Troll hunting, why it's not a good idea and why we deleted the Rarebird thread

[JustineMumsnet]

Hi all,
We've just deleted the Rarebird thread as it had deteriorated into a bunfighting trollhunt. As we've said in previous posts we do think it's better to work on the assumption that posters are telling the truth and after a lot of digging we have found nothing to suggest that Rarebird is anything other than genuine.

Of course you can never be sure of any poster's real identity but we think it's better to err on the side of being occasionally taken in than on the side of being sceptical of genuine posters. If you take a different view (and we do understand that some folk do) then quite simply it's best not to get involved in threads such as these and we'd rather you did that than post suspicions on the thread. Mumsnet will be a worse place if folks routinely assume that any unusual post is a troll making it up.

Of course anyone who has genuine concerns please do tell us - we'll always take a look.

Many thanks,
Justine

i think its really really sad that a person in dire need could now be totally alone with no support.
as i said on the original - if i posted some of the details of my early life i would probably get told to stop trolling - sometimes life is stranger than fiction.

some of the details on the face of it seemed incredible. but that does not mean they werent true.

as for those saying they share personal experience - no one forces anyone to share anything. and i believe that for everyone poster there are hundreds of lurkers reading who may be able to take something from the advice or experience being talked through. the troll hunting descends into madness. so RB has been hounded off the forum - and i think that its wrong to assume a person is lying first and foremost.

the other week i posted on a thread where the op was accused of trolling. they were not. its just sometimes people prefer to assume the worst than take off the rose tinted specs that they are lucky enough to wear. some people have terrible experiences, how is telling them they are liars to boot helping at all?
i feel its to the detriment of this site that threads like that descend into such ugliness.

Busy - I think its clear for anyone who was on the original thread that you were just trying to help someone who was in a bad situation, and you were being genuine.

I don't know about any of this tbh and I think this thread is in danger of going down the route of the other threads, and as MNHQ have said it is almost impossible to verify anyone's identity on here.

All I am trying to remember is that one way or another there is a person in need of serious help here and I hope they get it.

I just hope now that she can find some RL help and support, and her DS is okay. Night all.

mrsvwoolf. do you have loadsamoney then? arf arf....

sorry. really.
sorry. am off to bed - i am overtired.

I only glimpsed the thread, but got the gist of where it was heading. I do think it's good to give people the benefit of the doubt, BUT, when a real-life identity is being linked to threads, I do think MNHQ need a procedure to check that circumstances are genuine. Either because the poster IS in need, and has posted identifying details as a cry for help, OR, more worryingly in a way, because they may be posing as an individual, who may have their future compromised in some way because of what someone has posted on a forum. It's not unknown for people to do internet searches on people when interviewing them for jobs etc, and so I think MNHQ does have a duty both to the poster and to the person whose identity is being claimed (whether genuinely or fraudulently).

If someone was posting as me, particularly in a very dramatic style, I would want to know about it! And if I were posting dramatically, and had outed myself on here, I wouldn't mind MNHQ contacting me to check I was real, and to see if I needed help.

can we flush trolls with hounds but then set a bird of prey upon them, or are there no exemptions at all?

Either someone is going through hell, or they are disturbed beyond belief. Either way, dog-piling them in a competitive abuse frenzy is not a responsible, sane or adult method of dealing with it.

As to the costs to others... well, I've been on MN 3 years under 3 names, and in that time suffered horrendous PND. As in, I genuinely and strongly wanted DS adopted for a while, and didn't really love him till he was 1 or so. I never posted about it because I was wary of some of what I'd seen and feared being accused of making it up. MN can be a crapshoot - and I didn't think it a wise thing to risk. Yet I know I could have benefited so much from some support from other people who'd been there, if only I weren't scared of the merchants. So troll hunting can hurt genuinely needy people, just as trolls can.

I've been on mn for about the same time as DepecheModeFan and the troll hunters have put me off too.

I think I'd be less likely to ask for help here, if I needed it, now. The smarmy smug ones who are in a competition to be the first to shout 'Troll! troll! it's a troll I saw it first ME ME ME I win!' on a silly jokey thread are killjoys and they piss me off too.

Sometimes it's funnier to go with it when it's someone arsing about. We'd never have pirate sex threads, or cats and footballs, or marriedtoasittingpisser now.

And I think misdee is right - were Peter ill and in hospital now, I think some spiteful glory-hunting bint would pitch up at the hospital an demand to see him and misdee, get photographic and video evidence, and drag along a lawyer to get signed statements from misdee and Peter, the hospital staff, and their dds.

Obsessive troll hunters. They are MAAAAAD and they watch too much television. This is mumsnet, not The Farking X-Files.

BusyIzzy - I wasn't trying to vilify you or speculate on your motives - only you know what they were - but I do think your action in phoning the hospital was one example of the way the thread that had gone too far in its intrusiveness. There were lots of other examples too, which I also listed.

But really it wasn't the individual actions that I found problematic - more the fact that everyone working together and egging each other on had somehow gone way past the point of what was acceptable/necessary/humane.

You weren't the only poster to suggest phoning the hospital, but the fact remains that the poster had not chosen to out themselves, and the fact that you posted about your call and its results was a pretty horrific breach of her privacy IMO. You could have done everything you did without posting it up on mumsnet.

So no vilification from me - but I think your action was a mistake (among many others on that thread) and we should learn from it and move on.

tyv - "but the fact remains that the poster had not chosen to out themselves"

That isn't true. There was huge amounts of entirely unnecessary 'clue' dropping - both by RB and nc. Whether she was really her or not, she wanted people to think she was.

She RANG the hospital?

Good God.

I didn't read much of the thread in question and I want to know even less about it now.

Whilst I'm not condoning the frenzy that the thread became, I think it's also a little unfair to say that anyone with a dramatic story is likely to be called a troll in such a sustained fashion as RB was.

The postings unfolded just the way that some of the most horrible troll threads have done - with lots of apparent inconsistencies. It was ever more dramatic and - perhaps the most worrying - all offers of help from MNetters (and there were many offers, right from her early posts - she was not villified or accused overtly at that stage) were completely ignored. Which does lead one to wonder why she was posting in the first place?

Anyway, the point of this post is not to rake up the details again, but to say that there was enough from the very beginning to raise an eyebrow - and I know that lots of people contacted MNHQ quite some time ago, as per the Troll Policy.

MNHQ did their bit and sought to verify that RB was genuine, but couldn't prove that there was anything amiss.

But neither could they prove that she was a fake.

At that point, I think it would have been better to delete the thread - after having posted on it to inform MN of the results of the investigation. If necessary, the thread could have been locked.

But I don't think MNHQ move quickly enough to delete such threads - individual posts went, but that wasn't enough to quell the increasingly wild speculation.

I think we can all learn from the less-than-edifying spectacle of yesterday.

People aren't always after something when they post on here.

I had a long running post when pg with my ds and didn't need or want any help from anyone. It was just nice to be able to talk about what was going on.

Not accepting help or money etc from strangers on the Internet doesn't mean she's not real. I'd be lore likely to think the opposite infact.

When BMI called the hospital the opinion of 99% of the posters on the thread was that RB was a troll - people were saying there was absolutely no chance she could be real. Someone else emailed the real 'her' and then suggested that RB check her emails. Igot the impression BMI wanted to talk to RB to offer help if she was real and if she wasn't then no harm done. I didn't think calling the hospital was a good idea, simply because I thought there was no chance they would give out that sort of information. I had no moral problem with her giving it a go.

Good point BIWI - there have been many other 'unbelievable' threads where it is accepted that sometimes people just go through shit, and support is offered. There has even been a recent one about a twin pregnancy. It's when posters post in a particular way or have glaring inconsistencies in their posts - oh and usually when someone comes along and says "you're talking about your 4yo DD, yet a year ago you had a 3yo DS" the OP comes back and addresses their concerns with a simple "yes, I'm changing details so I'm not recognisable in RL". On troll threads the OPs tend to ignore these posts, or get very upset and then mysteriously a friend or two turn up to back them up. Oh and the friends can never spell or type.

Why does it seem odd for someone to turn down offers of help from total strangers on the internet - however well meant?

Rarebird couldn't know whether an offer was genuine or was from some weirdo who'd end up burgling her house or something once he found out where she lived.

The reverse is also true of course - the weirdo could be making up a story and the well-meaning MNer could go to help and find herself in dire straits.

The internet is a dangerous place - it always astounds me that people will jump in so quickly to make personal contact.

Oh... and BusyMissIzzy - I'm sure you meant well, too, but I'm surprised that you can't see that phoning the hospital was just totally weird

she was in hospital saying she didn't have a toothbrush (again, I don't understand why she didn't just buy one). People were offering to drop some toiletries at reception. They weren't offering to go to her house, kick martha out and take up residence.

Followed this but not posted yet.

I wonder if thread locking after MNHQ have posted a response would be better than deleting in many troll threads. Might stop the subsequent "What happened when I picked the dc up/went to the loo/hid under my own bridge..?" threads that always follow entire thread deletions.

It would hardly be surprising if her state of mind was disordered, under the circumstances. But anyway - it's not productive to keep going over and over things again, surely, after the thread has been deleted. My point is - I think some posters need to take a long, hard look at themselves and consider that their derision, and swiftness and relish to point the finger, actually makes them look worse than anyone. Why the crazed desperation to get to what they perceive as 'the truth'? There have been memorable instances in MN history (which I am sure many people can remember, and which I am not going to rake up by name) where people have shrieked troll in the most vociferous, persistent and unpleasant manner imaginable, only for the posters to turn out to be completely genuine. It never comes to any good. However, I know I am wasting my breath as it will happen again and again and again, and none of the trollhunters will think they are to blame or have behaved badly, but will keep self-justifying endlessly - "It wasn't ME, I was only trying to help," etc...Depressing.

I agree LT. TBH I awas saddned by a few of the names I saw pointing fingers on there; people I thought better of.

If people want to help people in distress it's a matter of I am so sorry, how awful. I don't know muuch to help but wanted to ewish you luck

or

That sounds really tough, I hope baby and dc's are OK. You may want to have a look at forrs oem good advice

or

bog off and leave it

then nobody gets hurt in any way and trolld don't get their dinner