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.

And this is what we are supposed to share our vulnerable space with?

They just can't help proving what they really are, over and over again. Nasty woman-haters.

Fuck 'em.

And this will follow Emma Healey for the rest of her life.

We do need to report false flag transphobic posts..

Does anyone believe that she posted every single screengrab she possesses on a public twitter thread? Isn't it much more likely she just posted a couple, but has kept many more? And if so, how many has she shared privately, that might pop up later?

This is a bit like finding a topless photo on a pupil's phone in school. Deleting the photo isn't much good when the school have no idea how widely it's been shared.

we don't need to report false flag transphobic posts to MNHQ so they can be removed.

Don't you mean that we DO need to report False Flag posts to MNHQ?

It's that Lib Dem LGBT account that's spreading the lies about that Section 28 quote. And trying to get a journalist to write about it.

I do hope they succeed.

Nice eggy TRA faces when they realise it was one of 'theirs' who wrote it

Pfffffff

DrudgeJedd I don't think it was necessarily preplanned to take down MN That may be a nice side effect A bit like Viagra was developed to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension made Pfizer billions out of a side effect

I think causing trouble for MN is the MO to try to smear them - in whatever way possible - EH's comments were threatening and harassing. In fact collecting personal data could well be construed as stalking as well.

Stalking is a pattern of repeated and persistent unwanted behaviour that is intrusive and engenders fear, it is when one person becomes fixated or obsessed with another and the attention is unwanted. Threats may not be made but victims may still feel scared. Importantly threats are not required for the criminal offence of stalking to be prosecuted.

Paladin National Stalking Advocacy Service - wld someone contact them and see if this is stalking - they know the law 020 3866 4107 [email protected] - I can't at present otherwise I would. The available evidence demonstrates obsession, control, stalking, harassment, threats and the police only need evidence of 2 of these behaviours to prosecute.

It is fine for MNHQ to ask us for the data we know was posted but they really need their tech to investigate how much data was taken by her and, potentially, any other staff. That is my big concern.

The relevant case law would appear to be the Morrison's data breach - very similar set of facts, except the employee in that case posted much more personal data about Morrison's employees. The ICO found the company not liable, and the employee was prosecuted under a computer misuse act rather than the DPA as it carries prison time rather than just a fine. Morrison's however was then sued by the affected employees and found liable by the courts. The set of facts (as far as we know) would appear to be similar:

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-42193502

How the fuck is she a "whistleblower"?

Were these deleted posts that would not have been available to the public?

If not, all she's done is put screenshots of MN up on twitter and bitched about her bosses but like a very childish and utterly unprofessional fool she's done it using screenshots that she took whilst at work and revealed IP addresses and an underlying untrustworthiness as an employee in the process.

She's of the age that really should be more aware of the danger of what you put out on social media, particularly as she seems to be someone who is looking for a career where this shit matters.

Would not hire.

Ah, yes a glamourous whistleblower....

Maybe she will be holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy for the next 7 years like the other innocent....

She didn't "mistakenly" take multiple screenshots, then "mistakenly" publish them alongside thinly veiled threats of outing people to cause them harm

This.

This is very serious, an atrocious breach of trust and private data.

I don’t want to see this reframed as ‘young silly girl didn’t know what she was doing, slap on the wrist, forget all about it.’

I’m very concerned for those women whose ip’s and data have been leaked (we all know the TRA propensity for being brilliant in the I.T field) and I don’t for a second believe that in her six months these were the only screen shots she took of ‘transphobia’.

Some women on here with young children must be worried about the potential risk to their safety if a particularly rabid TRA really dislikes their views ( I’m haunted by what happened to that lesbian couple and their son)

Emma knew what she was doing, she just wasn’t smart enough to think the whole thing through.

"Given what she's said on Twitter about this being a mistake and that she's now deleted her Twitter account, plus what we know about her from her time at MNHQ, we believe further breaches are unlikely."

This sounds like a terribly relaxed approach. Did she get the internship through a relative working at MN or something?

but they really need their tech to investigate how much data was taken by her

It's possible MN have records of every single screen shot taken on every single device on the premises or connected via VPN over the past nine months. But it's highly unlikely. It's even more unlikely that they have records of what the screen shots contained.

That sort of monitoring and record keeping is used in environments where there are massive regulatory hammers lurking in the background, such as dealing floors where there are concerns about insider trading, or in environments where you are processing data with the potential to have massive impact. It opens up its own data protection issues, because the data the audit collects is itself potentially sensitive (in this case, because it would contain the very data you're trying to protect) and you would need to show that it was necessary and proportionate both to do the monitoring and to retain the records for that long. And who would have access to that audit data? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The poster who made the now misquoted comment about Section 28 is not in any way a TRA - she has strongly held opinions that contradict with mine but she has never shown any of the aggressive, misogynistic behaviour typical of TRAs. I'd be very sorry if she got caught in the cross fire of some of their worst behaviour when she has so long been a staunch (if somewhat blinkered) ally to their cause.

Yes but Cuboidal it shouldn't be too difficult to see whether she's sent one email to her personal email address or many over a period of time and from that get an idea of the scale of the damage.

It's even more unlikely that they have records of what the screen shots contained

In which case they need to assume that Emma Healey made and retained screenshots of any information she had access to, and act accordingly.

Maybe not Badger but the TRAs are after her

I don't believe for one minute that she just 'happened' to apply for work at MNHQ. Does anyone?

Surely, she isn't the only one who can be charged? Doesn't that apply to everyone who has shared the information on twitter?

Some of her posts state she has "much more to say about this" and she positions her screengrabs as "some recent posts" and contends that "the vast majority" of discussions on MN are "scaremongering and hatespeech"

I think the sensible assumption should be that she has more stolen information than merely what she has posted so far. It is important to establish exactly how much data she had access to and what else she has harvested during her time at MNHQ.

I doubt Emma will ever secure a decent job again.

Mumsnet, I've supported you and kept my promise to keep things civil on and off this site. We need your assurance that a full investigation will take place to find out exactly what information Emma may have accessed, saved and shared. We also need to know that you have a handle on any communication between Emma and staff still working for you.

Brushing this under the carpet and fobbing us off is not good enough and falls short of what we have come to expect of you. Please see this through and deal with it properly.

Saucery JustOneMan and others

Can I suggest that people do not individually contact the ICO at this time? There is a balance to be struck between involving the ICO at the appropriate time and also having sufficient information about what happened. The ICO will not expect a report from MNHQ at this point and it's not helpful among all the trouble this must be causing if there is a mob with pitch forks descending on the ICO. It won't help resolve the actual problem but could divert MNHQ's resources away from resolving it.

Yes but Cuboidal it shouldn't be too difficult to see whether she's sent one email to her personal email address or many over a period of time

If she's just got gmail.com up in a browser window it is.

Systems exist which prevent (or severely limit, and audit) moving data from high-side to low-side: ie, you can access both restricted data and public websites, but you can't easily (or without ringing alarm bells) move data between them. I would be surprised if MN do that. As to whether they should do that, given women in abusive relationships post for help and can be identified by disgruntled interns, that's another question.

If your staff want to leak data, technical measures are rarely sufficient. You need means to encourage loyalty and a security culture.

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.

^^

Could we crowdfund for anyone who needs to do this but can’t afford?