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.

I’m feeling quite uneasy tbh @JustineMumsnet.

I’ve really appreciated mumsnet very much these last few months (especially proud of it in the last few days)

And I understand that you want to make sure you aren’t seen to be jumping the gun, but something in the tone of your posts feels like this isn’t being treated as seriously as I would have expected.

She’s very sorry, accidental, not stealing data, you have no proof but are 100% sure that this woman, who openly hates on mumsnet and it’s users, will only have taken these screenshots and no more. Or that she has suddenly developed a moral compass and will post no more of her collection of ‘terf’ screenshots.

With all due respect, you can’t know that. Staff would have only known her for six months, and only through work?

How can that be used as a judge of character when she has breached our (and yours) trust so completely (and illegally).

I once was an admin on a very busy forum, a mod took lots of peoples data and one woman who's data was shared ended up with a brick through her dc's window whilst her dc were sleeping. She also had death threats and all sorts of awful things happen to her.

This is a very serious issue

I think the fact that those screenshots had admin access (and therefore an ip address at the bottom of them) was entirely accidental tbh.

But why was she taking screenshots at work of posts that are easily accessible from any computer?

You are making her sound like Bubble from Ab Fab - yet apparently she worked at MN for 6 months?

And I irrespective of the current farrago I think it's time we started to stand up in our own names and be counted.

Whilst I appreciate this, I have 6 DC to feed, staff to support, a mortgage to pay and a professional registration to uphold. How can I risk TRAs taking anything I say out of context and ruining my career, my business and most importantly having any impact on the welfare, happiness, safety and financial security of my children?

And yes @justinemumsnet I’d advise you STRONGLY not to say anything else re accepting her apology etc until you have had proper legal advice.

This. With bells on.

And I irrespective of the current farrago I think it's time we started to stand up in our own names and be counted.

It depends very much on work situation, doesn’t it?

I know NHS employees and academics, (for example) mostly feel that they can’t risk it.

I'm sure Emma Healey is profoundly sorry for what she's done.

But for how it impacts on her. Not Mumsnet and its users.

A renegade mod that should have said

I don’t think it will be facilitating what TRAs see as transphobic debate that will do Mumsnet damage, it will be a data breach and accepting the perpetrator’s apology as final.

^^ this

If you're worried about privacy and having your IP address linked to your location then use a VPN (this is having your connection routed through another IP address either in the UK or overseas so that sites you visit see that IP rather than your actual IP address).

Worth doing to give you an extra level of anonymity, especially if involved in contentious discussions.

yes that's usual for linkedin - that's the whole point, its a networking tool for potential recruiters to find you. You often get unsolicited calls from LinkedIn from headhunters.

Her instagram and youtube are also wide open though which is probably not good.

24 year olds are not children and should not be treated as such. They are however still learning how to navigate the workplace, and what this one will be learning from this experience is that you can get away with things that are illegal as long as you say sorry afterwards.

Justine, is that really the lesson that you want to send former interns away with?

How can I risk TRAs taking anything I say out of context and ruining my career, my business and most importantly having any impact on the welfare, happiness, safety and financial security of my children?

They don’t even have to take it out of context, TBH.

If they take exception, they just create merry hell.

Truscum That is exactly how I feel. You have written what was going through my mind. This is not being taken seriously and I feel very nervous tbh.

Quotes from EH in the Tweets which accompanied the screenshots:

I want to counter some of the bullshit claims that the author (of The Times article) and Justine makes.

I have so much more to say about this, but honestly I'm exhausted.

In all my years of working in an office, I have never accidentally screenshotted someone's location then accidentally uploaded it onto social media with an accidental rant.

Why take screenshots at all though unless for nefarious means?

It's not as though the conversations aren't available to anyone with an internet connection. If she merely wanted to highlight what she felt a bias on the boards just post a link to FWR.

No need for any secret squirrel screen-grabs being published on Twitter after her employment has ended.

I'm finding it difficult to understand Justine's sympathetic attitude towards somebody who deliberately stole data

Me too!

The original EH twitter account seems fully deleted now?

24 is not a child.
At 24 I was married, with 3 children and in charge of several wards of an evening and weekend.

Why take screenshots at all though unless for nefarious means?

Yes, why hang on to them for months?

Hmm, I guess we need to @ given how many comments are coming in.

@JustineMumsnet

Have the users whose data was leaked been contacted and advised as to what happened and what Mumsnet is planning to do about it?

If you accept this person's apology and move on without reporting as a data security breach/any other legal action then you are teaching her (and others following this story) that if they break the law while at work they won't get into trouble as long as they apologize later. Is that really a message that you're comfortable sending former interns away with?

The problem with the apology is that I doubt she really believes that what she did was wrong

That’s was grates with me too.
It’s easy to say sorry to one person. She should say it on twitter, publicly.

I completely understand any nervousness people may feel due to work context but if enough people did say enough, there has to be a tipping point at which people have to be listened to.

You can't sack every fucker.

Exactly HairyHands - why not just search MN and post some links. She hasn't revealed anything that wasn't publicly available except information about users.