The vile posting on MN last night

[Lookuptotheskies]

My first thought was how so many posters say they now don't feel safe to use the site, it feels like a deliberate way to taint what is generally a safe online space for adult women.

I've noticed more aggressive posting on MN the last few years, more men (I suspect from posting styles) attacking posters, gaslighting victims, victim blaming, throwing thread off course etc.

I don't want yet another space in my life tainted like this. 😡

Oh and I'm also rather disappointed to realise MN is happy to harness unpaid labour from other MN users as the "night watch". Multimillion pound company using unpaid volunteers meant that last night a great many MN users saw images of CSA. And so did these unpaid volunteers who were manning the site with no direct contact with mnhq and I'm sure no training to deal with the awful images they saw.

How can we keep our spaces, online and real life safe and protected?! 😔

I have read about what happened last night though fortunately didn’t see any thing

I was very surprised to realise that the nightwatch seem to have no equivalent of a ‘panic button’ where they can alert MNHQ that serious shit has happened

Yes, agree. Pretty sure this was targeted attack because MN is so supportive of women and women's rights.
But also disappointed it took so long to take down and the nature of the night watch.
I'm going to try keep an open mind as I imagine this is a criminal investigation now and they're probably still trying to piece together the details but there are a lot of lessons to learn

What's happened?

Is MN really a multimillion pound company? Not the point of the thread I know but, is that true? If so, scandalous!

I can't believe it didn't make the press

I missed what happened, but what I have read on this thread sounds utterly horrific.

There was a flood of Category A child sexual assault images @Sneezeless and they remained up for quite a long time. I hope that MN HQ will make a statement that appears at the top of the site as it will have affected many people.

What happened?!!

Dear God!!!

I hope that there is a criminal investigation.

Someone linked to the accounts somewhere in the thread that remains in site stuff. 2m profit, 7m turnover, IIRC.

There’s a thread about it in Site stuff, all others are being deleted so I expect this one will disappear soon.

I am really surprised that there isn't some kind of rudimentary filter (AI could easily deal with it) to stop such images. The images were being posted all over on different innocent looking threads.

Oh wow i didnt see anything about this. Kind of makes me feel weird even using mumsnet now

The big wide world, in real life and online, is what it is.
There are no “safe spaces”.
Deal with it as it is.
That’s life.

I think the issue was that Night Watch did remove images quite quickly and banned accounts, but from thread:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5266683-urgent-please-remove-asap?

ANightwatcher · Yesterday 22:51

So these images were first spotted at 11pm and still up at 4am? That is the most appalling part of it
No the first images were posted at 11pm. They were removed and the user banned. The poster then created multiple accounts between then and 4am and posted dozens of images over loads of threads. They were all removed as quickly as possible. They didn't sit for 5 hours

What a bloody nightmare for (unpaid) mods to have seen those images repeatedly and anyone else who came across them

Was this not way at happened at the R place when they closed down the feminist subs? They first flooded them with CSA pictures, then claimed that they moderators were useless, took over and shut it down?

or this I dream that?

So it was a coordinated cyber attack then.

Mumsnet has had so many of them over the years, you would think they would have a more robust security system by now. The police ought to be involved, at least I assume they are now.

I hope FREE counselling is being offered to overnight moderators. Surprised to hear they are volunteers. Really! But that explains why overnight moderation has consistently been poor and late to react to previous incidences of spamming, with reports not being heeded and posts removed to many hours later in the morning.

This sort of thing does not encourage people to do paid subscription. Where is the money being reinvested?

Well, it strikes me that this sort of very obviously targeted attack is akin to flashing. I don't think that's defensible.

A big part of the problem is that the "report" button effectively doesn't work out of hours, because the volunteer mods don't have access to the reports. This isn't really made clear, so some users were "reporting" when what they needed to do was go to the Nightwatch topic and alert the volunteers. I am glad of many things about mumsnet but they really need to sort this out, it's not as if it's the first time they've been targeted.

I do take your point, but I also agree that Mumsnet is very much not a safe space.

What happened last night was shocking and revealed a massive hole in HQ processes.

yeah, it's certainly a wake-up call! We might sometimes feel 'safe' and heard here, because it's one of the few forums left that allow us freedom of expression. But it's not a private club and anyone might be watching...

I do wonder about the motivation of this cyber attack. Time was, you'd assume it was bored teenagers (particularly depraved and damaged teenagers in this instance) but now ... feels like men pissing all over something they can't have, or want women to leave.

98% of users are female, some of us uppity, too, I suppose that’s why this happened. Vile pricks

I hope you are all okay, I meant to ask.

There will always be a hole in processes because sick fucks will always be trying to find them.

We can't keep dismissing places that are working against this as 'unsafe spaces'. What does this even mean?! Everywhere is unsafe by that model!

I'm done being a victim. I'm sick of the 'unsafe' mantra. Fuck it!

What the badger loving chuff is an Actual Real Life Safe Space in this day and age?

Women would love to know and move there.