Mom Power! A parenting website brings down News of the World

[Tuesday_Morning]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/10/how-parenting-website-mumsnet-brought-down-ruport-murdoch-s-news-of-the-world.html


Parenting website Mumsnet published a list of News of the World’s advertising clients, complete with email addresses, and encouraged people to voice their complaints directly. There were also links to prepared messages, asking companies to reconsider advertising with News of the World.


"Doubtless the Press Complaints Commission might, eventually, have weighed in. But with laserlike accuracy, Mumsnet went for the advertisers in a campaign to shame them away from News of the World. And the great slumbering beast of public indignation—dormant during the years when the phone-hacking scandal was confined to the world of celebrities—was finally aroused.

Justine Roberts, cofounder of Mumsnet, told The Daily Beast: “The hacking story had been rumbling along for a while and people hadn’t really engaged with it. On the whole it hadn’t really caught people’s interests, particularly because it was seen to be one media group against another.

“But the Milly Dowler episode put it into huge contrast. People were sickened. On Mumsnet, we have a number of parents who had suffered the loss of a child, and their stories put it all into stark relief. That lit the touch-paper."


more at link

[Ruby the Liberal]

1. Can someone following this story fill me in on who Milly Dowler is and why her case kicked the

anthill on this story?

[saras]

3. Google is your friend

Quick summary - she was a young girl that was kidnapped and murdered. While the police were investigating, NOTW broke into the family's phone accounts and deleted phone messages. There's more, but that's enough...

[mercuryblues]

2. in a nutshell:

She was a teen that went missing. The police and her family were keeping tabs on her cell phone. Messages were being listened to and deleted, leading the police and the family to believe she was still alive. I suspect, because of this searching for her was not a top priority. She was found dead 6 months later. It seems that someone from News of the World was hacking into her phone and deleting the messages when the in-box filled up.

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. Oh damn.

Thanks. I get why they are so pissed. Thats just sick.