Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub(sciencemag.org)
sciencemag.org
Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/twitter-shuts-down-account-sci-hub-pirated-papers-website
315 コメント
Twitter has no business inserting itself into a dispute between Elbakyan and Elsevier et al. Few people would have issues if Twitter shut down the Sci-Hub account after they received a valid court order, but a private monopolist cannot be trusted to be the arbiter of what is permitted speech.
I for one am glad that our new moral enforcers are keeping us safe from the possibility of free academic knowledge.
To see the tweets:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://twitter.com/Sci_Hub
I should donate more to the Internet Archive. I hate how so much history can just disappear at a whim if it weren't for them.
https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://twitter.com/Sci_Hub
I should donate more to the Internet Archive. I hate how so much history can just disappear at a whim if it weren't for them.
It's funny. If a direct popular vote was held on making publicly-funded research freely available, it would pass by a staggering margin. Yet here we are, many easily-solvable issues ignored by government officials later, pretending representative democracy is a valid form of democracy.
And yet there are still accounts for torrent sites (@tpb is alive and well last I heard) and other sites that allow for the distribution of copyrighted material.
Something is fishy here, and I really really really don't see the motivation for Twitter to have done this by itself. If this were part of a sweeping crackdown on accounts that promote 'piracy' it'd make sense, but it's not.
Feels more like "a board member has a friend who made a phone call" kind of thing.
Something is fishy here, and I really really really don't see the motivation for Twitter to have done this by itself. If this were part of a sweeping crackdown on accounts that promote 'piracy' it'd make sense, but it's not.
Feels more like "a board member has a friend who made a phone call" kind of thing.
100th reminder to stop using Twitter and to stop acting like it's an acceptable medium of communication.
I'm not very familiar with Sci-Hub, but I doubt they were uploading pirated content to be hosted on Twitter, so what would their violation be? Incitement to commit copyright violation?
GoDaddy booted AR15.com, it's becoming clear the FAANG companies are flexing their power. If you're not on the corporate approved list, get across the tracks. I'm appalled at the extremist stuff, such as Parler hosted, but this path is lined with primroses.
"Counterfeit goods"? Sci-Hub is giving us the real deal unlike these for-profit publishers.
Meanwhile they’re still hosting all sorts of accounts of hackers, jail breakers and many people obviously breaking the law.
It’s a slippery slope and they’ve started slipping. Now how do you stop?
It’s a slippery slope and they’ve started slipping. Now how do you stop?
I think the general discourse around high profile account banning raises some interesting questions. I've seen a lot of people in my (generally liberal) social bubble carry the line that Twitter, as a private corporation, has the right to ban accounts for whatever reason they see fit. While technically this is true, should it be? Is there a threshold where a service becomes more of a public good than a private enterprise? I think a lot of us would argue that making ISPs into publicly owned utilities would be beneficial for users.
I think perhaps a legislative approach to monopoly should be nationalizing rather than breaking up. Monopolies can be valuable for consumers if their claws are trimmed.
I think perhaps a legislative approach to monopoly should be nationalizing rather than breaking up. Monopolies can be valuable for consumers if their claws are trimmed.
They’re a private company, Sci-Hub has to make their own social media service
I don't support piracy. So I don't support Sci-hub. But I believe that publishers are bilking the public and that publicly funded research should be made freely available. The real way to fix this is to disrupt the reputational incentives academics (and deans supporting this) have to keep publishing in these journals. For some reason, I think this is an unpopular opinion on HN.
they could sneak it in now because it'll get drowned out by all the other news, and the applause they get for "cracking down on nazis".
but neither are good news for free speech. I'm glad twitter purges alt-right and Q accounts but then why use it as an opportunity to also silence a platform that is the biggest hit since the first time a human rights lawyer uttered "Open Access".
pretty glad I left twitter in 2017. I still read twitter via other people's list (those I used to follow) and via searches on nitter. If you know a great list you still have doom scrolling. But the good thing: when I get too angry (or even too much in agreement with the OP), there is no way to share it with the world. This is both frustrating (in the moment), but literally has no downsides. It has never been once that I woke up the next morning regretting I hadn't already shared whatever my opinion was on literally any subject earlier.
The same platform shapes news today. Literally any subject there are weekly instances where a journo got their story through some "influencer or thought leader". Elon Musk tweeted about Signal and the number of downloads increase within 1 day five-fold. Story is in the NYT and international news. Twitter is a surreal place that shapes way too much the news-cycle in partisan ways. Everyone complains about news being divisive but forgetting where the division comes from - there is simply no way a leftist journalist will have many followers from the right and vice versa. It's been like this forever but twitter (and all of social media) amplified this a million fold. Blame journalism for sure but in the same sentence also damn these individuals requesting features that "drive engagement". How the actual F should an algorithm drive engagement when there is no way of really telling what that engagement will cause. Twitter judged from history has never done the right thing when it could have been up to them. They always waited until enough damage had been done to justify what should be "ongoing housekeeping".
[1] https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1349577579091566592
but neither are good news for free speech. I'm glad twitter purges alt-right and Q accounts but then why use it as an opportunity to also silence a platform that is the biggest hit since the first time a human rights lawyer uttered "Open Access".
pretty glad I left twitter in 2017. I still read twitter via other people's list (those I used to follow) and via searches on nitter. If you know a great list you still have doom scrolling. But the good thing: when I get too angry (or even too much in agreement with the OP), there is no way to share it with the world. This is both frustrating (in the moment), but literally has no downsides. It has never been once that I woke up the next morning regretting I hadn't already shared whatever my opinion was on literally any subject earlier.
The same platform shapes news today. Literally any subject there are weekly instances where a journo got their story through some "influencer or thought leader". Elon Musk tweeted about Signal and the number of downloads increase within 1 day five-fold. Story is in the NYT and international news. Twitter is a surreal place that shapes way too much the news-cycle in partisan ways. Everyone complains about news being divisive but forgetting where the division comes from - there is simply no way a leftist journalist will have many followers from the right and vice versa. It's been like this forever but twitter (and all of social media) amplified this a million fold. Blame journalism for sure but in the same sentence also damn these individuals requesting features that "drive engagement". How the actual F should an algorithm drive engagement when there is no way of really telling what that engagement will cause. Twitter judged from history has never done the right thing when it could have been up to them. They always waited until enough damage had been done to justify what should be "ongoing housekeeping".
[1] https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1349577579091566592
This is absurd. I'd love to see Twitter shutting down Twitter's account because There are lots of Fake News spreading on Twitter!
In a just world, any organization which tries to prevent the free exchange of scientific information would be dismantled.
Who cares about Twitter anymore? Telegram has more active users than this minor blogspam outlet :)
Twitter is helping the argument that platforms are to be content moderators. This kills 230. This will entrench Twitter as one of the few social media services capable, due to the need to moderate at scale.
Really, why can't US and/or EU government allocate a modest sum from the budget to establish public journals and solve the problem forever. This system seems so obviously broken.
This is eyebrow raising but hardly the news to lose any sleep over. If for example Google were to unilaterally purge sci-hub from its search results (for “greater good”, not as a result of however questionable but legal-at-this-point takedown request) that would be a serious escalation.
What had Sci-Hub talked about on their feed? Who followed it & can report in?
This seems like the ban may well have been because of who Sci-Hub is, not what they said. Which is an interesting complication to this story of what content/who companies opt to host.
This seems like the ban may well have been because of who Sci-Hub is, not what they said. Which is an interesting complication to this story of what content/who companies opt to host.
Great, we need more of that!
With politicans it is easy to hide behind partisan idealogy to justify that everything is fine.
The more regular, relatively apolitical accounts are getting banned, the more people realize that something is wrong with the way Twitter acts.
With politicans it is easy to hide behind partisan idealogy to justify that everything is fine.
The more regular, relatively apolitical accounts are getting banned, the more people realize that something is wrong with the way Twitter acts.
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It is very surprising to see this happen without an order from a court or law enforcement.
Twitter flexed, everyone flinched. Expecting more flexing is where I am. They say the slippery slope is a fallacy, but I am starting to think of that as a reflex saying when someone gets caught shoving the Overton Window.
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This really seems like an overreaction that is overshadowed by weightier events. Hope they reconsider..
Not a fan of "pirated" as the descriptive word for what Sci-Hub does. I'm sure some of it fits that description. On the other hand, a fair amount of these papers are funded with taxpayer dollars, and shouldn't be hidden behind paywalls in the first place.
Did you enjoy the party?
Everyone cheered Twitter when they started taking down accounts, sure that it would never affect them. Everyone ignored the warnings that it is a very slippery slope.
Well, after a fun party, the bill is due.
Everyone cheered Twitter when they started taking down accounts, sure that it would never affect them. Everyone ignored the warnings that it is a very slippery slope.
Well, after a fun party, the bill is due.
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