The MNHQ Moderation Team: Thread 2

[BarrackerBarmer]

Follow on thread regarding the data breach situation:
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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.

Good luck today Justine, you have my full support.

@KeneftYakimoski

Can you help me over here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/geeky_stuff/3226310-Protecting-your-Data-Personal-Security-Online?watched=1

It's important to be aware of the links between the following events:
Speaker's Corner which led to Tara Wolf, a 26-year-old transwoman being convicted of assaulting 61-year-old feminist Maria Maclachlan. During the case, the judge admonished Ms Maclachlan for referring to Wolf as “he”.
Concerns raised on this board about the content of a presentation and slides given at NUS Women's 18 'How to deal with 'TERFS'
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3222263-Slide-show-on-How-to-Deal-with-TERFs

I really don't see what harm having her Uni, etc up can do.
She has obviously been active in student politics in the same juristiction that Posie Parker's police officers were trained by Mermaids, a former police officer now runs a brothel, where prostitution is decriminalised in a certain area as an ongoing 'trial', where a key prostitutuion apologist academic wrote papers which are much references by the pro- prostitution lobby and an a pro prostitution blog claimed that police got 'freebies' at their brothel....
Just sayin

Is this the author?

Huh, for some reason I hadn't made the connection in terms of location. If so that's actually very relevant. What is going on up there?

Glad to hear the police are involved. Hope they dont brush this under the carpet like everything else thats been happening to women and girls when it come to anything TRA related! But as we all know, noone gives a shit about women and girls so im not getting my hopes up

Has anyone else thought that this is suspiciously un prominent on google?

This is definitely not the author - the name is a coincidence.

I think the point is to be whiter than white while the legal situation is being clarified.

If people want to google information available on EH on other sites, that is their choice

However, given that the police are now involved there is no need for anyone to do their own private investigation.

I've been in a job a bit like Emma's, where my main function was to facilitate conversations, often between people with very strong, very different opinions. My job was offline, not online, and had quite a lot more responsibility than Emma's, but the principle was the same. The issues being discussed in this job were very high-stakes, and I had strong opinions on most of them, too. Sometimes I was facilitating discussions between people where I thought the opinions of some of the people involved were actively dangerous.

Except, unlike Emma, I never doxxed and invited harrassment on the people whose views I disagreed with. There were two main reasons for this:

The first is that I'm a bloody professional, and I signed up to a job where I knew what the parameters, tasks and rules were. So did Emma. Neither of our situations are a "whistleblower" situation.

Secondly, I believe that facilitating these discussions actually help bring about my desired outcomes. I go into every discussion willing to change my mind, I hope, and I have enough faith in the good sense of my current opinions to believe that they will prevail, when they are given a chance to be properly aired, without the people airing them being slandered, or receiving death threats, or being misrepresented.

There was nothing to stop Emma firing up her laptop at home, making a MN account with a burner email, and joining in the discussion, if she wanted to influence the discussion and change hearts and minds. That instead she chose to put women (and their kids) in danger by attempting to dox them, and attempting to shut down a forum which helps so many vulnerable women, says all we need to know about her confidence in her own opinions.

Techie to English explanations of the security stuff would probably be useful to a lot of people

I use Opera, but I'm not an expert on this stuff. The browser has a built-in VPN, but you have to enable it in the privacy settings. You will then see a blue button next to the address bar where you can switch the VPN on and off. While it is on, your IP address will be outside the UK, so some sites won't work properly.

I've been using Opera VPN app on my phone and tablet, but I've just seen that it will no longer be free at the end of this month. There are other free VPN apps, but I don't know anything about them.

Thank you Justine

RefuseToDenounceBiology How very, very interesting. And concerning.

Regarding the location, I live round that way (still being careless with personal data!) and I don’t know. I wish all of this was not happening in my back yard, or anyone else’s for that matter.

Thanks Justine @ MNHQ for what you’ve done, and for keeping us updated.

Is this the author?

NO!!!!! The author is a completely different person who's unfortunate enough to share a name.

Thank you for the update.

And thank you, @JustineMumsnet . What a week it's been.

THats a really interesting point about when the DPA is superseded. Would that mean that under GDPR that MN will have no choice but to delete anything that we request? Whether or not it falls under a currently ‘permissible’ reason? I’m confused re the implications of it.

Thanks Juells

I just googled to try & download Opera as a browser, when I came across this story www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/04/opera-is-shutting-down-its-vpn-service-at-the-end-of-the-month/ - seems they're ending their free vpn service at the end of this month, but the article does suggest alternatives people might want to try to keep their SM postings safer

We've just received this from Emma Healey for publication here:

"I am so sorry - I do still really admire Mumsnet as a women’s organisation and a community despite what has happened. I wish you the best of luck with continuing your campaigns around Better Postnatal Care and maternity wards - change needs to happen in this area and Mumsnet are the best positioned to lead the charge.

I was just mistakenly trying to do what I thought was the right thing as someone with very strong feelings on LGBTQ+ rights - and in doing so, I did something very misguided and frankly awful.

I have definitely learnt my lesson: not only about not tweeting in anger, but about the language I use, being careful what I say, the power of social media, and thinking about all the potential outcomes of my actions (not just the outcomes I intend). As such, I am taking some time away from social media and will return with a hopefully more mature attitude.

I’d like to also apologise to any users who have felt hurt, attacked, or vulnerable due to my actions. I recognise that we do not agree on this issue, but I know the impact that my actions may have had on them and their mental health.

Once again I’d like to apologise."

"I got caught. Please Daddy, don't stop my pocket money".

She still has a lot to learn about the issues she is attacking.

Oh, and she's essentially pleaded guilty to Computer Misuse Act offences, so the prosecution should be easy.

I mean, that's great and all, but the screenshots are still making the rounds on social media so it's a bit late now.