The MNHQ Moderation team

[BarrackerBarmer]

Dear MNHQ

I'm very grateful for the commitment to free speech you've publicly taken, and for Justine's courage this week.

A former disgruntled employee of MN is writing on Twitter about the 'transphobia' of MN staff, and calling you TERFs. She is showing a great deal of bias and intolerance towards women with feminist views, this may well be her honest opinion, which is no big deal I suppose, since she is no longer an employee.

At least, it isn't an issue until she calls a shout out to her
'friends who still work at MN' to report and take down posts by 'transphobic scum', by which she appears to be referring to any poster objecting to being called TERF by her friend.

Regardless of the personal views of the MNHQ staff, who should be as free to hold their own views as I am mine, I am disturbed that there may be a small contingent of employees who are invested in unfair moderation and will not be applying fair-handed principles, at least if the claims of this ex-employee are credible.

Can you please give posters some reassurance that the difficult job of fair-handed moderation isn't being abused by the 'friends' of ex-employees who are 'reporting it all' and taking down posts because any gender criticism means the poster is 'transphobic scum'?

Thank you.

[Charolais]

ILikeYourHairyHands
I like your spirit. Gold Star for you.

[LassWiADelicateAir]

I can imagine that every time is pearl-clutching day once she's working with a bunch of fairly unreconstructed white men of a certain age

Narrow- minded stereotyping is still narrow minded stereotyping even when it is a feminist who is doing it.

CAMRA has 12 executive officers , 2 are women. Not a brilliant quota but better than nothing. Their national chairman is a woman but I expect you will make focus on making a fuss over the fact they use the word "chairman" rather than the fact a woman was elected to the post.

www.camra.org.uk/news/-/asset_publisher/1dUgQCmQMoVC/content/jackie-parker-set-to-take-over-as-camra-s-national-chairman

[Trousersdontmakemeaman]

Play the spoons eh, and the wash board by any cahnce. My BF is a genius at both.

[CrustyCob]

Oh yes, CrustyCob, every day at CAMRA is going to be pearl-clutching day. Consider the page you link to. Diversity and all that stuff. "Over 190,000 individuals of all ages, backgrounds and both sexes". Both sexes, eh? Just the two?

I did consider the page. Well spotted. I kind of thought a certain person might be headed that way.
I have an urge to get on a committee and clutch.

[CrustyCob]

I like real ale @Trousersdon'tmakemeaman
Tapping and conditioning.... now there's a skill I can appreciate.
I'm considering investing £25 in CAMRA membership ( they have a forum)

I can play spoons. Not much call for it these days sadly
E.H please snapshot, and distribute, I need a gig.

[KeneftYakimoski]

Oh yes, CrustyCob, every day at CAMRA is going to be pearl-clutching day. Consider the page you link to. Diversity and all that stuff. "Over 190,000 individuals of all ages, backgrounds and both sexes". Both sexes, eh? Just the two?

[Trousersdontmakemeaman]

I ran several real ale pubs, I know how to tap a barrel and condition an ale , and my customers were.........................

[CrustyCob]

Mock ye not!
CAMRA's got a young 'uns group going. Diversity and all that stuff.
More here
www.camra.org.uk/young-members

[Trousersdontmakemeaman]

I can imagine that every time is pearl-clutching day once she's working with a bunch of fairly unreconstructed white men of a certain age.

CAMRA

nuff said

[KatherinaMinola]

I can imagine that every time is pearl-clutching day once she's working with a bunch of fairly unreconstructed white men of a certain age.

That brought a smile to my face. So very true.

[AskBasil]

"Best thread demonstrating mass hysteria since the one about yer man who forgot to bring the custard."

Women are always told they're hysterical when they fear male violence.

Then men kill them and everyone says "oh that came out of the blue".

Transactivists regularly post "Kill all TERFS" "Remember to punch a TERF" etc. They spent the day before a meeting to discuss the GRA trying to find out where the meeting was so that they could disrupt it. They found out that women were meeting in Hyde Park so they went there and one of them physically assaulted a woman. They chant "when TERFs attack, we fight back". "Attack" in this context, means disobeying a male person's demand that you validate his worldview. Abusive men always see disobedient women as attacking them, just not agreeing with them is perceived as an attack, needing heavy self-defence in the shape of their fists at a minimum.

But hey, silly women getting hysterical about violent men having their personal data.

[KeneftYakimoski]

She seems to have left to join CAMRA

I can imagine that every time is pearl-clutching day once she's working with a bunch of fairly unreconstructed white men of a certain age.

[Battleax]

Normal^ (ffs )

[Battleax]

I suspect that six months is the Norma fixed term of the internship.

[KatherinaMinola]

She seems to have left to join CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) where hopefully she can do less damage. Although if I were MNHQ I'd be calling up CAMRA to rescind my reference.

[Whisky2014]

For a site as "big" as mumsnet, i am continually shocked at how amatuer-ish they run it.
Step up MNHQ.
I want to know why this Emma person left a month ago...or was she sacked?

[LaSqrrl]

I agree with the body of commenters that say that a third-party 'apology' is not enough - nor is just assuming that is all she took and copied, because the potential is the email/password combination.

Whilst MN may well be keeping their cards close to their chest publicly, a full and thorough investigation is needed to find out what else she accessed and copied.

This is not my first merry-go-round as far as hacking/breaches. For the first board I was on, an anti-porn activist board, and I did warn them to tighten security - they never really recovered after the hack. The main reason was loss of confidence in the administrators, who also had somewhat of a "no biggie, we'll get over it" attitude. Which really seems to be the current attitude here at MNHQ. In fact, a few boards that have been hacked, who had that same attitude, went down the same route - lack of confidence in the administrators, and eventually fizzling out.

This current security breach may be nothing, but it also may be something, and the obligation to the the users here should be an assurance of a full investigation as to the extent of the breach. Anything less is a failure in duty of care.

[cforte0]

It's the gender political snake eating it's own tail. Radical social justice warriors attacking themselves, the radical gender/sexual "activists" attacking the inherently sexist speech from the radical feminists. They'll all claim they want rights, but notice they don't say human rights anymore, that term seems to have been replaced with a more selective partitioning of the rights and support.

[Quackster]

Best thread demonstrating mass hysteria since the one about yer man who forgot to bring the custard.

[CuboidalSlipshoddy]

Refuse makes an excellent point.

The assumption in commercial DPA is that ultimately the concerns are financial. If it goes wrong, the risks are (a) that customers/etc will sustain financial losses and have to be compensated financial and (b) the ICO will fine you, which is a bottom line loss. It's money. In medical DP, the risks are more diffuse but people are (in general) assumed not to be harmed by disclosure in a way that cannot be dealt with by compensation, apology and so on.

If MN are indeed holding data which identifies people at risk of serious physical harm possibly including death, which seems very likely (at the very least, MN hold a data set which is capable of being analysed to produce data which puts people at risk of physical harm) then, in the old world of HMG Infosec Standard No. 1 ("IS1") MN are holding data whose disclosure risks "Permanently incapacitating injury or illness to a group of individuals impacting work and leisure activities. The individuals will suffer with permanent disabilities. Loss of life to an individual. Health and Safety Executive review undertaken due to the scale and impact of the crisis".

That's IL5, SECRET. That's heavy shit. Massively complex handling and management rules, change-controlled and audited infrastructure, everyone with routine access cleared to SC. It's hard to see how you could run a public forum where the aggregated data and the underlying authentication data is IL5. And arguing data is "UNCLASSIFIED, SECRET in bulk" is going to be a big ask.

Indeed, Refuse might could argue it's data capable of "Permanently incapacitating injury or illness to a large group of individuals impacting work and leisure activities. Potential for a limited loss of life. Health and Safety Executive enforcement notice leading to prosecution due to the scale and impact of the crisis", which is IL6, TOP SECRET: everyone who goes near it DV cleared, etc, etc. But it doesn't meet any of the other tests for TOP SECRET, not remotely, so let's settle on IL5.

It would ambitious, to say the least, to attempt to assure a system in which millions of uncleared users have access to a large web platform where parts of that data are IL5. I'd go so far as to say it's impossible, in any meaningful sense.

This is, in 2018, new and uncharted territory. I suggest MN might like to talk to some academic and commercial IA people in an NDA's environment to discuss options. But having interns able to see identifying data and exfiltrate it in an uncontrolled way isn't a promising start...

[gamerchick]

*I understand the frustration - but for goodness sake let MNHQ handle this right not quickly.

What the hell do you expect?

Real time updates man!!! Like on a troll thread. In fact I think the less said until there is something to say on a mega public board where I’d hazard a guess lots of people are watching is the way to go.

I would like a response on facts not platitudes

Yes ^^

[ScreenQueen]

I agree. Unfortunately responses from MN so far seem focused on sweeping it under the carpet before even establishing the breadth of the data breach...all at the expense of users. Since, as previously posted, Emma has publicly included the phrase "Fuck MN" it's clear that MN have seriously misjudged her character once already.

Platitudes alone simply don't work in a situation of this nature and severity when it comes to user data. Hopefully the MN team will come up with a more concrete and appropriate course of action today.

[RefuseToDenounceBiology]

Indeed. Rather than just advice and assistance from IT specialists, MN need to seek advice from the women's sector to learn of the extra levels of security required when dealing with DV and the extraordinary protections needed for hiding women and families fleeing violent, obsessive, relentless, narcissistic men.

If MNs IT safety advisor only knows about data protection in relation to finance rather than serious matters like these, they are inadequate for MN and measures similar to hiding those needing police protection need to be sought.

This is the most serious case scenario
needs safeguarding against - and MRAs are already MNs enemy no1 - it is well known that they are also uniting with TRA to hurt women and break down women's protections so that women have no legal escape from men. They are open about it online.

[Jeanhatchet]

This is extremely serious.

Not least because a number of women have been placed at risk. For women with abusive men in their backgrounds the potential for it to be a fatal mistake and subsequent risk is ever-present. This may also put her children at risk. Family annihilation is not uncommon. Women leave an abuser's entire sphere for a reason. Refuges locate women away from an area - FOR A REASON. Exposing that is life-threatening.

For women with careers where free expression of online views breaches company policy they may lose jobs. Trans activists have openly targeted women who dissent from their ideological position by targeting their employment. They have zero care about what will happen as a result to the children of those women when they lose jobs. TAs have shown how ruthless they can be in this.

Beyond that - for women who were possibly unaware that they were posting in a way that might threaten their life, career, children, this will have been a terrifying experience. The sheer terror of suddenly being thrown into the full realisation of what declaring your view - that your biological sex is real - is an expensive declaration (with costs to your present and future existence) is overwhelming for some. Women have yet to become attuned to the bigger picture of all this. It is a dystopian future in the all too present.

For those with mental ill-health the threat to their security is extremely damaging. The already anxious will have been escalated.

Women come with complex background situations. Demanding they are aware of more technical aspects of online connectivity which helps them - demanding they use VPN etc - will be too much and they may withdraw from an online communication lifeline. A literal lifeline. What women say in trust on MN may be a front for an awful RL experience and they may be gaining the information to free themselves. If those women withdraw from the network of support then the woman breaching data has been responsible for returning women to a life with abusers where they feel no glimmer of hope. That is a daily loss of hope. That is daily misery she's imposed.

This woman may apologise. That is not quite enough.

It is important that she realises the extent of her mistake. She could attempt to realise just exactly how she has been used to harm other women and she could realise the misogyny in that. If she does then the best thing she can do to repair this horrific damage is to share with the world - not the views of violent males intent upon harming women as this was - but exactly how those males are exploiting and pressuring her.

If she denies that this is the case. Then she has no way of being forgiven by women. She may not be forgiven anyway. She probably will be prosecuted because whether MN do it as employer - women can and should if pursue this independently. It is their right to pursue crimes against them. Women have no obligation to compassion when they are harmed. It is not a biological trait.

If it was me - I probably would not insist another woman was prosecuted - especially a woman manipulated by males. I'd try to find a way to make the males using her accountable. Maybe there's a way to do that.

But ..... that woman would have to do something far more significant to help the women's movement in return for some sort of forgiveness than a brief "Soz like" ...before running back to the comfortable shelter of her manipulators to gather their cookies for her work in harming and exposing women to danger.

Mumsnet need to do more. Much more. Great harm has been done here.

These are not times where women can afford to look to one side when they are under attack.

MN must declare what they will do beyond a simple acceptance of apology.