Thread 2: A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of linguistic transphobia on Mumsnet

[VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia]

At fewer than 20 posts left, time for part two.

Thread 1: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5057460-a-corpus-assisted-discourse-analysis-of-linguistic-transphobia-on-mumsnet

Site Stuff thread that tipped off MNHQ: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5057903-mumsnet-corpus

And even if we don’t agree of the definition, it can be assumed the supervisor and department and university does. Once the PhD is published it gives a legitimacy that a British University supports the title’s view that there are loads of transphobic mums plotting to make people (who want to be their version of the opposite sex or want to opt out of having a sex) lives difficult. To those who haven’t thought about it, this study will be held up by social media and policy makers to denigrate (women) posters and mumsnet as a whole. All from a biased PhD title justified by a Vice opinion article, using data obtained without permission.

I also agree.

Eden is a post graduate student in a Forensic Linguistics department, I can forgive a foot stamping gender-addled high schooler for falsely accusing mothers of committing Hate Crimes but in your mid 20s, when you are supposedly contributing to a body of work designed to assist the justice system?
No, no free pass for you.

However, by ‘no free pass’ I mean I want some answers to some robust questions and then I will pen a strongly worded complaint letter to the institution, I don’t think someone’s life should be ruined forever over a bad PhD project.

And, most importantly, there are other people, higher ups, who have even more questions to answer (list upcoming in another post).

FWIW, I hope that Eden is automatically prevented from
continuing this project as a consequence of the dataset access being withdrawn (which I am imagining will be the outcome secured by MN’s legal team) but I also hope that the university takes responsibility for approving a PhD based on a hooky datascrape that they themselves provided.

Therefore I hope that any fees paid by Eden are refunded or made fully transferable so that Eden can start a new PhD on a subject that is fully vetted by an ethics committee (and has fuck all to do with Mumsnet).

As an aside, is Eden’s PhD fully self funded or is there a shadowy sponsor out there who wants to defame Mumsnet/Mumsnetters?

Aston’s ethics committees also need examining.

The search engine snippet is what Nicci's TwiX bio said a couple of days ago. It now says "opinions my own". I suspect that Aston legal people have had a word with her about bringing the institution into disrepute.

Universities have a tough call to make re staff social media because of the right to academic free speech. My view is that if you want to put your institution's name in your TwiX, you should toe their line. If you want unrestricted free speech, remove your institutional affiliation. You don't get to claim the reputational boost from being Prof Yaffle at Bagpuss University if you then say stuff that's going to have people angry with Bagpuss University.

pic didn't post.

I think that Northumbria Uni need to take a look at this too. Both Nicci and Eden were recently at Northumbria. I suspect that Eden followed Nicci to Aston.

But, again, evidence of what?
If this PhD sets out to prove that mumsnet is nest of transphobic vipers because look, here are some phrases that are transphobic because the vipers said them, then concludes that mumsnet is a nest of transphobic vipers, then it will never pass.
Look, this student is going to have to learn for themselves that you have to ask a question that it’s possible to answer empirically and then try to answer it.
It sounds to me that this is going to be a ´how’ or ´what’ question and not a ´yes/no’ question. It’s not really comparable to a clinical drug trial. It’ll be an observational study rather than an experiment.

Therefore I hope that any fees paid by Eden are refunded or made fully transferable so that Eden can start a new PhD on a subject that is fully vetted by an ethics committee (and has fuck all to do with Mumsnet).

Yes, but the PhD Eden started on would have already been through an ethics panel. The ethics panel is at best failing to do due diligence and at worst corrupt.

I have a hazy memory of Jane Clare Jones telling the story of a student who'd been tasked with finding stories about murdered trans people for the university's Trans Day of Remembrance.

Student looked everywhere. Was increasingly distressed at the inability to locate stories about all these murders in the ONS, Crime Survey, newspapers and other sources.

Student was genuinely bewildered at the lack of publicity and documentation about all of the murders.

JCJ said the student was so close and yet so far from applying Occam's Razor to the difficulty. (I've paraphrased heavily because I can't find the tweets.)

Yes, but the PhD Eden started on would have already been through an ethics panel. The ethics panel is at best failing to do due diligence and at worst corrupt.

Tim Grant and/or other seniors will have been involved in signing-off work with such an inflammatory title.

Grant, MacLeod and others need to come to MN and participate in a webchat, amongst other actions.

People with questions to answer:

PhD candidate, Eden Palmer
PhD supervisor, Dr Nicci MacLeod
Director of the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics, Professor Tim Grant
The two academics who scraped the MN data originally, Dr Krzysztof Kredens & Dr Piotr Pezik
Aston’s Ethics Committee
The decision-makers re: contents of the FoLD repository
Someone in UK government re: why Forensic Linguistics has been omitted from the recent Forensics Science Regulators Act and the Forensic Science Standard of Practice.

Who have I missed?

Blimey! I had a quick look at section 2.2. Someone is confusing Muslims with Sikhs!

Upvoting this with a quote, because Mumsnet thanks are irritatingly invisible.

Made oi larf, that did.

Aston's Regulatory Office? (There was an email contact if you followed the link on the now deleted conception threads.)

Thanks for the new thread.

If Eden only started this academic year, I'd have thought it highly unlikely she'd have applied for or got ethics approval already.

Which is a concern itself if she's already accessed the scraped data...

Looks like a good start.

TBF both Justine and Lily have posted on the much shorter thread about this over in site stuff.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5057903-mumsnet-corpus?page=1

MNHQ made contact with Aston on Friday, Aston did not respond to HQ but rapidly removed the page about MN from the FoLD index.

The MN logo was removed from the Eventbrite link advertising Eden Palmer’s talk yesterday (presumably due to Mumsnet issuing a copyright claim).

Eden Palmer’s talk (‘sold out’ on Eventbrite with many MNetter’s registered to access online) was cancelled today due to ‘illness’.

Most recent update from Lily MN was that they have no info for us yet but will let us know when they do.

Cool!

I was just making a point about MN thanks, not that they hadn't done anything.

Ah feck!

I also reported a post yesterday evening saying that they might want to look at the additional video evidence about the Sandbox Doxxing Bros, and had a response to that this morning.

Frankly, someone knowledgeable on this thread should just write a two page summary for MN; it would save them a fortune on lawyer time.

I would also like to know if they've taken into account the brilliant point @VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia made about quotes. People could be quoting "transphobia" either on the thread or off mumsnet.

How does their number based system which has scraped 2 billion words from 600k users account for that?

Thanks! I googled that and found a page with various documents including these:

General Regulations for Research Degrees

https://www.aston.ac.uk/sites/default/files/FINAL%20-%20AU-GSMC-22-5491-A%20General%20Regulations%20for%20Degrees%20by%20Research%20and%20Thesis%202023-4.pdf

Code of Practice for Research Degrees
https://www.aston.ac.uk/sites/default/files/FINAL%20-%20AU-GSMC-22-5492-A%20Code%20of%20Practice%20for%20Research%20Degrees%202023-24.pdf

They ought to be able to put out some kind of statement, I think. Soon.