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.

Powerofattorney

Well of course they can delete all your posts. It's two very simple SQL commands.

I'm also fairly sure they wiped all the posts of the transwoman known as ego (and other connotations of that)

I've suspected for a while that this nonsense won't stop until TRAs actually kill a woman.

This has already happened in the US. A lesbian couple and their son were murdered by a TRA:

sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/03/07/transgender-activist-trial-oakland-triple-murder/

The motive isn't clear but it's been said that Rivers was one of the activists against MichFest (the long-standing women's festival which was closed down following pressure from TRAs) and that the women were attendees. Being a penis-exclusionary lesbian, of course, is enough to make you an enemy of the TRAs.

The murders were also celebrated at the time by some transactivists as the murder of TERFs:

www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/6zmxiy/handmaiden_celebrates_the_murder_of_lesbian/

Whole thing illustrates that nothing short of full intellectual submission - and sometimes not even that - is acceptable to the gender cult.

Even if you accept their ideology and say their credo, even if you compare telling children gender isn’t real to section 28, you can still be smeared all over the internet as a terf just for associating with the heretics at mumsnet.

Wow. That's Emma's future career in tatters and if she thinks everyone will just roll over and support her views then she's another thing coming.

Women need safe spaces. End of.

I'm surprised that these threads aren't showing up in trending tho'...

MN needs to take legal action against her. They can't just ignore this or it will happen again.

The issue is employing people who don't understand the line between personal and professional. People who don't care about boundaries and have no concept of responsibility when in a position of power.

Going slightly off topic here but all this “kerb stomp a TERF”, “fuck up a TERF” etc. talk from TRAs, which is being essentially ignored by the authorities/organisations, reminds me of the situation we hear all too often of an individual female being ignored by the police when reporting harassment by a stalker or ex partner, for them only to stand up and take notice when the woman has been brutally attacked or killed. Closing the stable door after the horse had bolted and all that.

I seriously hope it doesn’t have to come to that for it to become clear what GC women are facing.

We absolutely cannot promote an employment protocol that eliminates candidates for wrong think
I agree with this. People can't be excluded from roles because they hold a different opinion. However, they can be excluded from roles if part of the job description involves upholding freedom of speech and their values err towards no-platforming instead.
Ultimately, at an employment level, this is about MNHQ recognising what their brand is and the service they provide. The PP who suggested training from DV charities about coercive control makes a very good point. MN has grown in a way that no-one could have forseen. That means its training and policies need to change too.

And moderators can't necessarily spot the signs of gf; abuse, etc, in the way that regular users can because they don't have that same relationship with the boards. They're observers rather than participants. You can see the difference between mods who have been MNers and interns who haven't.

I also think it’s quite likely that Emma Healey herself will be denounced by the cultists for giving an apology and removing her social media profile.

The issue is a company not understanding or applying the data protection laws relating to the protection of users
EH should not have been able to take that data
This is a very serious offence
And hair twirling reaction and ‘she apologised and she seemed nice enough’ is risable

And no, Justine, an apology and a stern telling off just won’t do. There is no point having a) data protection laws and b) contracts of employment - both of which are the only deterrents to not behaving inappropriately/criminally (i.e. you’re relying on their sense of responsibility/good will and fear of repercussions) - if they are not enforced if and when an employee, or ex employee in this case, contravenes them.

What's shocking is that so little heed is paid to women's safety - as we see - in all spheres of life. Safeguarding really isn't taken seriously by many, except refuges - but they don't understand the tech abuse. Cyber coercive control, using stalking, tracking and hacking, is a whole other ballgame and with relatively few women tech savvy enough and not that many in IT as techies - it really concerns me. Am trying to do something about it - but all the time the indifference is shocking - from govt, corporates and even womens services themselves as they don't understand the harm - they see the women but have little concept of how devastating tech abuse is of itself, never mind on top of intimate partner violence - that continues for years after the women leave abusive exes - and it's the techie boys who perpetrate this really harmful stuff - there'a whole lot I want to say and for now will stop

Can we have a site stuff thread advising people how to set up accounts which are safer?

There have been bits of advice throughout, like using a VPN, using an email unconnected to your usual one, not giving full/genuine name, dob etc. It might be helpful to have a pinned post explaining that.

Also, a reminder to tweak your username regularly so it is less searchable, and to tweak identifying details in posts to make you less traceable.

For those who may need/wish to be particularly anonymous.

Can I suggest that everyone look at the thread below, and the last part relating to deletion specifically? Seems extremely relevant to the discussion of how moderation works here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3226052-Do-you-know-what-TRAs-You-can-t-silence-us-with-fear?watched=1&msgid=77232341#77232341

Posy

Well quite.
That’s what’s so weird, anyone reading that thread would have seen that Mummybear wasn’t gender critical and was being sarcastic. Why would someone throw an ally under the bus that way?

I work in PR and Comms. In all the places I have worked, my team have had access to personal and sensitive data, such as the information Emma was privy to. This is normal and needed to do your job. However, in every job I've had, there's been a strict data protection policy in place and all staff go through mandatory data protection training every year.

I'd like to know if this is the case at Mumsnet?

Trans issues aside, I am really concerned about what other data has been stolen and what will happen to it.

I don't understand why she didn't just c&p from her home pc, not logged into her work MN account? There are many untrue accusations of transphobia and any comment from a trans thread could've been used. She didn't need to pretend to have 'inside' info.

If, for example, she'd c&p PM's between mnhq actually stating clearly an alleged anti trans view she'd have had a point. Instead she's used already publicly available threads but cocked up hugely by having ip addresses visable.

She's really not very bright at all is she.

The issue is a company not understanding or applying the data protection laws relating to the protection of data This is a very serious offence
This isn't even the first time a data protection breach has happened.
The bottom line is HQ don't really care.

I'm not going anywhere.

Unlike the unfortunate protagonist of this drama, apparently. You'd think, believing that she's on the side of the angels in this holy war and thus can do no wrong, she'd display the courage of her noble convictions and be trumpeting it from the rooftops with her fellow crusaders for the light.

Instead, she's deleted all her social media accounts, whimpered "oops, soz" and seems to be trying to slink off into obscurity.

Colour me impressed .

Please don't let this go mnhq! This needs pursuing. Do not minimise the protection of women!

I wonder if Justine's posts yesterday were placatory place holding while getting a considered legal response together?

Those of us who were here when Jeffrey decided to play silly fuckers might remember that the initial responses were similar while all kinds of stuff was going on behind the scenes?

I would get ready for another DDOS attack though.

You'd think, believing that she's on the side of the angels in this holy war and thus can do no wrong, she'd display the courage of her noble convictions and be trumpeting it from the rooftops with her fellow crusaders for the light.

You know what? I think she probably knows that if she makes one wrong move the TRAs will turn on her. Think of the video of the Speakers Corner event where Turquoise Hoody, female ally, attempted to intervene and was immediately bullied into submission by a large male fellow protestor.

I think the female allies know very well how dangerous male TRAs can be, even if they won't admit it to themselves and not being able to admit it causes massive cognitive dissonance.

What the funk is Emma's degree in? I would presume IT or law... but given how stupid she's been, it can't possibly be!

The only information Mumsnet asks for is an email address and a first name - nothing else. You can choose to add lots more personal details, but you don't need to.

So, set up an email address on Gmail that has no identifying detail and use a fake first name. make sure you password is different to that used on the email address - or anywhere else online.

Yes Xenophile - I think it would be wise for MNHQ to review their IT security considering the current climate.

This ex employee has behaved atrociously.

It's not naivety or youth. (24 is old enough to have developed ethically or are we now so neotonised as a culture?)

My mother ran a hairdressing shop and had more nous about maintaining confidentiality and having respect for the individual regardless of their politics / group identity.

This person's lengthy education seems to have resulted in the gaining of scant wisdom.