Influential Mumsnet Site Censors Day for Freedom, Freedom of Speech Discussion

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Oliver JJ Lane

Administrators of the influential Mumsnet website — seen as key opinion formers among middle-class demographics and courted as such by Prime Minister David Cameron during his tenure — have censored a freedom of speech discussion relating to the forthcoming Day for Freedom march.

The march, due to take place in central London on Sunday, May 6th, stands in opposition to the recent silencing of prominent right-wing and pro-freedom of speech figures online by social media companies. The event as announced will bring together voices including Breitbart London editor in chief Raheem Kassam, comedian-turned free speech martyr Count Dankula, and former English Defence League leader turned citizen journalist Tommy Robinson for a rally and speeches.

Apparently attempting to draw attention to the coming protest on the Mumsnet ‘Feminism Chat’ discussion board, user ‘DonkeySkin’ apologetically noted that while “some of these speakers have said things that go far beyond what is acceptable” to Mumsnet users, nonetheless “as many feminists are finding, we too are being silenced under the guise of ‘hate speech'”.

Concluding, the user wrote: “I’m not quite sure how I feel really. I’m just wondering what other people’s thoughts are on this, especially how it relates to the current silencing of feminists.”

Breitbart London contacted Mumsnet for comment Tuesday but they had not, at time of press, responded.

The message, and subsequent deletion by Mumsnet administrators for failing to be “in the spirit of the site”, comes among a broader conversation and controversy about transexual men presenting as women, and the rejection of them as true women by feminists.

Generating particular anger and controversy is the pejorative neologism ‘TERF’, or Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, a label used by hard left trans activists to abuse and silence biological women critical of moves to allow males who “self-identify” as the opposite sex into female-only spaces. On one side of the fence, magazine articles have accused Mumsnet of having become “a hub of online transphobia”, while others have noted the incredibly violent language used by trans-activists in opposing TERFs.

Blog Feminist Current reproduces a large number of posts sent by anti-TERF Twitter accounts calling for feminists supporting women to be violently beaten, guillotined, and “getting the wall” — slang for being lined up and shot or otherwise executed. Breitbart London reported in 2017 when transgender activists “beat up” 61-year-old feminist Maria MacLachlan as she attended a meeting on transgender issues in central London.

Indeed, the original Mumsnet poster self-identified as a TERF and noted that should likeminded feminists protest for the freedom to recognise only actual women as women, they would certainly be silenced by social media companies — a prediction that Mumsnet itself seems to have fulfilled by deleting the content despite having previously promised to not allow trans activists to censor speech on the site.

Mumsnet rose to the public consciousness most prominently during the era of Prime Minister David Cameron, who openly courted the website’s administrators and users as part of his rebranding exercise of the Conservative Party and conducted three online live chats with site users between 2006 and 2009.

He was not the first Prime Minister to do so — such was the voting power of Mumsnet users in the early 2000s that Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown also engaged in a live chat with the website, achieving headline-grabbing controversy when he failed to answer repeated questions about his favourite kind of biscuit.

Breitbart London reported in April when the Day for Freedom march was officially announced, as a promotional video showing prominent free-speech advocates with tape over their mouths. One of them was Mark Meechan better known by his online name Count Dankula, who was recently found guilty of hate speech and fined £800 for a comedy video posted online.

Another was street organiser and citizen journalist Tommy Robinson who told Breitbart London following his recent total ban from the Twitter platform: “The establishment wants to be able to say things about us without us being able to say things back, without being able to defend ourselves or explain our positions. This is how indoctrination works.”

Video producer George Llewelyn-John who created the promotional video for the Freedom Day march was immediately suspended from Twitter after announcing he was working on the project via a tweet.

Follow Oliver Lane on Facebook, Twitter: or e-mail: olane[at]breitbart.com

 

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