Quick public service announcement

[Tortoisel]

Last night my comment on here got deleted on a brigaded thread.

It might have even been a bait thread as had a few holes. Not quite Swiss cheese but a little nibbled.

Interesting because I wonder which exact part was the warranted deletion part.
I can’t see any of part of it which was an issue. I dont post on here to get deleted and I have been a regular posted on MN for many years so well aware of chat guidelines, posting in spirit, and where the line is. Both on normal boards and on this topic.

Just a heads up. And a question?

Is censorship increasing again?

Yes, this had only just occurred to me. What happens if we post something, move on, unfollow the thread, and three days later, someone reads the post, is offended, and reports it? We might get deleted and not even know it. If that deletion is Mumsnet's "final straw" we could be permanently excluded without ever knowing why.

This could become a real issue. I joined only for FWR and political discourse. If I am having to police everything I say on here, there's no point in me continuing on Mumsnet. And I won't be the only one.

I understand that MNHQ has a difficult job, but we are paying for this, either directly or by tolerating ads which pay for Mumsnet.

Exactly. If there is some sort of 'three strikes and you're out' rule, then you need to know when you have been struck and why.

I'm sure MNHQ would tell us why then, but obviously I would like to know before, so I don't get banned!

I have posted a link to our discussion on Site Stuff (there was already a recent discussion there).

I have not found this to be the case.

The rule about not being too specific and also the one about not generalising is particularly confounding as it could be used as and when with no apparent logic applied. It is like saying 'don't mention that man that did x' but also 'don't mention the men that did x' so how on earth do we talk about the man or men that did x? Through the medium of dance?

Can I just say that the confusion between MONITOR and MODERATOR has got someone banned in the past.
MNHQ are moderators.
TRA who come here to goad and report are monitors.

I'm not sure how posts are 'pulled aside' to be looked at, but sometimes that can happen in error, and equally they can be looked at, passed as OK and then in error not restored.
That happened to me - absolutely nothing contentious at all, and when I asked why, I got an apology for the mistake, and the post restored immediately.

I imagine there's a permanent threat of MN being sued by some of our more malign visitors, which may make them lean towards being cautious - over-cautious some might say.

I don't think I'd go so far as to say that free speech is under threat here - there have always been limits in the form of the talk guidelines, and monitoring will always have a degree of subjectivity about interpreting guidelines.
There's still a lot of plain talking and strong opinions on here!

Activists on these threads generalize about women and gender critical people all.the.time.
And yet they are able to keep posting.

(I grant that those posters are only the ones who haven't been banned. We have no idea how many have been banned).

Great, another thing we will need to be careful of.

The potential of being misunderstood is very real as well. This has happened to me recently, and I thought I would be reported for saying something I hadn't said, or even thought, to be quite honest!

I think it's quite easy not to get deleted to be honest.

Personal attacks / insults directed at another poster aren't allowed, neither is troll-hunting or goading. So if you find yourself trying to put down or rile up another poster, or if you want to accuse them of being a bad faith actor, even if you think you're right and you're being mild because you're not swearing (swearing is allowed, of course ) then you might want to think again.

MN did publish some guidance specific to trans discussions: https://www.mumsnet.com/i/trans-rights-moderation-policy

To be fair I do see quite a lot of what would fall under "sweeping negative generalisations" on here.

It must be a difficult line to tread tbh, I prefer to give the mods the benefit of the doubt.

I know someone banned for life for posting Kamala Harris' proposal for black men because it was a generalisation about black men when the literal proposal said it was for black men.

And I've just had to report one of my own posts, because I am now unsure if I am allowed to say it! This is ridiculous.

I had a post deleted just recently and think as you say here it is the late night US participants, and as has been said on other threads late night deletions sometimes appear to happen differently.

What was strange is the post has got quite a few likes, so I thought that's interesting, what did I say? If there had been no likes I probably would never had known. So on one level it is fairly pointless as it doesn't help or clarify the basis on which deletions are made.

I was maybe a bit strident, but that was because I have a believe in feminism and some person who lated admitted they'd joined the thread because they assumed FWR was just some sort of theoretical discussion forum. (Their only contribution was along the lines of I dont think like that so OP must be wrong - so not even theory.)

But what was strange was given my post that then got deleted didn't seem to have impacted the US entryist, I made a post saying pretty much the same, but if any thing more stridently.

But (as far as I know) is still there.

But also what is stranged is that it got likes which makes you think does that mean those who liked it and would want to say something similar now feel intimidated from doing it.

This silent erasion with no explanation doesn't help anyone.

Quite honeslty it just seems random.

Is this because moderation is only responsive, ie only posts that somebody actually reports get looked at by MNHQ staff?

So if side A of the debate tend to approach it by taking generalisations to pieces with reasoned arguments and leaving the original posts up to show how silly or nasty they are ("Operation let them speak") , but side B are more intent on taking down posters who offend them and hopefully getting them banned, then yes, you'd get a pattern where side B is just as, or more, offensive but side A get more deletions.

I think that's one of the problems @Heggettypeg

I'd say in general we prefer posts to stand because they illustrate our point for us. But there are lots of 👀 on these threads.

Second problem is MN can't always spot a pattern in posting (I understand why, I'm just saying it happens)

I had one of my rare deletions either yesterday or the day before. I did strongly imply that a poster who I did not name, though it was obvious who I meant, was one of the 'useful idiots', so that is probably why it got zapped.

I heard nothing from MN, though.

Sounds logical. If no one reports, MNHQ don't see it. So someone or somebodies have been reporting an awful lot of posts recently. Perhaps it's too much for the moderators to handle all at once so they just delete?

(I mean, they err on the side of caution)

I think that confusion probably entirely my fault! I sometimes have difficult finding words. and 'monitoring' came up in my mind instead of 'moderating'.

As soon as I saw 'moderator' in your post, I thought - of course, that's what I meant to say!
I had a feeling as I wrote it that it wasn't right, but they both began with M and both had a similar meaning and I'm afraid that was the best my brain could manage at the time.

Sorry for sowing confusion

Don't worry, Marie, I think we're all as confused as you are!

Fetish and AGP seem to stay up (now).
Mental health seem to be deleted.

Even though if we could discuss the latter we (general not MN) could maybe push for more help as services in that area are horrendously lacking for everyone, from CAMHS to PND to autism to eating disorders to... well, there are too many areas tbh.

It is an easy mistake to make, but if you know the history of the banning of some really knowledgeable mners and the injustice and the fall out due, in part, to the confusion of those two words, you will understand why it is so important.

Oh is that a rule!? That’s a new one to me and perhaps that’s why?!

I was talking in general about brigadiers/ activists trying to normalise obviously fringe socially unacceptable stuff and this was a big reason as to why there has been a backlash against trans ‘rights’. Obviously it was related to thread but I didn’t want to quote or pick a person to call out because that felt personal and it’s a wider problem than one poster on a thread. The damage has really already been done so I didn’t think that was fair to point blame at them.

https://www.mumsnet.com/i/trans-rights-moderation-policy

Being specific apparently gets you on rule 2 but being general gets you on rule 3.

Im pretty sure at least one regular disrupter has returned under a name change.

Agree. When people refer to Monitors, they are referring to a group of TRAs who watch Mumsnet, and once called it that when interviewed for an article.