They scraped Mumsnet again.

. intersex variations and fertility challenges represented as “disorders” of “normal” functioning rather than legitimate identities.'

When did infertility become an identity?

GC users’ rhetoric consistently disparaged, targeted, and demonstrated enmity towards sex workers, who were referred to as “prostitutes” (nOvarit = 509; nFSG = 371)

In my reading of the paper, the nOvarit and nFSG are just word counts. I could be wrong (much of the methodology appears to be missing) but It is not clear if they take account of context at all.

It is also not clear if they they take account if a user's post includes a copy of a previous post i.e. if the collection process double, triple (or more) some word counts.
As other posters have pointed out, it does not seem to be a serious bit of research at all.

I guess that if you have been given a grant to research this you have to submit something to justify the payments. All you need is a supervisor who is happy to give it a cursory glance, say well done and sign it off

@IwantToRetire “biological sex,” conceptualized as reproductive anatomy and karyotype, inherently determines the “correct” sex and gender a person should possess.

They seem to have completely ignored the many GC people who don't have a gender at all. I also keep thinking about this claim:

GC users’ rhetoric consistently disparaged, targeted, and demonstrated enmity towards sex workers, who were referred to as “prostitutes” (nOvarit = 509; nFSG = 371) and accused of proliferating the “porn addicted” and “pornsick” (nOvarit = 1,350; nFSG = 482) conditions under which gender ideology allegedly proliferates. Denigration of sex workers is an established component of GC ideology."

I'm not familiar with Ovarit, and I don't understand how they came to this conclusion, but on this board, and in GC conversations elsewhere I've never come across such a thing, never mind as "an established component of GC ideology." It would come down to blaming women for men's failings, which is what men do, and is certainly not practised by the women of FWR.

Perhaps I didn't read enough of the study - since what I did read was garbage - but I can't actually see how they came to any of their conclusions.

Do University Libraries usually have their own research and publishing department.

Does this Library also allow pro gender critical research?

They seem to have one paper which is I think isn't research bu an article by Karen Dansky as to why some gender critical feminists who would normally vote Democrate voted Trump.

I've given up trying to read the "research" but want to ask a basic question.

Is it really "research" if you state at the beginning that you have a set of beliefs and then go round trawling the internet to pick out the bits that support your already decided opinion:

The fundamental organizing principle of anti-transgender political movements is the belief that transgender identities are illegitimate and that “biological sex,” conceptualized as reproductive anatomy and karyotype, inherently determines the “correct” sex and gender a person should possess. Within this framework, sex and gender are both determined by what gametes and reproductive role a person “should” develop, with intersex variations and fertility challenges represented as “disorders” of “normal” functioning rather than legitimate identities. Gender identities other than “male” and “female” are dismissed entirely as fabrications or delusions.

Its a bit like if I was an atheist (implying I dont believe in a god or any god) and then set out to show that, guess what, some people do believe that there is a god or gods.

The arrogance of thinking that your belief (in gender identity = sex) is the norm and anyone who thinks differently is mad, bad or dangerous.

@ArabellaSaurus

Thank you for the thread, and for alerting MNHQ.

Good work.

a side-effect of the dispersal of GC internet users is that activity in anti-trans spaces has become increasingly obfuscated and insular.

Translation: the women have made private spaces to talk where we can't monitor them for compliance with rightthink, and we don't like it.

a public interest case for academic freedom to comment on published material

What public interest is there in defaming the members of an online forum concerned with women's rights? This paper is libellous: it starts from the false assumption that we are motivated by hostility towards trans people (as opposed to a desire, rooted in safeguarding, to keep the bepenised people out of the spaces reserved for the becunted people) and that false premise constitutes the defamation.

In the past, academics have researched how we talk to each other without slandering us. Someone did a paper on the semiotics of the Suffragette imagery we use without slandering us.

Justine has commented on the site stuff thread:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5441037-another-data-scrape-from-academia?reply=148441163&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

Isn’t this just the digital version of eavesdropping on conversations which you know you won’t like so you can use them to back up whatever point of view you’ve already decided on?

Unfortunately this is the sort of crap "research" that our ICO and politicians will rely on when making new internet laws and refusing IP access to allegedly harmful content. It's already happening and even an international image hosting site (imgur) has been blocked to UK users based on this. Funny how porn is always allowed through though.

Isn’t this just the digital version of eavesdropping on conversations which you know you won’t like so you can use them to back up whatever point of view you’ve already decided on?

How very incel!

“othering narratives,essentializing narratives, and authenticating narratives”

Note not false or incorrect information.

I bet they were gutted at that result. No lies just well crafted rhetoric that doesn’t agree with trans ideology.

There's a thread on this in Site Stuff, so MNHQ must be aware.

I came on this thread this morning to see if there was any response from MNHQ yet. Do they know / care about this?

Well, Ovarit has closed. And MN FWR is not what it was since the Supreme Court ruling. I’m not really interested in ‘telling people to fuck off’ in principle, or endlessly rehashing recent fights.

Oh bugger, Ovarit is no more.

While we might celebrate the closure of openly hateful communities on major social platforms, a side-effect of the dispersal of GC internet users is that activity in anti-trans spaces has become increasingly obfuscated and insular.

Sorry boys, you might have bullied other sites into submission, but Ovarit and MN will keep telling you to fuck right off to the far side of fuck, and then fuck off some more.

Public interest case? What is that and where are the published guidelines on it? Without offering evidence, this term sounds like something out of newspaper speak.

However, academic research is held to higher standards than journalism.

You may want to argue that data "should" be scraped without the platform’s consent, but all research ethics guidelines - for reputable researchers and universities - informed consent is one key aspect in using data, even internet data. Even the association of internet researchers highlights the ethical imperative in obtaining consent when a direct quote is used.

If you are an academic researcher, then I very much hope that you revisit your understanding of research ethics, your university’s ethical guidelines, and the UK Research Integrity Office. ‘Want to’ does not override legal and ethical research requirements involving real people.

https://ukrio.org/wp-content/uploads/UKRIO-Code-of-Practice-for-Research.pdf#page17

https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf

Edited to add: it would not be up to site owners to say whether it could be studied or not. AFAIK there's no legal or necessarily ethical impediment to that

Your opinion is not in alignment with most reputable guidelines on ethical and legal use of internet data. There are some exemptions but you are making too sweeping of an opinion here. Informed consent of those whose data is being used - including whole direct quotes - is still a key ethical issue. I’m shocked that you are arguing otherwise. There are good reasons for being aware of and sensitive to potentially dangerous outcomes in using such data. Hence the need for guidelines.

I do understand. And it's up to academic institutions to ensure their own research practices are ethically robust - I know there is space for public input on that. Unfortunately, bad actors of all kinds can do what they like in grabbing data, I honestly don't think universities are trying to act badly and if individuals within them do, they can ruin their careers or even be prosecuted.

All I was saying is that if a researcher is recording public (not hidden or back-end) data, and storing it correctly, and following protocols on anonymising, it would not be up to site owners to say whether it could be studied or not. AFAIK there's no legal or necessarily ethical impediment to that. I assume MNs T&Cs are trying to discourage the misuse of commercial software like NVIVO. I don't think it is or should be possible to prevent academic research of the public internet and I don't imagine MN would want to do that.

I don't do this kind of research and I don't work in HEIs any more - but I think we need good studies of the public internet. I don't intend to upset or be argumentative for no reason.

"If content is properly anonymised' is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

This is our issue.

And when you combine the dodgy approach to users anonymity with the personal issues discussed on here AND the determination to pain everyone here as some kind of bigot, I think there is s problem. Its not the harmless, neutral situation you describe.

And I know it is users choice to share, but women have precious few opportunities to connect in this way; why should this be taken away because of aggressive data grabs by entities who are supposed to be ethical Ie universities

Edit to add:it's not just 'commenting' on the material, it's attempting to paint everyone who posts here in a negative light (and in Aston's case, identity us).

You do need to re-read it, as you say, as that is not at all what the analysis says about FWR.

Creating a dataset of postings and offering to share it is irresponsible, because the scrapers have no idea what the people they share the dataset with will use it for.

And before anyone says "but Russian hacking gangs could do this", I know they can. "Criminals can do it anyway" is not an adequate basis for university ethics committee decisions.