TRAs try to ruin Mumsnet survey

[2019StandingforWomen]

Just seen this one Twitter:

Transactivists are sharing a survey from @MumsnetTowers
(asking for feedback on their message boards), they're encouraging people to identify as users & complain about feminist chat. Mumsnet boards are important to so many women so please show your support

What survey is this does anyone know?

I'd imagine they are trying to gauge if the number of people put off joining MN by the Brexit and FWR boards is greater or less than the number these boards bring to the site.

Have done so. Was unsurprised to see Helen Islan suggesting people fill it in.

Can you send that information to HQ. They are asking for evidence.

Apparently they emailed people on the insight panel only.

I'd imagine they are trying to gauge if the number of people put off joining MN by the Brexit and FWR boards is greater or less than the number these boards bring to the site.

I would have thought the 12 fold increase in one year would provide that info.

Seriously. Women trying to defend their threatened rights is seen as messing up surveys maliciously to harm trans people. Wtf are these people on?

Women are not allowed to have their own opinions on politics. Women who do are a magnet for proportionately more abuse than any man saying the same thing.

I'd imagine they are trying to gauge if the number of people put off joining MN by the Brexit and FWR boards is greater or less than the number these boards bring to the site.

The Brexit board is 'hidden' in a similar way from the rest of the site. Its easy to avoid if you so wish.

So anything from @MNHQ on why the survey was open to non-users? Seems a bit strange to do that

Interesting if some of the 'non-users' were actually PBP or their proxies?

I would have thought the 12 fold increase in one year would provide that info.

I'd also imagine that since the business model relies on generated content, produced by registered, posting members, its more important to sustain the current membership than chase after potential new ones.

Can you send that information to HQ

Done

Will MN be taking into account the impact from the self-defined TRA 'monitoring group?

'How an Online Forum for Moms Became a Toxic Hotbed of Transphobia'
(extract)
Since 2016, Mumsnet—specifically its Feminism board—has increasingly found itself on the receiving end of criticism from trans people and their allies. “When I started using Twitter and engaging in the trans sphere in mid-2017, Mumsnet was constantly referenced both on my timeline and in DMs,” says Joss Prior, a trans woman who is part of a sizable trans community that monitors and discusses Mumsnet regularly. “The whole of the Feminism board was like a spectre hanging over the daily trans discourse.” (continues)

“It’s a core group of a few hundred hardcore trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), a tiny percentage of overall users,” says Christine, the mother of a trans child and also part of the network that regularly monitors Mumsnet. (Christine’s name has been changed for privacy reasons.) “Yet the Feminism board is just 90 percent discussions about trans people on any given day.” (continues)

broadly.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/a3mn9k/mumsnet-uk-mom-forum-terf-transphobia-feminism

The discussions are about Women's Rights & Safeguarding of vulnerable adults and children. This being the Feminism & Women's Rights Board of a parenting website.

Women having rights is transphobic. It's that simple.

LM gave that one away years ago in pretty much exactly those terms.

I'm on the insight panel, what are you saying we're supposed to have received (datum)
All I can see that I got was an invitation to fill in the survey that said "open to all MN users."

Sorry datun not datum

Why Is it that MNHQ have deleted posts but not responded to the - valid - questions?

To someone saying they emailed members, I didn’t receive one either but did see the survey and completed it... although that seems pointless now since they opened it to anyone and it’s clear what has happened here. I’m pretty disappointed they haven’t answered questions and that they asked specifically about trans threads and not about the feminism board.

Meanwhile... where else can we hang out? Any other forums where we can talk freely about women’s rights? Anyone planning to create an alternative? Please say yes.

lime, just that. An email notifying you of the survey. I'm guessing they are using the insight panel as cross-section of members.

MNHQ - apologies for being a broken record about this, but please read this Twitter thread, consider what so many women posting here have been saying to you for a long time, and factor in all this evidence about your community being controlled by those who have no interest in making it a better place, only in shutting down speech they do not like.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1110452108183195649.html

Particularly this aspect:

Ringleaders will build up their network of proxies to perpetuate the falsehood that the targeted individual is the problem. It allows them to retire some of the original proxies who are then replaced with new proxies to keep the mobbing sustained & the abuse hidden. The reason is to more effectively turn the tables and direct the abuse away from the mobbing campaign and onto the target whilst giving the impression the target is belligerent and antagonises others. Even better if the mobbing campaign has successfully provoked a reaction.

I sent in screenshots, asked how they were planning on weighting results:

We've passed it on to our survey team and will make sure that it gets investigated thoroughly.

Itsall. Can you send links, by any chance? That way they can see the extent of it.

I only found a a few tweets, and I sent those and the replies.

Helen Islan has over 5000 followers though, and I imagine many would do the survey without replying to the tweet thread, as well as share it themselves.

I did a search. You can see tweets are there from conversations with missing tweets in the conversation but they are behind locked accounts so only visible to a certain bubble on twitter. How many within that bubble and how widely shared that there are, you've no way of knowing unless you are pre-approved to see those tweets.

Its a closed community with no transparency. Which is one of the problems in the first place.

Robust political debate is what makes Mumsnet unique - and a unique space for women. Otherwise Mumsnet will be indistinguishable from Netmums.

TRAs and MRAs will never stop trying to shut us down - they want to silence us everywhere - Mumsnet, Twitter, FB - every platform. They want to stop journalists writing about transactivism in the papers - check out the attacks on Helen Lewis, Janice "Victoria Peckham" and Andrew Gilligan This is one of the few places ordinary women can still talk about this - and we're heavily moderated because of TRA pressure to MNHQ.

Lang Thanks for sharing. Its an interesting thread from an organisation raising awareness of coercive control.

This is certainly recognisable & its good to have the dynamics identified and explained.
(extract)
"As someone who has been raising awareness and better the understanding of #coercivecontrol, I have been struck by the many similarities shared by certain online abusers and coercive and controlling ex partners. This is especially true of those who partake of online #mobbing.
Put simply, #mobbing is bullying of an individual by a group. This can be family, peer group, school, workplace, neighborhood, community, or online."

I think this links with awareness of how 'flying monkeys' are used. Some of them being 'naive /unaware"
discussed
medium.com/@OwnYourReality/flying-monkeys-the-narcissists-tool-for-the-smear-campaign-798daf7a59c0

Interesting that MNHQ didn't address the actual first issue on this thread, which wasn't started to discuss the survey being closed.

Has anyone had a meaningful response from MNHQ off-board?

TRAs and MRAs will never stop trying to shut us down - they want to silence us everywhere - Mumsnet, Twitter, FB - every platform

Its worth considering how this is done eg attempted containing of conversations to FWR by running out or down AIBU (including deliberately succeeding in deleting threads)/ control of words used / disruption of discussion/ targetted goading to garner a reaction and then subsequent sanction / attempted control of length or content of posts/ gaming moderation/ using external sites to screenshot, misrepresent & smear....

The parallels with coercive control patterns are striking.