with all due respect, some of these journals got themselves into untenable positions that require twisting one’s self into a pretzel to defend their practices and decisions. for example, i had to cancel my acm subscription because the communications deteriorated in quality, shifting focus from publishing more on the science and practice of computing to sociopolitical issues. there was more articles on social intervention, blacks/minorities in tech, etc that reduced the useful content to about 40% of the journal, imo. not what i signed up for even though the identity police will help me know that i’m a minority in computing—a fact i wasn’t aware of until recently.
i guess at some point in these last 8 years or so, one accrued extra points for publishing articles along those lines. who knows, it probably earned acm more subscriptions, donations, pats on the back, sensitivity points, etc. and so it reinforced itself and resulted in even more sociopolitical articles. but it was a letdown for someone who wanted to passively follow developments in computing. so i left.
Publishing no science at all, or only once it's been thoroughly scrubbed of all mentions of certain topics and the researchers threatened or punished is much, much worse than publishing too much on topics that you don't care about.
Take the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which is the most prominent public health publication in the US (the first reports of AIDS were published there for instance). It's not being published at all now. If/when they start publishing it again, it will be highly censored, particularly on topics that are extremely relevant to public health (if these rules were in place in the 80s, how would they have reported on AIDS?)
That's so much worse than having too high a percentage of content discussing gender or whatever.
> Publishing no science at all, or only once it's been thoroughly scrubbed of all mentions of certain topics and the researchers threatened or punished is much, much worse
You know that much social science research, especially on hot button topics, has already been dealing with censorship and academic shunning for years.
I'm not equivocating with EO, etc but that is bad too.
Yes, I agree with that. I would even say that self-censorship and shunning of out-of-favor ideas is inherent in academia, because funding and senior positions are always limited and controlled by older, more established people. The solution has always been more openness. What's happening here is an escalation beyond anything we've seen in the culture wars and it's using the power of the state to suppress anything that could even remotely be construed as dissenting.
I don't disagree, however my point was that if this research was already biased/filtered/self-censored as above it really diminishes their ability to complain about openness. True or not laymen will view it as a double standard.
That point would be more reasonable if this decision was limited to research about controversial topics. It's not. It includes, at the very least, ALL the science that CDC is involved with. That includes, among other things, a paper about bird flu infections among bovine veterinarians. It's a massive escalation. https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/cdc-trump-mmwr-bird-f...
i guess at some point in these last 8 years or so, one accrued extra points for publishing articles along those lines. who knows, it probably earned acm more subscriptions, donations, pats on the back, sensitivity points, etc. and so it reinforced itself and resulted in even more sociopolitical articles. but it was a letdown for someone who wanted to passively follow developments in computing. so i left.