General Election - is anyone else finding this worrying?

[catinthehat2]

This was posted on another thread:
"By manfrom Wed 27-Jan-10 16:17:17
Hmmm, interesting article on LabourList about targetting sites like MN:
link
Without being unduly cynical, I wouldn't be surprised if labour (and probably tory) "activists" were all over Mumsnet trying to drum up support. Mums are, after all, a key demographic.
Some of the posts over the last few days on MN do seem to be suspiciously close to the party line.... "

Now, there's going to be an election soon and I don't want to see activists from ANY party HQs rolling up under assumed names.

Is there any hope that MN can block the IP addresses of the party HQs so they can't propagandise from their rapid rebuttal units?

If not, I think I might be off for the duration.

Well, one poster on there had very decided opinions about what MN is like - he has obviously never ventured on here.

I'm not sure it's a problem. What can they do? Post 'opinions', rhetoric... If the Brown and Cameron webchats are anything to go by I don't think we are much in danger of being swayed by evil masterminds here - never seen such cack-handed attempts to communicate with people. If activists come on here trying to drum up support, good luck to them - the worst I can think is that it will be very dull.

i think its fairly obvious who the "politrolls" are. and i think your average mumsnetter doesnt pay a blind bit of notice. and i also think - well if the very least they are looking at this website and learning how critically important the issues that get raised, ie childcare, NHS are to us MN voters (who are apparently the hot focus group for this election) then just maybe we might get some proper and sensible attention paid to these policy areas rather than the ridiculous sound bites we are having to endure at the moment from ALL sides of the spectrum now.

I think it is a problem. It is an abuse of the talk forum. I hope that MNHQ will be willing to keep a look out for these people and block IP addresses that seem to be producing suspicious one-off posters. Obviously that will be very hard for them to do effectively, but I certinly think they should try.

I think that's what worries me most - cackhanded efforts in "broadcast" mode rather than "listening" mode.
Just hang round the newspaper sites and look at some of the awful awful hacks posting the party line, I dread them invading here.
If you think the Steiner threads are bad, just wait till some of those people get here.

I hardly think they would be posting from the party HQ though, would they CITH2?

As herhonesty says, the people that do this type of marketing are fairly easy to spot, and most of us are familiar with the 'report' button.

Capn N, yes if deemed worth it I have no doubt that is what will happen. Low cost (unlike posters and ads) just needs a party drone to sit up with a pc and annoy the hell out of real people.

When we had the DC webchat, the DM or simialr had loads of comments on their site that that was becuase we were Infiltrated by highly paid Labour activists.

yeajh right, I know two of the loudest yellers and I can asure you-nope.

I think its an easy scare tactic on an anonymous forum, and Mn hs a history of arguing things out so if so, just keep debating.

I think, though, that you will always get people with strong opinions, even if they are not actually employed by the party. You get it in every area on the site - and some issues are obviously more emotive/important than others. I think that it is up to individuals to be able to sort out what information to take on board and where it might be coming from, like we do on every other issue (including things like weaning and whether to get a FF or RF car seat)

IKWYM BB but I think there is going to be a quantity and persistence borne of NOT having to pick up the children from school, from NOT having to go to work (because you are dedicated to working 19 hours a day for the cause), from NOT living in the real world (because you are a party drone) which makes these people very unlike the average strongly opinionated MNetter.
I definitely wouldn't confuse Peachy's "yellers" with party activists.The Labourlist guy admits he's young & single - but , terrifyingly, he now wants to communicate at us. Not to give support or share experience, but to proselytise. And there will be queues of these people doorstepping and nowhere for people like me to hide.

look, these posts will always be "infiltrated". if we start trying to control who does and doesnt post in a witch hunt fashion then arent we just as bad as them?

It is not remotely likely (or desirable)that MNHQ would want to engage in a witch hunt like that. Particularly since there is such a broad grey area -- from out-and-out parasites to activists who join the site sincerely for political reasons but without wishing to engage with the site as a whole.

And fwiw it wasn't the Ben Furber article that made me feel irritable about the presence of 'politrolls' on this site. It was just seeing them sign up and post, not in large numbers but nonetheless annoyingly.

The action that can/should be taken is absolutely minimal. But it is still legitimate and very important for the posters in the MN community to make a distinction between people who want to join that community and people who want to exploit it. It is as valid a distinction for political infiltrators at their worst as it is for commercial infiltrators who exploit MN for paid word-of-mouth social advertising. And the two groups aren't disimilar, since political campaigning has been so devastatingly informed in recent decades by commercial advertising strategies.

You can't 'operationalise' the distinction between infiltrators and genuine posters in any way that would allow you to ban or expose certain posters but you can nonetheless assert community values, and assert the unnacceptability of the presence of people who are just using the site as a political instrument.

You don't have to be politically naive or ignorant of the precise gradations of parties' 'engagement' strategies with MN to feel pissed off by these things.

"But it is still legitimate and very important for the posters in the MN community to make a distinction between people who want to join that community and people who want to exploit it."

"You don't have to be politically naive or ignorant of the precise gradations of parties' 'engagement' strategies with MN to feel pissed off by these things."

Yes, I think you have expressed this wonderfully.

I have seen one politroll in action on the "Tories" thread. She is not engaging with the site, she is exploiting the site. (You may have better eyesight than me and seen more of them.

The tactics were pretty crude and disingenuous.

Just checked, Mulberrybush is still boring the pants off the last 2 or 3 victims who haven't escaped yet with tractor statistics from the XXXXIXVth Party Conference.

erm and what was it i said about witchhunt? isnt she the victim now?

people who try that cat stick out like a sore thumb

there are still enough people on here who are known (i.e. been around for a while) that it would easily dilute any attempt to infiltrate

besides, their lack of knowledge of bumsex would show them up immediately

That's the problem - if the politrolls hung out on the bumsex threads as well then that would be fine!

it makes me wonder how good they are as journalists if they can't manage the effort to blend in tbh!

I thought there was an interesting point in another thread (think it's in the news) about the Garry Lace and Beta incident. Someone had commented (in the article) that they weren't prepared when it all went off on here and how they should have had a 'team' to come on here and inflitrate the thread to try and make it more positive. I remember they had one person trying but it was so obvious it was someone infiltrating the board - I imagine if it had been a whole team it would have been carnage on here.

THere were a couple if I remember rightly and they were jeered off the pitch.

Let us know if you think anyone's up to politrolling won't you?

Hello! Will do so.

And how will you decide who is a politrol? anyone expressing strong political opinions which mumsnet/catinthehat2 doesn?t like?

No - we've got loads of those HerHonesty.
But if someone joins, posts nowt but party lines on things and has an email address @libdems.com. Always good to know if you spot someone that might be a plant - then we can have a look behind the scenes...

Grow up HH.

My point is a genuine one. how exactly do you police this? Many, many people "work" for political parties without having a party email address, and yes, guess what, some of them might even be mumsnetters already.

What a shame that you cant trust the good people of mumsnet to control this themselves in a way that has worked perfectly well until one person starts whinging about it.