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.

Tombs honest Mumsnet is the only female centered discussion forum I'm aware of so it's unsurprising this is the target of the trans activists. It's as if they have a list of 'women's and girls spaces' they are working through.

Cross post with exLt

How do you know if your IP was published? Don’t want to just wait to be attacked at home. Or doxxed.

So Guiliana is crowing that Mumsnet is finished? A forum that supports millions of people dealing with difficult times such as:

• children with special needs
• life-limiting illnesses
• bereavement
• miscarriage and stillbirth
• domestic violence and abuse
• life-changing illnesses and accidents

And, at times, has actually saved someone's life.

And they see the prospect of Mumsnet being finished as a good thing?

That tells me everything I need to know about that individual. And none of it is good.

To be honest*

GDPR legislation says IP addresses ARE personal data

THE IP ADDRESS (IN SOME CASES)
It is easy to understand why your social media accounts and what you post on them can lead to your identification. In most cases, to simply create your account you will need to enter some ‘classical’ personal data, such as your name or your birthdate. If from there you post photos of yourself for instance, identification happens easily.

A much discussed topic is the IP address. The GDPR states that IP addresses should be considered personal data as it enters the scope of ‘online identifiers’. Of course, in the case of a dynamic IP address – which is changed every time a person connects to a network – there has been some legitimate debate going on as to whether it can truly lead to the identification of a person or not. The conclusion is that the GDPR does consider it as such. The logic behind this decision is relatively simple. The internet service provider (ISP) has a record of the temporary dynamic IP address and knows to whom it has been assigned. A website provider has a record of the web pages accessed by a dynamic IP address (but no other data that would lead to the identification of the person). If the two pieces information would be combined, the website provider could find the identity of the person behind a certain dynamic IP address. However, the chances of this happening are small, as the ISP has to meet certain legal obligations before it can hand the data to a website provider. The conclusion is, all IP addresses should be treated as personal data, in order to be GDPR compliant.

eugdprcompliant.com/

“poorly expressed and slight aggrandising.”

That’s my new username!

@MrsHathaway

Crossed with Justine. Not happy with that response. You can't rely on good will and good behaviour if you want to keep data safe. This breach might have been minor and isolated, but it reveals lazy practice which makes me edgy.

As said MrsH, we've already made quite a lot of changes to our procedures in the last little while as a result of gdpr so I do believe we're in a better place but we will be looking again at every aspect of what's happened here and making sure we learn from it. In the end though it's quite hard to stop someone on the inside who's hellbent on stealing data (not that I think that's what happened here) and that's a risk for every organisation.

The problem with the apology is that I doubt she really believes that what she did was wrong. She's sorry for having been caught out, she presumably still thinks MN is a hotbed of transphobia.

I think MNHQ is being very charitable towards her. I'd be livid that trust had been broken like this.

If Emma has "wholeheartedly apologised" then why hasn't she posted a public tweet stating this and asking her followers to stop retweeting the information?

Surely if she is genuine in that regard this would be the absolute minimum she should do (she could make her account protected again after the public apology if she wished). There is twitter precedent for this recently with Ben Bradley MP's apology.

The problem with your approach as I see it MNHQ is it is based on trust - whereas Emmas as show herself in her words and actions to have little about her in this field which is trustworthy. How can you police her deletions aside from waiting to make sure it doesn't happen again?

Leaving the IP address visible to intern mods is like leaving someones national insurance number on the front of their file at work

So Emma has apologised wholeheartedly? And it was all a mistake? So that's all right then.

Sorry Justine, appreciate all of your responses, but I have to say I agree with the above, She is sorry? What, that she got caught? And didnt realise how serious her personal crusade and attempts at public doxxing were in the eyes of the law?

Hmmm... not sure I buy it frankly!

It's worth you knowing that Emma has apologised wholeheartedly to a member of our team for her actions and confirmed that the publishing of IPs was accidental and,

That really, really doesn’t square with the tone and content of the tweets, does it?

@JustineMumsnet

One can’t be that abusive, that defamatory, deliberately post screenshots, allude to insider access (with all the threat that implies) and then, mere hours later, be “wholeheartedly sorry”. It’s just not convincing.

I suppose now we have to weigh up whether we feel safe trusting your personal assessment of all current staff’s integrity.

There are livelihoods at risk from this vicious doxxing.

I hope you are taking legal advice because I'm not at all happy at the response so far. Its not good enough as far as I am concerned. We are being expected to believe and trust the word of someone who has breached trust and the law.

It's worth you knowing that Emma has apologised wholeheartedly to a member of our team for her actions and confirmed that the publishing of IPs was accidental and, though she did have access to user data for a time, I don't think there's any significant risk of a further breach.

Unfortunately, the ship has sailed, the posts are on the internet and she can no longer control what she has posted.

I am worried that somebody so naive about social media was allowed to make the tea at Mumsnet, never mind access data.

This is more fear mongering from the TRA Twitter crowd.

They want us to be at each other and afraid.

How weak is your argument if you have to frighten women into agreeing with you?

Sorry but this pat on the head to Emma and telling her not to do it again is just not good enough. Many GC women have been threatened by TRA and now they have more information (and who knows the full truth of what Emma stole) to track them down. No, not good enough by a long shot.

I think MNHQ need to take a robust approach to Ms Healey's actions.

No way did she "accidentally" screenshot details of MN user detils, "accidentally" save them to a place she could access them after leaving MN and "accidentally" upload them to her Twitter account.

I also doubt the screenshots were the only bits of information about posters she took with her when she left the company.

Her claims that she has 'friends still working for MN,' and the implication behind that, make her intentions clear as a bell.

Hang on there! Making the tea would be a step too far....

@ MNHQ as a side thought, maybe it’s worth looking at a policy favouring older career changers for internships?

Completely agree, and how about focusing on mums? Of the eight mums I know who have had children within the last two years six of them have been made redundant.

I do hope MN pay their interns, giving opportunity everyone and not just people in privileged positions.