The MNHQ Moderation Team: Thread 2

[BarrackerBarmer]

Follow on thread regarding the data breach situation:
___

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.

The IP addresses shown on the screen grabs are not fixed, and in isolation, cannot be used to pinpoint the location or identity of a user.

That is flatly untrue. Although my home internet arrangements are slightly unusual, they are not that unusual, and the IP number I would use from home, were I not using a VPN, directly and immediately leads to my real-world identity. Depending on the precise details of the ISP people are customers of, their IP number may locate them by city, by district or more precisely.

For anyone posting from their employer or university network, it leads directly to their employer/university (with some caveats and exceptions which do not affect the generality of my point).

If that is the MNHQ position, they need someone who understands technology to talk to them immediately, and they need to stop patting people on the head.

Thank you for sharing this with us Justine, but it's pretty meaningless. Emma works in PR, this apology has been carefully drafted to try and take the heat out of the situation. This wasn't a heartfelt apology to Justine, Emma knew full well it would be shared more widely.

This wasn't a misguided action on the behalf of someone young and naive. This was premeditated - she stole the data over 6 months ago and has been hanging on to it, ready to use when she saw fit. I can forgive taking the screenshots in a fit of anger, but 6 months should have been long enough for her to cool down and realise it wasn't the right thing to do and delete them.

A very 'political' apology.

Who is she connected with?

Why did she abuse her position at MN?

What else did she screen shot and why?

How is she going to clear up this mess?

@JustineMumsnet please could you provide reassurance that Emma has been asked about what other data she may have stolen from Mumsnet?

As I said on the first thread, I do not use any social media and have virtually no online presence. There is no way that anyone could connect my real name to my posts on MN, unless they knew my sign up information. Therefore if I find that I am on any kind of “TERF” list, or am doxxed or targeted by trans activists, I will know that they can only have found out my real name through a Mumsnet data breach.

Emma clearly implied in her tweets that she had further data, and that she was still talking to current MN employees about trans activism.

An apology for the breach that we know about is not enough - I want to know what else she has and what’s going on with these current employees.

Pants on fire, Emma.

Who is she connected with?

& how are those currently exploiting the publication by EH connected?

I agree that the reference to tweeting in anger is disingenuous, considering that Emma's actions were clearly much more calculated than that.

If she's genuinely sorry, though, she'll be ready to cooperate fully with the authorities and to ask all those currently retweeting her to stop doing it.

Her apology highlights the viewpoint of a lot of these type of people.
Everything’s about feelings
You don’t need to worry about anyone’s feelings, you need to worry about what’s legal, and knowing that your feelings do NOT make it excusable to break the law

Also, did she put up a public twitter apology then?

If she's genuinely sorry, though, she'll be ready to cooperate fully with the authorities and to ask all those currently retweeting her to stop doing it.

Empress has hit the nail on the head.

How about it, Emma?

And I’m still concerned about her ‘friends’ at MN.
What does that even mean?!?

She claimed that she still had friends at Mumsnet who she could have delete threads/comments for her. Moderation has been odd recently, and multiple users have commented on it. That's what prompted the latest Spartacus thread.

So, again, can we address that please, Justine?

Creative Writing AFAICR. Mumsnet heavily promoted her book, and she's vewy vewy gwateful

That is NOT the correct EH. The author EH is a completely different person.

Let's try not to direct people towards some poor random author who probably woke up this morning to a bunch of angry messages and wondered WTF had just happened.

Oh Emma, you silly, silly girl.

My cousin is currently serving 3 months in jail for doing something not a million miles away from this. It was premeditated nature of his offence that got him in the end.

I'm intrigued as to the level of cognitive dissonance needed to simulataneously "really admire" an organisation and have "no loyalty" to them because "they're...scum".

But then involvement in transactivism does need a lot of skill in cognitive dissonance, so this is probably quite an easy ask.

Not a great apology, all in all.

Good that MNHQ seem to be taking the data breach side of things seriously, though.

*a lot of skill in coping with cognitive dissonance, that should read.

What is her relationship with hq that you are protecting her to the extent you are Justine?

I'd also like an answer to this. I don't expect one, though.

Emma is not a child. She has broken the law and potentially put people in danger. She's sent a non-apology for what she's done, basically saying she's sorry she got caught, and she won't do it again. That does not normally stop people from being prosecuted for their crimes.

That's a real "I'm sorry you feel upset" type apology, isn't it?

@Battleax I corrected several times. Unfortunately that's the first EH that appears when the name is googled :(

I don't know how many diamonds the diamond-thief stole when they conned his way into my vault, but he's promised me that there were only the two that I found out about, so I believe him

Yes remember, she was incensed and boasting about her own importance when MN posted a link to a presentation on:
'How to deal with TERFs' including some delights like

'How to deal with TERF violence'. What kind of delusional fuck thinks GC women are violent?

The rest of her behaviour is documented.

She is a lying, vindictive thief.

Her apology means nothing except to cover her own arse.

That apology is frankly pathetic.

Needs taking further IMO.

If only as a test case to show others that this is a serious offence.

There have been too many misuses of "pretty data" available to childish people so far. They are getting away with it every time.

If Mumsnet are not going to report this to the police can site users do so?