Corpus 2

Let’s just take a moment to remember that this is the man whose team (and indeed he) created a culture where they thought they could scrape an entire talk forum of mostly women talking about often quite sensitive subjects, create a ‘sandbox to play in’ from it, let other researchers access this sandbox, and quote from sensitive threads without any consideration of identification or consent. That is before we get to letting a student start on an ethically and methodologically unsound PhD.

[Edited to add: this can all be verified by what is on this and previous threads]

Let me check this... so the person who oversaw the research project that was so woeful and unethical (that it resulted in new guidelines being produced) is now in charge of everything including implementing those new guidelines?

The same person whose possible response to the woeful and unethical research project being discovered by the subjects of that project (Mumsnetters) was to change their picture on social media to one that could be interpreted as a huge 'eff you' to the subjects of that project? Maybe. I mean it could have been a huge coincidence, I guess.

What could go wrong?

untenable in its original form

you're kidding, no way, etc

'and I would have got away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling women'

Looking forward to seeing how Dr MacLeod manages to further cement the reputation of the esteemed Aston Institute.

Hmm. Tim Grant is stepping down as Director of the Institute of Forensic Linguistics.

Nicci Macleod is taking over.

'I've neither been pushed nor jumped, I made a choice about a year ago, when I told the University my plans, and I've been working towards this since then. '

https://x.com/timgrant123/status/1818697523273273745

Hopefully it wasn’t written by ChatGPT.

... and their PhD?

Thanks for the update.

I think I have missed a bit, what happened with that person's presentation?

Pretty sure that’s new!

Just because data is 'out there' does not automatically mean you can use it in your research

is hilarious

it also reads as though it's been said more than once, accompanied by increasingly wearied sighs, by whatever poor unfortunate has been charged with introducing Aston's finest to the obligations and responsibilities of real life.

And an apology from tricky Nicci to Mumsnet users, to be published on this site.

Sorry, I am spamming the thread, but this will impact researchers who are doing perfectly ethical research and gaining consent properly. It’s a knee jerk reaction and to me it shows that they are not on top of the issues.
I will stop multiple posting now and get on with the day.

In short, Aston just need to acknowledge they have stuffed up and sort the problem for their student, as well as addressing their ethics policy and procedures (the latter they seem to be doing).
Edited to add: some compensation for MN for their costs to be paid also!

Okay, so I had a search of Aston’s research ethics guidance webpages last night, and while I don’t see anything explicitly forbidding using social media data, I did find a section in the FAQs which I am fairly sure was not there before. I did read through their ethics guidance looking for what they said on social media research at the time the ethics review was released and could not find anything.

I posted a while back about the implications of the PhD ignoring MN’s terms and conditions for consent and indeed the legality of using it. The last paragraph of this FAQ seems to now acknowledge this issue, whereas the ethics application and the committee’s review of the PhD did not. I do suggest that, as well as taking legal advice as they are no doubt doing, they also read Jai McKenzie’s work on social media use for a more up to date primer and consult whoever supervised her when she was at Aston. (The ethics application and the review was quite shoddy).

I also suggest, only slightly tongue in cheek, that they refer also to my post upthread about how the PhD can be reframed and use less problematic sources, providing an additional year’s funding and maintenance for the student to do so.

Now that’s an excellent question.

One ex colleague, years ago, studied the young men hired to watch the cctv screen monitors for retail stores and on the street etc. It might be different now, but then they were predominantly (all) young white men. The research found that these young men would direct the cctv cameras on two subjects. I’m sure you will all guess it was either pretty young women or young men of colour….

In Aston’s case we do know that their ethics committee doesn’t read the papers cited to support the ethics of a research proposal. Like others, i believe this lapse is absolutely on the student’s supervision and departmental and university policy.

Who indeed?

We don't keep the rules; only the little people keep the rules

Given the specific field- forensic linguistics - is ostensibly all about ethics and language use, it's particularly shite that Aston have taken this long to click to the issues and only cave under legal pressure. Who watches the watchmen, really.

In one of their videos they were boasting to speech forensic linguists (which is much more regulated) that they had much more freedom.

What about ‘The infiltration and hyperbolic use of the word ‘suicide’ across social media as coercive control of discourse on gender dysphoria’.

The researcher could look where that stemmed from, its rise across platforms, the catchphrases used etc. That actually would be an incredibly useful piece of research to help those with gender dysphoria and clinicians. In fact I think it’s really essential someone looks at this and it is an ideal time to start with the announcement from the government adviser in the last few days. The constant chant of ‘suicide’ was disgraceful. It went against all guidance and was repeated by far too many people who should know better. The pressure parents were put under to do something that instinctively they knew was wrong under that threat. And worse, the pressure on vulnerable children.

I don’t think I could stomach doing that research though. You would need to carefully run it by ethics committees as it would be emotionally challenging.