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.

Whilst Emma has closed her accounts etc, the original threadreader unroll of Emma's blog post is still being posted and retweeted from Mimmymum's Twitter account. I have reported each instance I can see, but I am still on a Terf Blocklist so cannot get them all. Someone with an unblocked account might want to have a go.

Many companies hold personal information, but few companies hold personal information that can be linked to their customer’s day to day experiences of TTC, PND, traumatic births etc. People post anonymously for a reason.

I think it was a genuine mistake that the posts had IP addresses on them. She shouldn't have had those screenshots but I really don't think jobs and lives are at risk and we need to be level headed.

The breech should be properly investigated though.

Emma Healey is a pathetic excuse for a woman. If all the causes she could have put her efforts into she chooses the most privileged members of society.
Pandering to males.
If I were an employer I wouldn't touch her with a barge pole and I hope this has a significant impact on her career
I don't care who was pulling her strings. She must take responsibility for her own lack of integrity

How is Helen sharing it? The thread has been deleted. Is she using screen shots?

If Mimmymum is still tweeting the IP addresses of some mumsnet gets, is she breaking data protection rules too??

Checking in to follow developments.

What a mighty mess.

as soon as an account had been created for me, I could see user's sign up details (so whatever you'd entered when you signed up - email, first name, surname, postcode, any additional info) all name change history, deleted posts, private messages.

If true, this is a problem and needs to be looked at as part of the investigation. Posters are likely to have used alternative usernames about events for circumstances that are more identifying (eg miscarriage, period of illness, employment situation). The ability to link events to build an individual profile is an issue.

Just placemarking.

I changed my details after Jeffreygate but do they still have my old email addresses? My address from a survey/prize I won years ago? I am curious and not just because of Emma's silliness. I'd like all my old personal data removed.

Presumably the moderation team check out namechanges to look for sock puppeting?

Yes I'm also concerned that someone with her sort of background was hired and trusted with women's data. This really wasn't unforeseeable.

Anyway, something tells me that Emma Healey will soon be claiming that's her deadname, and will be going by another name shortly.

Bumble: "She had no need to access any personal data for her role so she shouldn’t ever have been able to see ip addresses, PMs, email addresses.

Cut and paste should have been disabled.

Access to personal email addresses should have been disabled.

Key loggers installed.

And they clearly weren’t."

Yes, this is hugely important. I am a little surprised that Mumsnet is hiring inexperienced young people as moderators and then giving them access to reams of personal data. Do they receive data protection training? Do they have training in ethics? But in any case, as you say, a moderator shouldn't need to have access to personal emails, let alone PMs, in order to moderate.

It sounds as though Emma thought the worst that could happen was that MN would refuse her a reference. Daft and deluded.

I think it was a genuine mistake that the posts had IP addresses on them.

Because she was a 24 year old working for a website and didn't know what an IP address is?

Because she didn't realise you don't have to be an employee of MN to take screenshots of pages on MN and anyone can do it from a phone without even subscribing to the site?

Either explanation, 'geninue mistake' or 'malicious intent', is alarming.

But in any case, as you say, a moderator shouldn't need to have access to personal emails, let alone PMs, in order to moderate.

From what I understand she was working in the press office, not a moderator?