Let’s Try Independence Again
We can't trust tech, politicians, or funders — so it's time to go it alone again
What happens when a leading world government on the forefront of scientific discovery holds an election, and the newly elected officials and their retinue revoke access to scientific information and important data paid for and used by taxpayers, citizens, and the general public?
I wrote those words in June 2017. They and much of what followed in that post have renewed relevance, albeit with more urgency, because a lot has changed, and not in a good direction.
What has become clear is that scholarly and scientific publishers can no longer depend on governments or funders to be stable partners, neutral arbiters, or reliable counterparts in the truth-seeking endeavors we are undertaking.
The Gates Foundation is ending its support of Gold OA. Plan S is pulling up stakes in various ways. HHMI is caving into anti-DEI pressures. SPARC engaged in “anticipatory censorship” around its capitulation to anti-DEI forces. The US government is censoring scientists, meddling with funding, and attempting to misuse federal purpose guidance to undermine copyright. Big Tech is stealing copyrighted content already stolen by pirate libraries which librarians once celebrated as “disruptive” — and, of course, these are the same pirate libraries that abused librarian goodwill to steal passwords they could ladder up from for ransomware attacks. Bad actors are launching anti-science OA journals because there are no real controls in our “information wants to be free” publishing culture.