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.

Sorry for all this hassle falling on you mumsnet.

This underlines the importance of standing up to people saying anything they don't like to hear about women's boundaries and rights is hate speech.

Letting people with that attitude - and who will act illegally to quash discussion - push through legislation women have concerns about is not going to end well for the female half of the population, is it?

I agree with Janie,
Letter to Emma will go
Emma will see sense and reply and move on
Mumsnet will tighten policy
Mumsnet will report self to ICO and try to tighten security.
Emma will get on with her life.

I just hope Emma's friends are real friends.

The ICO haven’t even been informed by MNHQ? Sheesh.

As I said, the TRA fuckers will defend anything and make a case for anything that supports their ideology.

It's no great surprise of course, given the very tenuous grip on reality and logic they show on a daily basis.

They are also on twitter thoroughly enjoying the distress of women concerned about their privacy. No surprise there either. And this is what we are supposed to share our vulnerable space with?

These people have no concern for women at all. I'm not linking because they get off on the attention (aaaand no surprise there either)

Can anyone who has additional screenshots with IP addresses or other evidence of illegal data retention, send them to [email protected] please?

Just curious and asking out of ignorance, but is this a police matter - i.e. what action could affected users take, apart from the ICO?

give them a minute Saucery!

I don't think the ICO is what you think it is. It's not like calling an ambulance. It's more speaking to a bloke who comes back and yes "ooh yes, I think you do need to self-report, do you know where the form is"

@Thanksforthatamazingpost

Thanks for the clear explanation about the IP addresses RedToothBrush.

are you saying that the four users whose IP addresses were screenshotted should turn their routers off and on again?

Please could we check with you the number of usernames posted with IP addresses showing? We have three, we'd like to make sure we're not missing anyone. If anyone is aware, please could they mail us at [email protected]. Many thanks.

The section 28 quote was from a poster who is known on FWR as being very much pro-trans and was clearly exasperated with some of the other posters on the thread. The tone of the comment made it obvious that she was drawing a parallel between current gender critical posters and anti-gay activists, rather than herself being gender critical.

She is also one of the posters who has had her IP address published so I hope that MN are trying to make contact with her asap.

Interesting question:

Is Healey sacrificing herself to bring MN to be censured for data breach with fines, legal cases and expenses and outside interference over the forum?

TheElementsSong

Emma has breached the users' copyright.

Exacty Saucey Plan B to silence FWR and take down MN

As for Emma - how long will it take her new company to find out that she is a data thief? This will follow her around for the rest of her life

That’s what I thought, the daft bugger has no idea what she’s done. Nobody’s going to trust her now in her chosen employment path.

Silly girl!

Pratchet & janie I judging by the drippiness of Emma's twitter feed I doubt she is involved in some organised plot to ruin MN. Standard bnoc meets the big bad world stuff, however I think it's very likely that she had already shared those screenshots (& maybe others) on other, more private sm sites.

She is also one of the posters who has had her IP address published so I hope that MN are trying to make contact with her asap.

The irony!

you fill in a basic bog standard form and pay, I think, £270 for the injunction.unless you want to claim damages too (not worth it)
if anyone wants to pm me I will give them the details for the correct court (it is the IPEC small claims court) and you can find out whether you can have your name and address anonymised on the form.

It's not very dramatic.

Twitter users are screen shotting random posts and taking them out of context.

Seems this was plan b.

Please could we check with you the number of usernames posted with IP addresses showing? We have three, we'd like to make sure we're not missing anyone

There were three published on the Twitter thread mentioned at the start of this thread. This obviously does not mean that those are the only 3 IP addresses that Emma Healey has, and it obviously does not mean that this is the only type of data that she stole from MNHQ.

She was employed by MNHQ for six months, and her published views on trans issues go back further than that. Radfems have been discussing self ID etc for years here. Am I being unreasonable to guess that she knew full well what some of us think about self ID when she interviewed and perhaps has screenshots from the entire term of her employ?

I am just still reeling that a bright young woman who has the right to an education (some of the best education IN THE WORLD) thanks to the women who came before her to fight for it, who enjoys some of the best women's rights in the world, thanks to the women who fought for them before her, landed herself a job in an amazing women centred business, set up by an brilliant female entrepreneur who came before her (don't get much more female than mothers, or stereotype breaking that women in tech) decided, in spite of ALL OF THAT, to throw women under the bus, not only breaching data laws, but potentially putting them in DANGER.

And she feels 'no loyalty', she says. Not to Justine, not to all those mothers still dealing with crap maternity and post natal care, not to those women before her, and not to us trying to keep those rights.

Her loyalty is towards an ideological movement largely spearheaded by middle class white males, who give no shits about women.

Wow.

In a world where most women still have no rights, where reproductive justice is scarce, where sexual exploitation is rife, where girls are trafficked, married off, mutilated, aborted just for being female, Emma decided that the cause that mattered to her, was ... well ... men.

Wow again.

LibDem LGBT twitter account are calling her whistle-blower (which may carry or call for some protection)

They would.

From the government website

_
www.gov.uk/whistleblowing

You’re protected by law if you report any of the following:

a criminal offence, eg fraud
someone’s health and safety is in danger
risk or actual damage to the environment
a miscarriage of justice
the company is breaking the law, eg doesn’t have the right insurance
you believe someone is covering up wrongdoing

_

I think it's awful of them to give false hope to Emma. Very irresponsible.

Thanks for that, thanksforthat. I am well aware that the ICO isn’t an emergency service. I would have expected an enquiry to have been made by senior staff of an organisation who has had user/customer data stolen and published.

Sigh

sorry!

just meant that it isn't what I'd have done in half an hour either.

Much better to assess how to preserve the situation than be on hold on the telephone with all the people who have GDPR queries....

Twitter users are screen shotting random posts and taking them out of context

I'm not sure it's a very good plan B... The lib Dems LGBT account seems to be up in arms about the fact that someone pointed out that guidance issued to schools by TRA groups goes against all safeguarding guidelines. Not sure that will win them many fans.

But yes, we do need to be careful what we say, and we don't need to report false flag transphobic posts to MNHQ so they can be removed.