First time poster, long time lurker. Thanks to mumsnet along with some awesome Australian posters over on the Essential Baby forums in Australia who first spoke up about this and pointed me in the mumsnet direction.
I’m hoping to post this story here that has played out over the last week - we have been silenced within our online community and would like to be able to direct some of our cohort here to be able to read what has happened and continue with the conversation we have been having - I hope this is ok.
The Essential Baby forums were owned by a large media company and in early November an announcement that after 20 years of active discussion on all sorts of topics the forums were being closed. There was much sadness, a flurry of activity to open up a new forum led to everybump. An amazing effort and a real show of solidarity from the community.
In recent times there were quite a few respectful, fiery, and informative threads about trans issues, and the intersection with women’s issues on the old Essential Baby Forums. Once we moved over to the new forum we continued the discussions.
Sadly, the threads were allowed to go on for a certain period of time, then unceremoniously, some of the key posters were barred from posting (you can guess one was me).
Reason for the ban:
“Hello
Please be advised that you have been placed on 24hr PA. This is due to inflammatory posting and/ or challenging Mod decisions on the boards whilst threads are being reviewed.
The Thread in Feminism is so hurtful to so many of our members so we need to ensure its not going to continue to be that way.
We have removed them for review and are taking time to do this now.”
We were sent this pm on the lifting of our ban (note, there was no inflammatory posting, we are pretty careful in our tone and wording as most gc feminists here would be used to doing also there were definitely no abusive messages sent as has been implied)
‘ Dear All
This PM is a first and final warning before banning. A forum announcement has also been made and is copied at the end of this message.
We do not have the resources nor patience to ensure the safety of other members from the discriminatory posts made in the now deleted gender critical feminism threads. Even though that means shutting down ‘feminist’ discussion. Hiding discrimination under the guise of a feminist issue does not make discrimination legitimate, any more than ‘debates about racial issues’ in the 1950’s made racial discrimination legitimate.
Post approval is now removed from your account. There will not be a further ‘post approval’ step or any warning before banning if you make similar discriminatory posts in the future. Or personal attacks against Mods or Admins.
The false allegations posted about the content of PMs on 9EB mean that we are also pre-emptively informing you we won’t hesitate to publish our PMs, and your responses (if any), alongside any relevant posts that may misrepresent the content of this message. On this issue, do not have any expectation of privacy in PM communications.
A forum announcement has been made. As stated, this is not a unilateral response but a joint one from the entire EB volunteer team.”
Then an announcement was posted to all the forum members:
“A message to all of our members.
Some of you will not like it. Some of you will think it is over the top, because you have only seen parts of the issues. Actually, it is more like a forceful lecture than a message. It’s not a rant because I mean every word.
Sorry about that if you had nothing to do with it.
The next abusive message sent by someone careless enough to use their own IP address will find that address permanently blocked from the Every Bump forum. From both posting AND reading - i.e. worse than banned.
This is not a unilateral response. The entire team has spent more time than we want to think about consulting to provide a joint response.
Firstly, and very obviously, this forum is NOT Essential Baby. It is not run by a corporation or commercial concern. Every Bump is staffed entirely by volunteers. Who have lives just as busy as yours.
We don’t have the time or resources to drop everything to give an instant co-ordinated response. It would be nice if we could provide constant updates to all members on what is happening - but we can't co-ordinate that at the same time as discussing the primary issue due to resources.
It would be great if the rules had already been finalised and posted - but dealing with these issues only delays that process. In the meanwhile, the old EB Rules stand.
This forum is run by a group of people who have given up their time and money to make this space welcoming. Whilst we want member feedback and suggestions, we expect them to be polite and respectful. Almost all of our members have no difficulty with this.
Abuse of our volunteers is not going to be tolerated no matter how righteous you think your cause is. If you think that is a dictatorship, feel free to go start your own community that welcomes abusive messages.
For members not involved but concerned we are unreasonable or need thicker skins, here are two (of many) actual examples within the last 48 hours of what is ok and what is not ok:
- “Why am I on post approval and I want it take off by tonight please?” - ok.
- “The Admins are Cnts and the mods are (#%)” - will not ever be tolerated.
The Admins and Mods have committed to making EveryBump a welcoming, safe and supportive space for all our members. As volunteers, we are not paid enough to tolerate abuse. We won’t.
We believe that all voices should be heard, and that all members should be treated with respect in the posts of other members. We will not sacrifice these principles for advertising revenue, (or even to retain or attract new members), despite accusations.
All voices being heard does NOT mean people have ‘freedom of speech’ or ‘the right’ to post anything they want.
Outright blatant attacks on another member will not be tolerated. Even if that member is a Mod or an Admin, or the attack is in a message sent to a Mod or an Admin. Even if sent via PM or email.
Indirect attack or discrimination against members or groups also will not be tolerated. Even if it is claimed to be part of a feminist discussion. Even if it is posted in a ‘clinical’ fashion - this does not prevent posts from being insensitive, hurtful, denigrating or devaluing others. Even being a vulnerable person yourself does not give you that ‘right’.
Because none of this somehow ‘prevents’ posts from being discriminatory. (Or prevents them from being hate speech - if it is clear posts or a collection of posts are discriminatory, we do not need to decide if they amount to hate speech). We simply will not tolerate posts that are discriminatory, whether sexist, racist, ableist, homophobic, misogynistic, misandrist, etc. Even if that means shutting down a ‘feminist’ discussion.
Members of our community are hurt by such posts, for themselves or for their loved ones. ‘All voices being heard’ means vulnerable sections of the community should feel safe to read and post.
If you want to have that discussion, find another place to have it. Or, work out how to discuss the topic without making discriminatory (sexist, racist, ableist, homophobic, misogynistic, misandrist etc.) posts. If you cannot, the reason is probably that either the foundations of your topic, or your reasons for discussing it, boil down to your belief in your right to exclude or discriminate against ‘others’ no matter how harmful the effect on them.
If you cannot work out if your posts are discriminatory, swap words out with 1950's USA racial issues. It will leap off the screen at you.
Now to be really specific and clear:
Repeated insensitive remarks (or attacks) regarding trans people will not be tolerated. Nor purposeful trolling or inflammatory posting.
Moving the Gender Critical Feminism threads off active topics was not an attempt to silence, but an attempt to give a volunteer admin/mod team time to respond after less forceful feedback was ignored. In hindsight, we should have locked the threads immediately pending review and put posters on post approval than merely removing the triggering threads from the active topics list.
Now these threads have been reviewed. The entire Admin / Mod team considers the posts, taken collectively, to be discriminatory, insensitive, hurtful, denigrating and devaluing others
The appallingly abusive and obscene anoymous emails sent to the Admins after threads were removed from active topics (but still accessible via the forums) reinforce my view that any 'theoretical' or clinical discussion was never more than window dressing
Warning has now been given. It is a first and final warning. There will not be another one for those who received it via PM.
We wanted to tell EB discussing Gender Critical Feminism is OK if it can be done without negatively referencing trans people. But, we don’t have the resources required to actively moderate such threads at the level shown to be needed. That approach was attempted before the threads were moved off active topics.
GFC is officially the first topic off limits on this forum, ahead of even current court cases.
There are multiple levels of censorship in almost every publication. I'm also not going to put up with rants about censorship breaching your rights to freedom of speech. It doesn't, you can say anything you like on your street corner, or build your own site, and anyway Australian law doesn’t actually provide you with such rights.
Australian law does say you can’t be discriminatory in contexts such as employment, and that hate speech is not allowed. We won’t allow discriminatory posts here either.
If your desire is ‘uncensored’ ‘rights’ to post anything you want on someone else’s site, reddit or 4chan / 8chan is a better option for you.;
* Post edited by MNHQ *