On Friday on Twitter, advocates and open source academics threw one after the suspension of Sci-Hub, a site that allows researchers to avoid costly payments for more than 70 millions papers from around the world.
If you haven’t heard of Sci-Hub, here’s what you need to know: Bin 2011, a computer programmer named Alexandra Elbakyan created the site as a way of giving to researchers, who are often forced to give in shit salaries—Access to papers that might not be allowed otherwise. It is a noble cause, of course, but nevertheless involves a certain degree of piracy. As a result, the operation of Sci-Hub has put Elbakyan in the line of fire of the major academic publishers who have spent several years trying to delete the site.
The most recent crackdown came late last year, when three major academic publishers archived a lawsuit for copyright infringement in India against Sci-Hub and another open source site Libgen. To put it in context: OOne of these publishers, Elsevier, had earned a reputation for charging some universes tens of millions of annual dollars as part of their subscriptions. And Elbakyan’s business was being cut.
Apparently, Twitter agrees. Elbakyan he said Torrent describes that his account was permanently suspended for violating the platform’s policies surrounding forgeries, but Twitter did not go further into the details, only pointing out that the decision “cannot be appealed,” he said.
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It is worth noting here that established academics in India have spent the last few weeks concentration around the Twitter account Sci-Hub. Although the suspension erased much of it, Elbakyan actually did began to file most in case something like this happened. Aside from the sentimental value, he explained that he plans to read the publications aloud in court as part of his case “to prove that Sci-Hub should not be blocked.”
Until the results of this legal battle come out, all academics can do is cross their fingers and wait for the Sci-Hub account on Twitter to be the last to be lost.