Another data scrape from academia

[ArabellaSaurus]

Hi, MNHQ.

Alas, a couple of twits have been scraping the site, again.

https://bulletin.appliedtransstudies.org/article/4/1-3/7/

'In this study, however, we excavate what it means to write like a GC by analyzing how GC forum users rely on reactionary language and deploy storytelling practices in ways that calcify their anti-trans ideologies as personal and natural while rendering transgender people as anti-feminist, dangerous, and monstrous. To identify how GC groups perform political mythmaking and construct extremist identities, we undertook a computationally assisted discursive analysis of two popular GC forums: Ovarit and Mumsnet’s “Feminism: Sex & Gender” board (abbreviated to “FSG”). Through comparative platform discourse analysis, we analyzed over 80k posts and comments scraped from Ovarit and over 60k posts and comments scraped from Mumsnet (Burgess and Matamoros-Fernández 2016; Lewis and Marwick 2017)'

Data Collection
This study relied on a computationally-assisted discourse analysis of data collected from FSG and Ovarit using Python notebooks developed by one of the authors. Data from each platform was collected and analyzed separately, using the means below.
...
Mumsnet
Mumsnet posts within the FSG board are organized in a single feed. While Ovarit has forum subcategories (circles), FSG is a subforum itself, and does not have subcategories. Given that the discussion on FSG regularly involves trans- and gender-related subjects, it was likewise important to grab a wide sample. We scraped the most recent 3,767 threads and an accompanying 57,791 comments.5 In each case, the text, username, datetime, post type, and thread URL were collected. Data was collected in April of 2024.'

The lead author seems to be at the University of Alberta. I checked their ethics pages and I would imagine they are relying on the exemptions in my screenshot.

Canadian researchers tie themselves in knots squaring the circle on seeing themselves as ethical on all matters and yet seemingly content to scrape data against the T&Cs of the site.

We can look forward to these misrepresented ‘findings’ being used to support another PhD closer to home. Sigh.

PB Berge (they/she) is a media scholar, game designer, and the director of the Discord Academic Research Community. Their research falls at the intersection of trans game studies (especially tabletop roleplaying games and gaming fandoms) and feminist platform studies (specifically toxic technoculture and cross-platform dynamics).

Now I understand why so many young autistic males are falling prey to gender ideology as it seems ideologists inhabit Discord and Twitch and proselytise on those platforms.

Ignore that post ^ I meant to post that comment on the other thread in FWR.

Adding here though for clarification that on the Aston’s scraping thread, @JustineMumsnet said the following:

To clarify your second point, the recent changes to our pay/consent model don’t alter or weaken Mumsnet’s data protections in any way. Third parties cannot access user data without explicit permission. Thanks.

So unless MN gave permission, this data scraping was against T&Cs and therefore unethical. Academics are meant to uphold research ethics. In fact, most ethic committees are very stringent. At least for RG.

lol

Hi all,
Thanks to those who flagged this. To be clear, scraping or copying Mumsnet content without a licence breaches our Terms and Conditions. We did not grant permission for this project.

What we are doing now:

• We will contact* *the journal and the authors’ institutions requesting the ethics approval, data-handling details, and the immediate suspension of any dataset sharing that includes Mumsnet content.
• We will ask that any scraped Mumsnet data be deleted unless permission is obtained and proper safeguards are in place.

Why this matters:

• In our view posts on Mumsnet are often pseudonymous, not anonymous. Combining usernames, timestamps, and URLs can increase the risk of identifying posters.
• We require researchers to request permission so that user privacy and safety are protected and projects meet accepted ethical standards.

We'll keep you posted on the response. Meantime, if you have concerns about your posts or want to discuss this with us directly, please email [email protected] with the subject line “Data scraping”.

Thanks, MNHQ

Thanks for that, Justine.

Also adding my thanks.

Thanks Justine

Thanks from me also Justine. I also know that posters who mention their industry/profession (like GPs, lawyers, academics, teachers) can feel additionally vulnerable when they mention this in bona fide to give advice freely, but are then held up as an example of a "bigoted teacher, hope my children are never taught by them" and again, due to the pseudonymous nature of the site, can have additional worries about data scraping.

Also, I think I posted, that some people do sometimes post on MN under their real, identifiable names.