LangCleg

[dragongirlx]

I am a long time lurker but infrequent poster here but I needed to bring this to everyone's attention.
I have found out that Mumsnet HQ have banned the fabulous LangCleg simply for repeatedly pointing out the repeated times coercive control has been used by the moderators to stop women talking.
I understand it started with a conversation when a post was deleted because she allegedly used a sweeping generalisation but they couldn't or wouldn't confirm the generalisation and when she challenged them they decided to ban her on the basis of previous comments.

So it now seems pointing out coercive control is now grounds for being banned, thus proving that coercive control is being used.

I for one would like @MumsnetHQ to provide an explanation here as this is really not on

(also taking bets on how long before the thread is deleted)

It's ok pickle

Another LangCleg supporter. I have long liked Mumsnet, but I came to love it for the great posters like Lang!

Because some people will be able to say I spoke out, I saw what was happening to children, and I spoke out, wouldn't it be good if we were able to say that the leading website for parents was part of that safeguarding . It's time to be brave, and in the meantime men are laughing at you.

Beautifully and accurately put.

@MNHQ, have a think about the kind of people who want to see safeguarding eroded, and then have a think about whether they're the kind of people you want to align yourselves with. Because at the moment you're not just aligned with them, you're acting as their agent...and they're still laughing at you and working to bring you down.

Someone who wants an expert on safeguarding children to be reformed. How horribly sinister...

Just want to add my voice to all the others saying langcleg was a brilliant poster. Calm, clever, knowledgeable. I think she's been really influential. I can see why they wanted her to shut up and I'm horrified.

It was a very bad decision to allow complaints from non members. I can't imagine the thinking behind it, and they should reverse it.

To everyone else, please stay and continue talking here if you can, where new people will stumble in.

I acknowledge I don't know the detail, and I appreciate that hqs position is hard and fraught.

@HirooOnoda .....perhaps one day will return, reformed, to continue the passionate debate but within the terms of service that we all need to abide by.

I liked that book too.

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved big brother

The problem with stifling debate is that the debate doesn't go away , just that each side becomes more entrenched, meaning a resolution is harder to achieve. Allowing opinions to be heard, regardless of how hard it can be to listen to those differing opinions, allows a resolution to be reached. Don't stand in the way of peace MNHQ.

Hiroo's namesake is an interesting one. A Japanese soldier who, despite being told the war is over, refused to surrender - his autobiography was No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War

Hiroo - the #nodebate war is over, people are debating, the floodgates on #debate have opened.

It's time to wave the white flag and come and talk rather than try to close us down (albeit with passive aggressive 'let's obide by the rules' posts!) Don't hole yourself up in the mountains!

That's ridiculous. LangCleg has always been really level-headed and rational in her posts. I can well believe that whoever banned her did so without being able to substantiate the decision. Pfff...

Lang gone ? Why ? What is the reasoning given for this ?
It was the "creating a hostile work environment for the mods" excuse. Lang tried to find out what the generalization was, in her post regarding safeguarding children, that she was deleted for.
5. We won’t allow aggressive or rude behaviour towards our moderation team.
#5 now appears to include asking questions and appealing strikes.

Ha! A dimwit is encouraging reporting LangCleg-tribute names on the grounds of "quoting a banned poster". PMSL.

I liked that book too

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved big brother

Brilliant response!

Delurking to say I'm so disappointed to learn this news. LangCleg was such an important voice on feminism threads. I will miss Lang's intelligent and thought-provoking posts and reasoned arguements.

MNHQ - what on earth were you thinking? Are you hell-bent on silencing debate?

I'm going to post this again.

A message to all potential party leaders

This will not end well. It will not. Young people will start to sue their families/local NHS and GIDS

Women will be hurt and start complaining hugely about their loss of rights. All of them, not just Mumsnetters

And when this all blows up in our faces, and when the legitimate LGBT community are caught up in a massive backlash, we will remember

We will remember what you did and didn't do

We will remember the names of all the people, politicians, celebrities, scientists, journalists, leaders, community leaders, clinicians, CAMHS staff who colluded in this. We will not forget that you were too scared to speak up

We will remember and we will push for you to be held accountable

This is us telling you now, so that in the future, you will never have to say 'but we didn't know'

This is us telling you. So that you know

I get why everyone is furious. MHHQ know that Lang isn't anything other than a measured, intelligent, knowledgeable, erudite woman. They know, But this, dreadful as it is, is a form of Quid Pro Quo. Held under coercive control mind, (the control of MNHQ by activists) but a trade off that is being done in order to keep the FWR boards open and debate and discussion alive.

This is the only mainstream space left, where this discussion happens and it sticks in the craw of activists, like a bone. They hate that they can't shut us down. They hate the lack of power. And so all they have left is to pick off the most dangerous women (to their minds) who are also the most influential.

MNHQ and Justine@Mumsnet aren't caving or capitulating, but trying to survive so that we can.

Because this is an ideological war on women and children. That we are winning.

Yesterday's webchat with Jess Phillips made national news today. We are a danger to these ideologues. I don't believe that MN want to throw us under the bus. But they can't afford to be shut down. And they have millions of users who are reading this. Who will read the Mail and come here.

So stay, and let's give them something to read.

And Lang, I'm so sorry. You deserve better

We know

I've remembered, it's a Hydra. The mythical creature that when it's struck down two more spring up in its place.

I do not post often on the FWR board but wanted to add another vote in support of LangCleg.

And as I've said elsewhere, what I learnt from the relationships board is very applicable here - though I stress in an analogous wider way, not in comparison to individual relationships.

The point when you try to leave is the most dangerous.

With the support for LGB Alliance this week, more and more voices on social media standing up and saying "this isn't right".

As PP are saying, this is why it's ramping up.

The leaving is becoming more tangible, and some people are really, really angry about it. They are losing control of some of the people they needed to support their house of cards, and they know it.

Don't your moderators realise that they've been played, played like fish on the end of a rod. Then they've been reeled in by an expert gamer.

Some people have nothing better to do and are prepared to put a great deal of their time into it.

And right there in that tweet, is the proof that LangCleg was right about coercive control being used to silence women on Mumsnet.

This is a shockingly bad decision by @mnhq.

They think there's only a handful of us and a dog. If that was true, picking us off one-by-one would work. But for every woman posting there are many more who are here just to listen and learn - and like every other message board I've been on in the last 25 years, eventually the new members become longtimers, they step up and share what they have learned. As did I. I lurked on MN for ten years before I took my first tentative steps in 2017, I think.

Terribly shortsighted, isn't it?

Of all the people, groups, court cases, springing up many, if not most, started, or were escalated here.

There is not a finite number of women who are pissed off with this. There is an infinite number of people, increasing daily. For every woman or parent who is banned, another 50 spring up. Precisely because she is fucking banned.

It makes no sense to think that the number of women who are going to be pissed off with this is finite. It's nonsense. Especially as traffic to this board increases exponentially all the time.

Just take a look at Posie Parker (whether you agree with her or not) and her influence. How it has increased, the more she is censored.

There has to be a name for that.

I think someone ‘over there’ had a bingo card of spreadsheet of posters.

If that was true, picking us off one-by-one would work. But for every woman posting there are many more who are here just to listen and learn - and like every other message board I've been on in the last 25 years, eventually the new members become longtimers, they step up and share what they have learned. As did I. I lurked on MN for ten years before I took my first tentative steps in 2017, I think.

Many many years ago I learnt a lesson about the Internet.

There was a group who thought that they held all the power and they were most important.

Many people were afraid of them and didn't want to stand up to their bullshit or challenge what was going on.

I let them go so far, but would call them out when they really overstepped the mark.

Everytime without fail, there would be a wave of support when I did it. Sometimes public and sometimes privately. And slowly it grew.

I realised that whatever I thought even if I thought I was alone I never was, because far more people were measured and level headed and just generally pissed off with the gobby dickhead on the Internet. The point was always to be the voice of reason rather than emotive and personal.

The lurkers were always as important as the ones who stuck their heads out against it. And the lurkers were always far more numerous than you realised.

Ripples spread and get bigger.

Silencing people by force if people feel there has been an injustice has a huge effect. It rarely simply passes without consequences.

And right there in that tweet, is the proof that LangCleg was right about coercive control being used to silence women on Mumsnet.

Neatly summed up.

I'm shocked but, sadly, not really surprised by this. I do hope MNHQ have a rethink as Lang will be sorely missed. Nevertheless, we will continue to share ideas, information and inspiration and new and existing posters will step up to the mark.

Misogynists are gloating about punishing women who have crossed a line but the problem is that there is no line.

There is no line. The thought crime women are committing is in asking where the line is, asking for it to be defined.

Because it cannot be defined. Women are being banned for asking for clarification of the rules after they have been used.