Corpus 2

Surely you don't need a list? Just say 'all of them'. I mean us. I mean me.

Ok, it appears I very much like my own idea. Go me.

Sooo shall I make a list of my usernames, must be in the many thousands now and send off to their ummm data protection thingumy and ask for all data to be deleted cos it's just me?

If another me could get me the email address I'll need I'll start the email.

Oh that's also my sock account, one of them anyway so I'm in full agreement with myself, I mean @Winnading !

I for one welcome my new overlord, Winnading, I mean, me, in my other sock, myself.

That’s a marvellous idea.

I’m definitely just one of your many sock accounts tho, so obvs I would say that, wouldn’t I?

I don't think they are evil asking for photo id. I think it's their normal bureaucratic procedure. The person responding to the requests is probably fairly junior admin staff and they ask it of everyone who makes a data subject access request. Being fairly junior, they probably had nothing to do with making the policy that requires them to ask.

Obviously, this policy makes no sense for pseudonymous data. The person answering the email may even understand that. You would probably need to contact someone more senior or make a complaint to get a different response.

I worked in the public sector for a long time and am very familiar with bureaucracy.

Another option ( and I'm willing to do this ) is I email in my Id and say im everyone.
Please remove the whole thing, plus your research is junk cos theres only me posting.

And they absolutely don't need photo ID - as several PP have said, I can write "fuck off Aston" here and then tell them I've written that at this time under this user name and therefore can prove I'm Dumbledore and want all my data under this username deleted from all research publications, datasets and anything else where it is used.

That is a far more effective way of proving you're a username than a photo ID.

MOST women on FWR have taken great steps to ensure that the email addresses and usernames on here don't link them to their real life information because women have been threatened, abused, financially destroyed and in some cases punched by angry men (however they identify) if they stand up for women's rights.

However, we didn't think that our posts could be taken all together to try and figure out who we are. My email address doesn't ID me nor does any individual post, but taking all my posts and linking them over several years might. It is the potential that someone could do that - perhaps someone who has a preconception as all women on here as subhuman and libels us as 'transphobic'?

You know, like Aston's PhD student seems to have done?

THE WHOLE POINT of not wanting our data scraped is that we think people who have witch hunty tendancies may wish to use it to hurt us, our children and our families. Which has already happened to women.

They're on the wrong side of the law, and morality and humanity here.

I hope the University goes bankrupt.

They're evil bastards aren't they? Asking for photo id. Jeez - is that so they find it easier to conduct their witch hunt of noncompliant women?

IIRC there are a few occasional Mumsnetters
who have posted using real names (Maya F? Dennis K?) or real life nicknames (Ginner?), so perhaps they could contact ICO? Something to think about…

Roll up roll up get you Daffy Duck photo IDs here!

I still don't see how wanting data on a internet anonymous username that there will be ways to prove you are the owner of, requires photo ID of your real life persona.

How do they marry up Daffy Duck No198797 with Arabella Scott?

I know one of the SAR rules is photo ID but that assumes you are wanting knowledge of the data held of a real life heres my birth certificate named individual who would have photo ID.

I think there is possibly a number of reasons they are digging in about the thesis.

The first and most obvious is that it is on-going. So they have taken on a student, either as self-funded or funded by someone, either who has brought this project proposal to them or as a supervisor led proposal to do this PhD.

It is not the first time a PhD student at Aston has used MN, there is the example on the earlier thread of Jai MacKenzie. She took a completely different and much more ethical approach, but I did just wonder if there are other PhDs we just don’t know about.

Conversely, one might reasonably think also that the Aston doxy dudes have finished with MN and done the research they planned from the 2019 datascrape, and the database had been deposited for the use of other researchers. Therefore, it is the other researchers who now cannot use the material.

The other point is scale. If Aston are relying on copyright exemptions for research for their argument, then it would be odd to delete what is a fractional percentage of the site because the fair use part (5% I think) is would more clearly apply here. It is clear from the other thread that other academics have created mini corpuses for linguistic research (the Manchester and Nottingham examples) regardless of whether it breaches MN t&cs. So there is a question of precedent (I don’t agree with this, but it is the logic of their argument).

Alternatively, Aston have gone away and are going to come back with a more reasonable proposal for using the data which does not start from a negative presumption. I mean reasonable in terms of research question. As someone said on one of the FWR threads or the first site stuff one, it is possible to envisage a useful and interesting PhD which looks at this as a site for women’s activism and ties it to broader social and political developments. It is of course also possible to do that in the ethical Jai MacKenzie way and not rely on a data scrape. It is possibly not the forensic linguistics PhD envisaged or started, though.

The other alternative scenario is of course that Aston will update that they have re-thought and the 2024 data set will be deleted.

I find it disturbing that Aston is digging their heels in to this extent for one student and her PhD. Normally if you hit a snag with data collection for research, you have a rethink and find alternative data, if necessary change your method slightly. You basically get creative.

The reason that isn’t an option here, is that the whole thesis is to demonstrate that Mumsnet’s transphobia is marginalising those who call themselves the sex that they are not. The entire research is starting with the conclusion and working backwards, so, obviously, since the conclusion is about mumsnet, she can’t really think creatively.

That no one involved in this debacle at the Aston end can see how absurd that is, and how poor the research is quite astonishing. We all know that TRAs have had mumsnet in their sights for years, but this is one hell of a chip on several someone’s shoulders. -to be this insistent, that this thesis must be about mumsnet, and not, for e.g a wider study of increasing so-called ‘transphobia’ on social media and its impact irl seems like a two year olds tantrum when they can’t have exactly the peace of pasta the first set their sights on.

You could send a photo of daffy duck ffs. It's absolute hogwash.

Thank you similarminimer
Yes, when I was reflecting on this, I was not sure how a photo ID would prove one way or the other that you ‘owned’ a pseudonym. I am also curious how you will know one way or the other that your posts are deleted out of the dataset.

Received from Aston today

In line with the ICO’s guidance, the University asks for confirmation of identity so that we can check a person making a request under the Data Protection Act 2018 is who they claim to be. This helps us ensure that we do not process your personal data at the request of someone else. We will therefore need confirmation of your identity in order to be able to proceed with your request.

This of course wont help at all as i am asking about my posts, which funnily enough arent under my literal name. But in the spirit of highlighting this illogical mess on behalf of FWR I have sent a photo ID, with significant qualms

Thanks. Placemarking.

Thank you

Thanks all

Marking place. Thanks all.

Placemarking, thank you @TokyoBouncyBall

Genius.

Brilliant 🤩

😁 I tried putting the actual building on the naughty step...

Oh and I've sorted out my photo ID. I'm hoping the AI misspelling of scraped for scrapped is a good sign!!