Corpus 2

Because of the mean women in relationships who want to leave their husband's after discovering the abusive Arsehole they've been married to for 30 years who had affairs, watched extreme porm, and beat the crap out of their wives are not at work like they're supposed to be but parading around the living in their wife's knickers. Of course those women will be labelled as transphobic, no mention will be made of the fact that the trans thing for some men is just another way to abuse their wives!

In what way is snooping on women in abusive relationships going to help Eden in her brave fight against the evil gender critical feminists? I know I could ask the same question about people's LGB children (though I suppose from Eden's point of view supporting them might be seen as transphobic, because if they are happy and supported they won't need to feel the need to explore the trans option).

Before all this Aston stuff came to light, on a different thread about something else, I had a little rant to the effect that the social sciences are academically dodgy and we'd be better off without any of them. Someone suggested a couple of disciplines that (unlike sociology and psychology) had some credibility - linguistics was one. The more I read about this, and particularly the dishonest and semi-literate stuff posted by this PhD candidate the more I think it's as stinky as any other stinky thing. An undergraduate essay writer wouldn't get away with such a shoddy statement in any respectable discipline.

On the plus side imagine the scene...

Come September there will be all those mumsnetters who over the past 17/18 years have been here since their 6ft teenager was the size of bean in their belly. And those teenagers will be in their final year of school looking at universities.

When their parents are deciding on which university gets their hard earned pension pot that they are putting towards their children's university education I can imagine many will not want to give one single penny to Aston after they've done an advanced search on Here for Aston University.

Good luck Aston because like most things in life if you have a good experience you maybe tell one person, if you have a bad experience you'll tell AT LEAST 10 people. And how many mumsnet users is Eden looking at pissing off over the three boards?? Then multiply it by 10!

Reap what you sow Aston University! Reap what you sow

you don't even @ some OPs because its too dangerous on the relationship board.

You are so fucking irresponsible Aston University!

Fine (I mean it's not but you know!) go after FWR most of us know what we are getting ourselves in to. But the LGBT children's board and the relationship board.

Have you lost you bloody minds Aston University?

Honestly have you? because I can see no other reason for your complete lack of giving a fuck!

And yes, the Relationships board has women in abusive relationships seeking help, and being offered help by other women, many of whom share highly intimate details of their histories and lives.

MN estimates the site helps over 1,000 women a year leave abusive relationships.

The people at Aston merrily 'scraping' data are going to impact on that. They are jeopardising a source of support for women in the worst possible situations. Cut off a source of support, advice and comfort to women suffering abuse.

I'm barely able to formulate how fucking angry that makes me.

I admit I was still too annoyed at the FWR board being scraped so hadn't really noticed which other boards they were using!I

Christ!

Fuck me they are ethically and morally corrupt!

BIWI I am sorry.

I would suggest Aston needs to consider that they will be outing the entire family and potentially putting posters into dangerous situations eg. if a partner recognises themselves.

I'm really sorry, BIWI. It's a gross invasion of privacy and the casual way that Eden fails to even acknowledge that the discussions on that board are sensitive and personal is appalling.

I'm angry about the LGBT Children board being used too; the board was set up at my request because of our situation with my (gay) son. While I realise that anything I post is visible to anyone else, it feels wrong and intrusive to be using personal posts like mine in the overall context of 'proving' that MN is transphobic.

Apologies @ArabellaScott for using you to prove what we all know, but I have just cut and pasted a line from your 3.17 post (Eden’s own words on why her PhD is not likely to identify anyone) to a search on mumsnet and guess what happened?

There is no way that the PhD can have any quote that isn’t instantly traceable to a username which can then be used to build up a picture by searching all that usernames posts.

I also can’t quite believe it’s also the children on the LGBT board she’s gone for?! And the relationship board which often involves domestic violence. Wow.

Eden and Nicci will bring up some interesting search results for baby names on mumsnet in future!

And it is due December 2026 (the PhD not a baby). So gives me a bit of thinking time before I make up my mind on my data. It would be useful if Aston could issue a date for last withdrawl before it is conceived.

'Scraping' seems to be a very new thing, so I imagine the ethics of it are evolving as we speak.

What's interesting/worrying is that one makes a post on here while tech is at a certain stage, and as time wears on, tech gets more powerful and sophisticated, leaving issues like the ability to identify posters when that really probably wasn't possible at the time the post was made. So how is 'informed consent' ever possible, when the 'informed' bit or the context changes all the time?

I've been following with interest, when I have time. Your posts have been articulate, intelligent and funny, and I'm really grateful to you all. I'm seriously considering if I can record my time in reading this thread on my CPD as I'm definitely learning a lot!
I work in the corporate world in a related area and I feel like I'm constantly a lone voice on the ethics of scraping, though I deal with numerical data unrelated to people so the gdpr stuff doesn't apply. I've been wondering if I'm just too old and therefore wrong on this because I'm not keeping up with the times. That's what the faces of my younger colleagues are telling me every time I say anything. So whilst I'm still appalled by the scraping I'm also reassured that I'm not alone now.
Aston described the second scrape as much smaller, and yet it's still too big and therefore impossible to seek permission according to Eden - they can't both be correct surely? And it doesn't explain why Eden didn't seek permission from Mumsnet HQ.

Tis true! I am able to be thoroughly annoyed at Eden and her apparent couldn't give a toss who is upset by what I'm doing attitude whilst being very concerned that the University screwed her over in that response by not redacting her personal information properly!

Yep!

Eden is so far from impartial in any way on this. She truly believes we are a bunch of bigoted transphobes. When in the main we are parents concerned about children and women concerned about women's rights and men circumventing societal norms by using the trans movement to do all the things they couldn't as men. When it comes to being in women's single sex spaces etc etc etc.

I think everyone is pissed off with Aston, but nobody wants anyone having personal info exposed like that.

And yes, I've used a burner email. It seems Aston can't be trusted with anyone's info, whether out of malice or incompetence. Or both.

What decent women you are.

Frankly I can't be arsed mopping up after Aston after the unethical disregard they've shown to vulnerable parents. The people releasing this info, sitting on the "ethics board" are paid, you're not. Definitely use burner accounts and don't put yourself at risk. Aston will throw you under the bus in a heartbeat as they've shown.

The alternative is to email (using a burner account) a journalist in one of the spaces talking about GDPR / DPA enforcement / compliance / the law and get them to speak to Aston.

As you say Arabella the parents on the LGBT board almost certainly did NOT expect their attempts to find a community and get help to end up in some libellous PhD thesis for eternity.

I find it quite astonishing how Eden categorically seems incapable of considering any impact of her research on others. She intends to harvest quotes from LGBT parents board, which is parents sharing intimate, difficult issues on a quiet corner of the website, but doesn't even give a cursory nod to any issues with taking their words and sharing them with whomever Eden fancies sharing them with. She doesn't imagine that parents looking for help and support with parenting may find her work intrusive, insensitive, unethical, hurtful, abusive - which is before we even get into the complex legalities of the situation?

But she can whang on for several paragraphs about how being exposed to different viewpoints may necessitate fucking therapy.

My sympathy is scant, tbh. Eden needs to learn some empathy, imagination, and compassion.

I always thought that if you were seeking to explore a hypothesis, you had to start with the aim of disproving it. That's not what's happening here, is it? And it seems that Eden has gone way beyond a simple hypothesis and believes her approach is based on a fact. i.e. MN is transphobic.

Great, well done.

Thanks mum

Right, fuck it, I'll email that lawyer on the thing.

Presumably she'll be able to redact the FOI after it's done? Or should one alert the FOI people?

Why is every fucker so FUCKING INCOMPETENT we have to do everything? Mumsnet - we just ARE everyone's fucking mother.

FFS.

I'd alert Aston, only I can't email the bastards as they're liable to put me on some kind of list.

Hopefully someone will tell Eden and get someone at Aston to redact that info.