who are convinced we're lying to you about that keep on impugning our good name, there's nowt for it, we're going to have to sue you for libel ).

In fact the first contact we had was this week (only after the column was brought to our attention by a Mumsnet thread about it) when I wrote to the author of the item in question - whose name we recognised as a Mumsnetter - to ask whether the Mail were planning on this being a regular thing.

At that point we, wrongly we now think having had a chat with a lawyer, didn't believe that we had any redress anyway (see endless posts about the journalistic defense of fair use) but we were, privately, a little surprised that they'd not consulted us.

Whilst we shared/share some of your misgivings about the idea of a MN-DM collaboration, I was, for sure heartened by the fact that the item was being written by a Mumsnetter who, though I don't know her personally, always seemed to be well respected by lots of Mumsnetters. I am quite sure after a couple of email exchanges with Leah Hardy, that she has/had no wish to sensationalise events on Mumsnet and that she would endeavour to protect people's identities. I'm also sure that she didn't feel she was compromising anyone's identity more than they'd already been compromised by posting on a public forum. We do think some of the comments about her have been overly harsh. After all many on here do that she's done nowt wrong in lifting quotes save perhaps for not consulting with us at HQ. That may be because she wouldn't think we could possibly object to her giving Mumsnet weekly publicity - as I've said before most websites/PRs would be in a frenzy of excitement about the Daily Mail doing a weekly column about them. But I don't know that's why, I'm just speculating. She could equally have meant to and forgotten or the dog could have eaten her email. It would be better if she'd come on to talk for herself than me blathering on - maybe she will at some point.

Whatever, we don't think that her actions deserve the general vilification/ outings/ witchunt she's received - bet there are a fair few MN journalists who would love a crack the same gig - maybe for a different publication, but still.

Anyhoo that's all history - sorry for banging on but wanted to be clear - the real question now is what next?

Well... we tend to agree with the view that it's this is not an ideal collaboration for Mumsnet - particularly as we have no editorial control over what gets chosen/ printed etc. So we plan to contact the daily mail on Monday and let them know have we feel about it. We promise to keep you posted about their response.

That's it really. Tanks again to all for your input - please don't interpret any future periods of silence as us hiding under the bed, swigging from the bottle and hoping things go away. It's much more likely to be because I'm going off on hols tomorrow and we're thin on the ground and the DM may not respond straight way but I'll aim to make some calls as soon as I'm on board ship!

ps a few more answers to some direct questions...

Someone asked about stats in response to the DM column. Our stats for thursday don't seem to show any marked influx of new people either in page impressions or new registrations

MaggieBeauLeo asked about a facility to allow members to delete their own posts - we don't think it works for a board like ours tbh - if you're catching up with a thread and the post that someone's agreeing with/taken issue with has been deleted it essentially makes a nonsense of the boards...

Someone else asked about making search for nicknames available only to those who'd paid a CAT. It's certainly a thought but we'd hate to make MN function less well for the majority unless it was for something really wanted by folk - we would welcome further thoughts.

As said we are working on private boards for particular subject groups - which would not be easily mineable for quotes or indexable by Google - they should be here in a couple of months at the latest. We'll keep you posted about their ETA and how they'll work.

still think deleting everything after 90 days is the better option;

keeping posts but under anon names wouldn't work....you could still work out who the posters were..other posters will mention your name, ie; that was a great post daftpunk...

on my phone so not really keeping up, you're prob talking about something else now..

But, Marsha, surely MNHQ could fix it so that THEY could still trace the poster, only the public/tabloids couldn't?

dp if anyone EVER says that I will eat my own poo

Oh, I nearly said it in my post - lucky escape, Greenie.

alchemillamollis yes I think it would be good if MN do something to lessen the feeling of uneasiness on here.

It's also probably worth more of us posting on the daily mail page www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/chat/r/t-10011867/p-1/index.html?threadIndex=1&class=thanks
I guess someone there must be tracking it....

"You agree that you will not submit any User Content protected by copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, moral right, or other intellectual property, personal, contractual, proprietary or other right owned by a third party without the express permission of the owner of the respective right. You are solely liable for any damage resulting from your failure to obtain such permission or from any other harm resulting from User Content that you submit. You represent, warrant, and covenant that you will not submit any User Content that:

violates or infringes in any way upon the rights of others, including, but not limited to, any copyright, trademark, moral right, or other third party right of any person or entity;
impersonates another or is unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, obscene, harassing or otherwise objectionable;
contains a formula, instruction, or advice that could cause harm or injury;
the licensed use by us hereunder would result in us having any obligation or liability to any party."

This places all Mumsnetters under a personal obligation to not post copyright material and not libel anyone, outrightly, through juxtaposition or through innuendo. So I might post jamie Oliver's recipe for Faggots Brulee (breaching copyright) asking if anyone else found the recipe to be complete rubbish as the faggots go soggy at the grilling stage and I might ask for a laugh whether Jamie owned a grill (defamation?) And I would personally be liable. So mumsnet get all the breaks (advertising revenue, publicity, revenue from spin off books, etc) and none of the responsiblity. Libel law is entirely separate from copyright in any case. Don't believe you are without personal responsiblity for libel. If the Daily Mail repeating a libel lifted from Mumsnet, it is entirely possible for the Daily Mail, its publishers, its distributors, Mumsnet and the individual Mumsnetter(s) to be sued for libel as each repetition of a libel is a fresh publication and creates a fresh cause of action.

Clearly Mumsnet previously accepted responsiblity for libel in the GF case but it seems this has now changed.

Oh and the other thing I should say is that it's not always possible to appreaciate the importance of juxtaposition, especially on Mumsnet. You might post something seemingly innoccuous on its own, without reading the rest of the thread properly, only to find yourself being libellous due to the juxtapositioning.

They could collate a book all from one poster in A Certain MNers Great Life, sell it for millions and not give you a dime and then you could get sued for libel and copyright infringement if it is in there....

not to give any ideas or anything

what day does this column come out on and is the last one on their website at the moment?

ha ha greensleeves...it has actually been said to me...(twice i think)...and not even in a taking the piss sarcastic way..

I think berating any poster for not reading the ever changing terms and conditions properly is rather unfair, considering MN don't seem to know whether their own ts and cs are enforceable or not.

I wouldn't expect MN to go public with what is going on on the board, but it might be nice if they could tell us whether they have reached agreement with the DM (now, I don't mean the original articles being agreed to, I know they weren't) and if so what it is. Then we can all make an informed decision about whether and what we post in the future.

For the sake of those people who are not comfortable with how the goal posts have shifted, the entire archive either needs to be deleted (say after 90 days) or all posting names need to be deleted. If certain former MNers can have all their posts removed, leaving vast swathes of archived threads that say little more than "message deleted by MN" then the same should go for all of us.

The MN rules are pretty standard I would think.

MNetters do have a personal obligation anyway these rules aren't changing the position a user would be in anyway - a wronged person could choose to sue the company (as publisher)or the user (as author)for libel and as a general rule would generally sue the company as it'd more likely to have the money if a court orders a payout.

I've not berated anyone for not knowing about rules which have changed without their knowledge - and have said that I understand those concerns.

It's those who haven't bothered in the first place to read the rules when they signed up who don't have a leg to stand on.

So Swedes, does that mean that if their terms had been like this a couple of years ago, GF would have been suing MP and she would have been personally responsible for her comments?

Pauldacre, they are contacting them today but do not expect a response so Justine will chase when she is back from holiday. I assume, therefore, that the next column or two could still go ahead regardless of HQs position on it all.

I think one of the problems here is that comparable sites are in short supply - especially when you add in the political and media attention MN gets....

Boco, I think that the individual can always be sued, but often won;'t be if there is a company (which is likely to have deeper pockets) which can be sued instead.

I took my profile down after I was quoted in the Independent, and name-change to start threads on subjects I wouldn't want to discuss with friends in RL.

However, I've spotted a RL friend on here in the past from reading one post of hers which immediately identified her to me as an old sixth form friend. I spotted one other friend on the basis of her nickname and the scant info on her profile. I suspect she has since namechanged as I haven't seen her for a while.

In the last few days I have stopped myself posting on several threads because I am still deliberating whether I should continue to post. There are several points here that have been raised by different people which I have been mulling over.

Firstly, morningpaper pointed out that there threads posted by her on the internet since about 1993. I'm not sure how I feel about posts of mine being around that long. What if they are used against me in some way in the future? How will I feel about my children reading posts of mine one day?

Secondly, someone mentioned what would happen if mumsnet was sold on. There is a lot of personal information held here which I wouldn't want to fall into the wrong hands. I feel quite happy with Justine etc at the helm, but I'd be very unhappy if mumsnet was sold on a la friendsreunited.

I think LH has done me a huge favour. Maybe I have spent far too long here, handing over vast amounts of information and invading my family's privacy. Maybe we've all been too naive.

Yes I will admit to not thinking too much about this stuff and it is good LH has prompted a rethinking.

It is a shame though, because alot of the enjoyment of being on here is lazily talking about one's family and building up a sense of 'knowing' people and people knowing you.

Going back to the book about A Certain MNers Great Life, if the Certain MNer recognised herself and then wrote her own book based on her posts here would she then be in breach of copyright?

I'm not so bothered about libel, think that's been thrashed out often enough. But the changing T&C - well I've been here years and wouldn't be able to tell you what they were at every stage. I can't get into my work pc without clicking that I accept the the acceptable use policy - could not a similar thing happen re T&C? Not sure whether it's possible.

The site being sold on (which will undoubtedly happen) with the archive is pretty disturbing.