Corpus 2

@Yampy I think it's unfair to claim that Mumsnet are sweeping this under the carpet. There have been at least 3 threads about this (I think in Site Stuff?), and @JustineMumsnet has been open about the conversations she's been having with Aston. I'm guessing there's a lot that she can't say, as - and I'm guessing again - I think that lawyers will be involved.

Witches are indeed often depicted as elderly

Ancient

From that American funding page:

• Applications may include identifying counterintelligence risks, combating misinformation online, fighting human trafficking and even deciphering authorship of ancient religious texts.

Which one are mumsnetters again?

I had, to my shame, never heard of the other Arabella Scott until your post so I Googled.

This from the EDI pages of University of Edinburgh, no less.

https://equality-diversity.ed.ac.uk/celebrating-diversity/inspiring-women/women-in-history/arabella-scott

The irony, or hypocrisy, or both.

Of UoE that is, not OUR Arabella.

Firstly, I don't think your posts are rambling or a mess. You made some really good points.

Yes, why hasn't this been picked up by the media? It should have been.

I agree, it's about shutting down support for women and a place women can speak freely.

We need to support MN by reporting to ICO, Universities and others should not feel they can scrape MN with impunity.

Upthread a PP said something about how MN helps at least 1000 women a year to escape abuse, I think. It can be a lifeline for women who've been otherwise isolated. Losing this will harm women.

P.s. I think my posts are always a rambling mess compared to others too - there are some ferociously intelligent women on FWR! But they're generally friendly as long as you don't express an interest in eating warm milk, bananas and weetabix. There are some standards.

I do think complaints via ICO are the way to go now, and will do so once I have the time.

Aston have shown they cannot be trusted with personal data, several times over.

I don't trust them.

I'm also interested not only in DPO 2018 and GDPR breaches but also copyright. People like Sarah P and Dennis Noel Kavanagh and - obviously - Glinner are paid writers. They've signed up to MN T&Cs if they're on here but they did not consent to use of their posts by Aston. Posts that can be linked to them in real life directly and for which they will retain copyright for any use outside of MN's use of these words (it says that in the MN T&Cs)

I would have thought they could sue for breach of copyright as well as DPO 2018 / GDPR breach of use of personal data. MN did not allow the Aston scraping, remember.

Relevant bit in MN Terms "Subject to the rights and license you grant to us under these Terms of Use, you retain all your right, title and interest in your User Content submissions. This means that copyright in your User Content will remain with you and that you can continue to use the material in any way, including allowing others to use it."

I'm only intelligent in writing (and even that's a self-perception!)
But, Aston, my little 'uman fingers type the words, it's not an abstract real world iden-titty, nor a bot, wot does it.

Thank you & I’m also sorry 💐I can focus in on things sometimes. I do get nervous about posting on here as you’re all incredibly coherent & intelligent, where as I’m a rambling mess most of the time 😂

Yes, previous posters have said they've requested this but MN have said they'd have to report each post individually, which is obviously a huge time commitment and I'd argue is not 'in the spirit' really when someone's stolen the data and used it for a new reason which we did not consent to.

It's a bit of a problem if you previously posted under a former account (as I did) then asked for deletion of that account. My account was deleted but none of my posts were. If I now, knowing about the Aston shits trying to defame women, want those posts retrospectively deleted then how do I prove it's the same poster if I've also deleted the email account associated with that MN account.

I only deleted my account because of the previous data breach and a fear I could be linked in real life.

Yampy, I was agreeing with you, and have just said I think you're completely right. Apologies if it didn't read like that.

I better duck out then as I’m obviously not ‘intelligent’ enough for this conversation & anger is clouding my judgement, wouldn’t want to lower the tone.

In response to ArabellaScott: Yes, I think this can be requested. But at least one person on the previous thread said they had done this and so far, nothing had happened to their posts - there were a couple of similar things they said about that, that were about 1-2 weeks apart.

Whatever Aston's action, if people lose trust in MN and MN ends up with a critical mass of withdrawal (I can imagine the scale of the practical work to try to keep up with it that this would produce as well) then Yampy is completely right.

Are users able to request Mumsnet delete all previous posts? I've seen some users have this done before.

It does seem that Mumsnet should be making a site wide announcement to alert users that their posts/data from 2008 to 2024 may well have been scraped and possibly used for research without their knowledge or consent.

Anyone is free to complain directly to the ICO if they feel unable to complain to Aston's Data Protection Officer.

https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

I've not yet done so but going by the decidedly lukewarm responses from Aston I think that's the only way we will get the thing taken seriously.

And I agree that this is a big problem for Mumsnet - not just for Aston, either. Who else is doing 'scraping'? Are women going to be happy that an institute that is conducting research to try and link posters across different platforms is scraping Mumsnet? Is everyone on Mumsnet going to be happy to be 'de anonymised' when they are sharing intimate, personal details? And when people are actively trying to create a case that Mumsnetters are committing 'hate crimes' every time they refuse to accept that men can't become women?

Interesting, thanks for that.

Presumably joint MI6 / CIA project in the background. Cheltenham just down the road.

Think deeply about the distinctions that seem to have been made, in the FOI language, anyway, connecting to the idea of Human Participants (much less likely to have "willing" added to any part of the phrase at any time), or Real World Identities (as distinct from usernames and words that make up the posts that are allegedly open to all) - in 'philosophy' terms, feels more abstract, doesn't it?

This won't be accidental. Linguistics and philosophy are intertwined. But so is language and being a human in real life. Especially if written language. Quite famously, really, a real core of linguistics at all.

Then throw the layer of the scraped corpus being the source (so not the actual active forum subject to the forum managers' rules and principles), and the copyright considerations of human entities vs 'real world identities' into it all - which have also been considered intelligently within these 2-3 corpus threads.

Funding is from the US government
https://www.aston.ac.uk/latest-news/aston-university-forensic-linguistics-experts-partner-113-million-funding-authorship

https://www.iarpa.gov/research-programs/hiatus

Why isn’t this on the main site? I find this all incredibly disturbing, why has the media not picked up on it? A bit of me thinks that this was funded & started to close down the main outlet for women to gather & talk freely. Seems like mumsnet are in a catch 22 situation, if they publicly mention this or make an announcement on site women would start backing off, they’ll see their information as not being secure or used against them for nefarious reasons. I think this is the main goal, to cause as much disruption to mumsnet. Who are Astons big American funders? It’s concerning that this appears to be being quietly swept under the carpet by Aston & mumsnet. At least Eden has now had a taste of what it feels like to be under a microscope, obviously on a personal crusade, reap what you sow. Those FOI requests are shocking, all the n/a’s & then their monologues about supporting themselves, disgusting.

Is there anything we should be doing, organisations that hold these people to account, shouldn’t we all collectively be looking to sue Eden & Aston? Aligning women talking about their rights & trauma with incels & terrorists, libelling us all, I get that users want to remain anon but this is huge & is yet another major attack on women.

Photo ID.

To be honest with the name Arabella Scott they have no way of knowing if you are actually a real person called Arabella Scott, or if you are the ghost of the Arabella Scott

Oh, I got a response to my email yesterday.

I'll redact the name.

So you know, that's Aston interacting directly with me. As a human being.

Well the lovely women who pointed out the release of Eden's phone number in the FOI have had direct interaction with Aston and you could argue with Eden already.

And as there's only 6 of us, that probably scuppers the research if nothing else did.

I mean, if we were less scrupulous people we could’ve easily scuppered the ‘no interaction with participants’ thing just by calling Eden Palmer’s personal phone number, the number that Aston University thoughtlessly published via FOI reply!