Mumsnet Corpus

[TokyoBouncyBall]

Not a TAAT, but a bit of googling as a result of a now deleted thread has led me to this:

https://fold.aston.ac.uk/handle/123456789/18

I note it says that the License is uncertain. Can you confirm that you have given permission for posts to be used in this way, or is there something that Aston might like to look into?

I note it says Users who wish to access this dataset must make a detailed application to FoLD and the researcher, as well as potentially gain additional agreement from an external organisation before they can be approved for access.

Given one of the uses it is being put to, I think it is a bit dubious to say the least.

Could you please ask how Aston justify adding the Mumsnet datascrape to a Forensics repository? All the other uploads are documents and data that relate to crimes or suspected crimes, whereas Mumsnet data includes every topic on Mumsnet, from trying to conceive to fashion to pets.

Why do we sit beside the Complete Writings of the Unabomber and chatlogs from paedo sites on the dark web?

The uploaders used us as test subjects for software (described us as a ‘sandbox’) yet rather than delete after use we are permanently stored in a small crime related library alongside data from The Shipman Inquiry.

If mass scraping Mumsnet is morally justified for the progress of computer linguistics (and I do not believe it is) why aren’t we in a normie linguistics laboratory rather than being filed with the murderers and child abusers?
How have Aston justified scraping and storing the incredibly sensitive stories (and random chat) of ordinary women as part of the AIFL’s self describe mission, ‘assisting the delivery of justice’, when our data is not forensic evidence of a crime?

Screenshot is text authored by Professor Tim Grant.

I've asked the boss. Just as soon as he's finished having a drink you are his next task.

I think the important issues here involve setting a precedent for NOT asking for permission in advance and then effectively bullying innocent people into saying it's ok to breach their human rights.

This can not be allowed to stand.

I want Aston to delete and apologise. Unreservedly.

Nothing else is really good enough tbh.

Otherwise the law is just totally undermined and pointless as it offers no protection.

Also if MN do agree to this retrospectively, I have questions as to their liabilities in terms of protecting their users too.

I agree with Red. They need to delete the data and disallow Palmer from using it in her PhD.

I want Aston to delete and apologise. Unreservedly.

And retract all papers written using this data

Can Aston be asked how bloody dare they allow the data that they've acquired be used to smear us as commiters of hate crimes! To me that in itself is a Hate Crime and I demand an apology.

Nearly went with the biglys.

Absolutely.

This is contemptible unethical research which think it can just break the law.

Eden Palmer’s PhD project is supposedly using data from 2008-2023.

Also if MN do agree to this retrospectively, I have questions as to their liabilities in terms of protecting their users too.

This, though even if MN did allow it, Aston still has no right to breach our human rights and MN must not be complicit in enabling them to do so.

The FOLD entry on the MN corpus was made in 2021. There's a copy on the Internet Archive.

I have not had time to catch up on all the posts but the update suggests that the VC sees a lot of merit/value in retaining the dataset and research coming from it, otherwise it would be deleted and an apology given. It is kind of ‘we will tell you what we are doing and why and that it is okay’. The framing is about how they are using and protecting the data, but surely the issue is whether they should have it in the first place.

I signed up to that to find out what it was about and report back here, but I just got an email this morning saying that it was cancelled due to "illness"

This was sent to you by Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics

Dear attendee,

Unfortunately this research seminar has been cancelled due to illness.

Best wishes,

The AIFL Events Team
A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of linguistic transphobia on MumsnetThursday, April 25, 2024 from 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM (BST)Aston UniversityAston StreetBirmingham B4 7ETUnited Kingdom
Organized by Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics

I have not had time to catch up on all the posts but the update suggests that the VC sees a lot of merit/value in retaining the dataset and research coming from it, otherwise it would be deleted and an apology given. It is kind of ‘we will tell you what we are doing and why and that it is okay’. The framing is about how they are using and protecting the data, but surely the issue is whether they should have it in the first place.

Yes, I think they hope it will go away.

Ok the more I think about this the angrier I get.

What has happened with Cass was a whistleblowing scandal which continues to be a whistleblowing scandal.

MN allowed free speech when everyone else was saying women and childrens rights don't matter here, you are all being transphobic.

And now we are seeing what is an effect a chilling attempt to railroad women's rights to free speech again because women WILL disengage from MN if this is allowed to stand.

MN was targeted because it was women speaking. There isn't research anywhere else.

This is institutionalised sexism.

Where the VC thinks he can sweet talk his way around the law and get women to be nice because it's for the greater good of 'research'.

'Research' that has such predetermined prejudice that it's under forensic criminal science!

What has been said on MN over the last 6 years and beyond has been able palpable anger of women to have their rights and the wellbeing and safeguarding of children being trampled over.

It is now beyond doubt this is a whistleblowing issue.

Yet the entire premise of the paper being about 'transphobia' totally neglects this.

It is APPALLING.

The context is HIGHLY important here.

Why isnt it being considered that this is a social injustice response and that women simply are angry at the undermining of the law.

And then this seems to be YET ANOTHER undermining of the law at the expense of women.

This isn't research. It's an attempt to vilify and tarnish the commercial reputation of MN and to silence women on it.

And if MN do say ok then it leaves MN vulnerable in future and it definitely leaves users vulnerable.

This is not ok.

Oh, it'll be 'blah, blah, catching terrorists and paedophiles, you want that to happen, don't you? We need to be able to track those paedophiles that are coming after ickle babies and bombing 8 year olds at concerts'

'Blah, blah, women's rights, maternity services'

'We can see that emotions are running high because they're stupid hormonal middleaged women'

'Don't worry, we are very clever and absolutely know exactly what we're doing' <pats Justine on head (metaphorically, hopefully)>

'Perhaps there is scope for a donation to the children's charity of your choice/an arrangement for appropriate use definitely not a bribe'

'Absolutely nobody can be identified by this information despite doxxing being the intended outcome of their entire setup'

'The government can do all of this already, we're part of it to ensure that the highest standards of research and knowledge are applied to protect women and children from paedophiles and terrorists as we are world leaders in advancing our own position'

'I take personal oversight on this because I'm a very, very clever man, you know'

'It's absolutely nothing to do with data breaches or times when the site has gone down because there's absolutely no affect upon site functioning to have every single post scraped by something accessing the site and making multiple requests a second'

'Of course we've taken into account that the data we're obtaining is absolute junk namechanges and quoted text could influence outcomes no we haven't, oh shit, we don't want our funders to realise we're selling them a pig in a poke'

'It's all absolutely safe and nobody can hack into the data as if it isn't what we are doing with it is the fucking problem'

and if that doesn't seem to be working

'That poor student is beside themselves with fear of attack and isn't able to leave their bedroom because of how scared they are, which wouldn't be good publicity for Mumsnet yes I am threatening you'

'Blah, blah, blah'.

This a million times over.

Me too. I'm in Research Integrity at my Uni and methinks they've messed up.

I fully support academic freedom.

But academic freedom must be actually academic, lawful and ethical.

This is none of the above.

The thing that makes me feel the most anger, upset, disquiet is the ‘sandbox we can play in’ metaphor - a phrase so good that I think he may have repeated it. ‘Not a black box, but a sandbox we can play in’.

The sexism lies for me in the fact that their sandbox was/is women’s stories and the men who created the dataset have not paused to even think about how they are using and presenting this. When I think of what I have posted over the years when I had no-one to talk to in real life, and what I have read that other women have posted, I think the person who came up with that phrase and treated the dataset like a playground is a person who has never had to think of what women have endured and never had to experience things where their safe space is a virtual anonymous forum. They have just taken what they can because they could. It is the sight of the doxy dude, almost gleeful about the sandbox he had created for them to play in. He’s not even thought about women’s stories as real, actual people’s experiences.

How did you get advance sight of his speech?

@NeverDropYourMooncup 'That poor student is beside themselves with fear of attack and isn't able to leave their bedroom because of how scared they are, which wouldn't be good publicity for Mumsnet yes I am threatening you'

That is actually spot on with what they're saying. The seminar that they announced for Thursday has, as of this morning, - just totally coincidentally of course - been cancelled due to "illness"

I think deleting the data will be the starting point, not the end point.

Not MNs problem or fault.

The duty of care to the student lies with the university for putting the student in a position where they didn't over see the PhD subject matter and execution properly.

Why is it always for women to clear up other people's (mens) mess?

They can piss off trying to shift the blame if they try that on.

I have nothing to add because previous posters have put it much better than I have. The question I now have is - what can we do practically speaking?

Usually a signed petition would be in order. We obviously can't do this because the whole point is we don't want to be identified. I guess we could do one with usernames but it might get messy. We could all email the VC, although again this would compromise our anonymity.

I imagine that there will be press stories about his soon.

Like others have mentioned, I feel very upset about this invasion of our space. This was one of the few forums that survived the 2007+ forum deaths and is a great resource. Now to find that people's personal stories are being stored on a database for forensic purposes as if we're criminals, for the purposes of training a LLM to identify individual people, is chilling.

It does feel like an attack on women. Why us? Why our forum, and not Reddit? It's because we are women and this is a space for women to be vocal and connect, so they think that they can push us around and silence us.

That is actually spot on with what they're saying. The seminar that they announced for Thursday has, as of this morning, - just totally coincidentally of course - been cancelled due to "illness"

There has been lots of discussion since then, this happened this morning and many of us received this message.