A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet

[IwantToRetire]

By Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics

It has been suggested that the forum-style parenting website Mumsnet is a hub for ‘gender-critical’ feminism, which directly opposes transgender rights, to be practised with little moderation (Livingston, 2018). This presentation reports on the initial stages of a project aiming to investigate that the potential intensification of linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet may lead to further marginalisation of transgender people offline (Powys Maurice, 2021). Though studies of non-linguistic transphobic rhetoric on Mumsnet (e.g., Pedersen, 2022; Mackenzie, 2019), and discourse analyses of other radical online communities (e.g., Krendel, 2020) have both occurred, this project is the first to analyse linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet. It also contributes to existing literature surrounding UK-based ‘gender-critical’ feminism; linguistic transphobia; and radical online community discourses.

The presentation explores the rise of potentially ‘gender-critical’ linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet over time through the corpus linguistic (CL) analysis of the ‘Feminism: Sex & Gender Discussions’ board, using three corpora comprising a fifteen-year timeframe: 2008-2013; 2013-2018; and 2018-2023. As the project is still ongoing, preliminary findings will be presented, namely a comparative overview of trends yielded in frequency analyses. Overall, this presentation provides insights into the growing commonality of potentially ‘gender-critical’ feminist rhetoric on Mumsnet and its effect on increasing transphobic discourse on the site.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-corpus-assisted-discourse-analysis-of-linguistic-transphobia-on-mumsnet-tickets-880795271367?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

(I had just finished my favourite tea time treat of catching up on FWR and was going to get back to the grindstone when this popped up on my feed. So have come back as it is too good not to be shared. Enjoy!)

Given the shabby, sloppy, possibly illegal way the university has behaved, yes, I think it's essential. What exactly are they up to, what are their ethical processes, and how have they arrived at them?

Poor process helps nobody and any robust safeguarding process will only benefit from interrogation.

I'm not jumping to anyone's defence but you could say the same about victims of crimes who have books, TV shows and films made about them. I know I would never consent to my life being pored over for a podcasters thrills but no one really seems to consider ethics when a person is deceased even "better" if they died at the hands of an infamous murderer. At least these police records are being used for a positive purpose.

Maybe it's worth someone submitting an FOI asking about these processes?

That's a good question. Given what this thread has uncovered, I'd suggest there's a public interest in women being aware of who has access to so many years of women's voices. This started from a student's premise that FWR data could be used to prove the transphobia of women on here - with the new Scottish hate crime bill that could have serious implications for many women.

It now appears that transcripts and videos of women reporting rape have been handed over (by the police) to the person overseeing what at face value, seems to be a bad faith bit of research. Seems reasonable to question the ethics of the people involved in all this and to find out how raped women give informed consent for their police videos to be shared with these people.

I think you raise a valid point.
For me, the looking at the details of one person’s work came from thinking - fuck, I never knew this could be done!
I also wonder how much data protection legislation has changed so what was okay in 2008 is not okay now (which does not invalidate the fact that the 2008 work was approved by an ethics committee). But at the same time, there’s clearly work going on in forensic linguistics which does have quite wide implications for privacy and data confidentiality which are probably not widely known. (And no doubt other areas as well).

I think there is work going on in ALL fields that should give people cause for concern over their privacy. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Privacy does not exist.

If women were asked for their consent, and there were clear safeguarding boundaries explained to them, I imagine many women would like to assist this research.

I'd expect to be able to consent to each individual person outside the police seeing those interviews/transcripts etc, with knowledge of their background etc, or I wouldn't give my consent at all.

Agree about the ethics of all the above. But does that make this right?

Do raped women give informed consent for their videos to be shared with these people. I would suspect (but have no evidence) that the majority of women would say absolutely not. I think it's worth investigating as I suspect it's yet more evidence of a casual approach to the rights of women.

Who gets to watch these videos for research purposes? Do they have enhanced DBS checks? What protocols are in place to ensure security? Can they be copied, photographed, victims identified by name, facial recognition ?

We know that the police at times do abysmal job of respecting victims (Biba Henry & Nicole Smallman come to mind). Are there strict protocols to ensure that these researchers are any better?

I think it's worth investigating as I suspect it's yet more evidence of a casual approach to the rights of women.

Who gets to watch these videos for research purposes? Do they have enhanced DBS checks? What protocols are in place to ensure security? Can they be copied, photographed, victims identified by name, facial recognition ?

We know that the police at times do abysmal job of respecting victims (Biba Henry & Nicole Smallman come to mind). Are there strict protocols to ensure that these researchers are any better?

Yes, exactly.

It sold out now. I am gutted, gutted I tell ya.

It's hard for rape victims to access support precisely because the sharing of experiences is retraumatising, and also because a burden of shame and embarrassment is part and parcel of rape and the aftermath. Often survivors want as few people as possible to know about what happened.

I agree with Eresh that I'm underwhelmed at the brief section on 'ethics' in that thesis, which imo should be substantial.

The entire purpose of the thesis is presumably to help improve things for victims, so why are they given scant consideration?

Sometimes people in roles concerned with 'justice' can become more focused on presenting themselves as righteous than genuinely considering the wellbeing of the 'wronged' they are ostensibly working for.

It's not actually research if the student has already decided what the conclusion will be.

Ethics is for universities and the data source being forum posts doesn't change that.

True, in research you need to be open mind about the outcome. However, what we have seen is a summary of the talk, which apparently include some preliminary conclusions, not the actual introduction to the PhD, which is hopefully more rigorous - though who knows? From the information in the thread so far I'm not hopeful.

I don’t think this is a reason not to discuss specific instances where they arise or highlight broader concerns, though, and data protection legislation exists for a reason. The ethics of how you use data, particularly from vulnerable people and on sensitive topics, is worthy of consideration as well.
Surely you are not saying ‘privacy does not exist, so no point trying to work out how specific data has been gained’ (I paraphrase of course). Data protection legislation has also changed in the last sixteen years (since the data discussed above was collected) to take into account changing views and circumstances of data collection, although clearly AI and technology means it is probably hard for the law to keep up.
But even the people at Aston with their MN database must have realised there were ethical concerns about what they were doing because of how/where the data was stored and the fact that they immediately took down the links about it. Whether they delete it now is another matter.
I do also think if someone has built an academic career in part on interview transcripts, then the ethics of those transcripts should be open to question.
Where I do have concerns, however, about poring over an individuals work is precisely the fact that I am doing so under an anonymous pseudonym, whereas Nicci MacLeod is the person being discussed. So there is an imbalance here in different ways.
Which brings me back to the point that I use MN mainly for supporting other women as I have gained support myself in past years. I do so with an anonymous name as these are often sensitive topics which women benefit from being able to talk about anonymously. And yes, I have talked about sexual violence, pregnancy loss, other sensitive issues under various names because I don’t want people I know in my professional life to know. So I do not want to use my real name in this forum, but I still think these issues of data, ethics and how what women have talked about in various contexts for different reasons is used should be discussed.
No doubt these issues may be pertinent to what the prof (Tim someone) at Aston reflects on when he talks about anonymity on the internet, maybe not.

Normally when consent is given for research there's the option to opt out in future, no? Did the rape victims have that? Can they withdraw their consent?

Of course nobody on MN was asked for consent, so the point is moot, there.

Given that the Aston Institute has received at least £5 million pounds of public money to carry out research, it should be held to a standard.

Plus, I'm sorry, but ethics is purported to be the whole founding fucking principle of the Institute - it's supposed to be about 'justice'.

'to improve the delivery of justice' is the fundamental aim.

So in my view all ethical considerations should have been considered frontwards, backwards, sideways, rigorously tested, recorded, and adhered to.

Yes, there are power differentials between anonymous internet users and named, qualified, paid professionals. Given that some of the uni's past research appears to have attempted to use datasets to cross reference and identify people, it's unclear whether MN users actually do have that 'protection' of anonymity that we assume.

A key question for me is what else they are planning to use our data for. The attitude towards consent, and ethics in general, seems somewhat flexible.

Nicci Macleod PhD made herself the subject of this thread by her tone deaf, childish response to women concerned about their privacy being violated by the potentially biased research she is overseeing. As pp said, yes, "trans rights are human rights" and so are women's. It's a thought terminating cliche.

University ethics committees care only about risk (to the university) not ethics.

GDPR/DPA 2018 breaches are surely a considerable risk.

Universities are constantly having to update our ethics policies and processes to keep up with new technologies and social changes. Internet forums and web scraping have been around for long enough that Aston should have a robust policy but ethical research is never a done deal.

One of the biggest problems in data analytics research is finding datasets that you're allowed to use. That's how this Aston institute is selling itself to its students - it has datasets. Prof Tim Grant is clearly aware that there are ethical issues. That doesn't mean Aston have got everything right, that they have always followed their own policies, or that their policies are not open to challenge and change. Their MUmsNet set could turn out to be data that they're not allowed to use.

You couldn't get much more ethically sensitive than a PhD project that involves data aggregation, identification, tracking and political ideology. And then using a dataset of uncertain provenance.... Usually researchers would try to firewall these issues into separate projects, exactly because each one is an ethical minefield, you don't want to be wrestling with them all at once. But, where angels fear to tread....

I would assume from my learning of the past couple of days that MN users do not have the protection of anonymity that we might assume, and that this lack goes beyond the fact that X person might recognise you from something you describe and towards the fact that X academics (and no doubt others) are trying to actively work out ways of identifying people from anonymous posts if they cannot already do that.

Edited to add - and additionally that police and other reports or interactions I may have made with public bodies are potentially also open to research and study, even if I have not explicitly been told that.

I have a vague recollection that there was a question put to Mumsnet some years ago, about whether or not they ban web bots. I think it was around the time of Emma Healeys GDPR breach. Typically I can't find the thread now - the new improved advanced search makes it almost impossible to find anything useful.

And finally, and somewhat flippantly, I have also learned that this thread or indeed any other may become the subject of an academic paper because apparently people can write whole papers based on one thread. Who knew?

As said earlier, if someone comes to harm as a result of this research and is "outed" despite having a reasonable expectation of anonymity and privacy, who is legally responsible? The forum for permitting use of the data, the researcher for not ensuring robust protection of their data subjects or the university for allowing it to go ahead?

Equally the research is going to happen, either through legal means and by universities or by more nefarious types who won't declare they're doing it and won't be upheld to the same ethical standards as a place of education.