Misleading Viral Claims Show Dangers of Preprint Servers, Researchers Warn (washingtonpost.com) 48
Scientific researchers worry that the capacity for spreading misinformation "goes far beyond the big-name social media sites," warns the Washington Post. Citing pre-print servers and unvetted "research repositories," they note that "Any online platform without robust and potentially expensive safeguards is equally vulnerable."
"This is similar to the debate we're having with Facebook and Twitter. To what degree are we creating an instrument that speeds disinformation, and to what extent are you contributing to that?" said Stefano M. Bertozzi, editor in chief of the MIT Press online journal "Rapid Reviews: COVID-19...." Bertozzi added, "Most scientists have no interest in getting in a pissing match in cyberspace..."
Nonscientists also scan preprint servers for data that might appear to bolster their pet conspiracy theories. A research team led by computer scientist Jeremy Blackburn has tracked the appearance of links to preprints from social media sites, such as 4chan, popular with conspiracy theorists. Blackburn and a graduate student, Satrio Yudhoatmojo, found more than 4,000 references on 4chan to papers on major preprint servers between 2016 and 2020, with the leading subjects being biology, infectious diseases and epidemiology. He said the uneven review process has "lent an air of credibility" to preprints that experts might quickly spot as flawed but ordinary people wouldn't.
"That's where the risk is," said Blackburn, an assistant professor at Binghamton University. "Papers from the preprint servers show up in a variety of conspiracy theories...and are misinterpreted wildly because these people aren't scientists..."
[The executive director of ASAPbio, a nonprofit group that pushes for more transparency and wider use of preprint servers], added, in general, "Preprint servers do not have the resources to be arbiters of whether something is true or not."
MIT Press's new "Rapid Reviews: COVID-19" journal recently appended a scathing editor's note to its critique of articles that had been published on pre-print servers.
"While pre-print servers offer a mechanism to disseminate world-changing scientific research at unprecedented speed, they are also a forum through which misleading information can instantaneously undermine the international scientific community's credibility, destabilize diplomatic relationships, and compromise global safety."
Nonscientists also scan preprint servers for data that might appear to bolster their pet conspiracy theories. A research team led by computer scientist Jeremy Blackburn has tracked the appearance of links to preprints from social media sites, such as 4chan, popular with conspiracy theorists. Blackburn and a graduate student, Satrio Yudhoatmojo, found more than 4,000 references on 4chan to papers on major preprint servers between 2016 and 2020, with the leading subjects being biology, infectious diseases and epidemiology. He said the uneven review process has "lent an air of credibility" to preprints that experts might quickly spot as flawed but ordinary people wouldn't.
"That's where the risk is," said Blackburn, an assistant professor at Binghamton University. "Papers from the preprint servers show up in a variety of conspiracy theories...and are misinterpreted wildly because these people aren't scientists..."
[The executive director of ASAPbio, a nonprofit group that pushes for more transparency and wider use of preprint servers], added, in general, "Preprint servers do not have the resources to be arbiters of whether something is true or not."
MIT Press's new "Rapid Reviews: COVID-19" journal recently appended a scathing editor's note to its critique of articles that had been published on pre-print servers.
"While pre-print servers offer a mechanism to disseminate world-changing scientific research at unprecedented speed, they are also a forum through which misleading information can instantaneously undermine the international scientific community's credibility, destabilize diplomatic relationships, and compromise global safety."
For non-academics types: (Score:5, Insightful)
In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal.
Yeah, I can see what this is a problem when we have people on the internet who buy into QAnon bullshit and the like.
Re: (Score:2)
In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal.
Yeah, I can see what this is a problem when we have people on the internet who buy into QAnon bullshit and the like.
And yet what does social media prioritize? Ensuring politics, is tagged, filtered, and censored according to their whims, instead of perhaps focusing their efforts on creating an identification system for this preprint "system" of peddling unproven bullshit.
Yes, I'm being pessimistic and labling it bullshit right out of the gate, because human lives are at risk. You better learn to peer review that shit and make it EARN a fact/truth label that everyone seems to be assuming it deserves the millisecond it
Re: (Score:2)
You think Americans are smart enough to understand that Pre in preprint means it hasn't been checked properly yet. LOL Good luck with that.
These are not reality based people we are talking about here [cnn.com]
No, I don't think the average idiot is any smarter than the average politician when it comes to technology, to be honest.
That's kind of my entire point. Gullible N. Mass must rely on assistance to help separate fact from bullshit, hence the reason I call upon the very technology Gullible is addicted to for "news" in order to help everyone.
And when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE. [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Tell me you didn't think before you wrote that.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Which means the real problem isn't pre-print servers. The real problem is that people are morons.
When it rains, we do not blame the clouds for acting as clouds or try to rid the world of clouds but instead we protect ourselves from the things clouds do. The same applies to morons.
Re: (Score:2)
You're not going to melt when it rains. Calm down.
Re: For non-academics types: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And I can see how it's a problem for people who want to block papers they disagree with.
That's the entire point of peer review! This is how science works!
Re: (Score:3)
And I can see how it's a problem for people who want to block papers they disagree with.
That's the entire point of peer review! This is how science works!
It's funny, because the words "peer review" refer to people like Newton publishing in the equivalent of a pre-print server; a newsletter from their philsophical society, where members could write whatever they wanted. So that their peers could simply read it, and judge for themselves. This was an alternative to the more traditional practice of publishers deciding what to include, and what to leave out.
So now we have morons who don't even know the history of science, complaining that letting your peers decid
Re: For non-academics types: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you know that it's possible for any person to purchase a Xerox machine and reproduce unlimited copies of pamphlets with unvetted and dangerous information.
Why, there ought to be a commission that reviews the output of printers and copiers for factual accuracy and consistency with our democratic values before they're allowed to be distributed.
Go ahead. Take a crisp $100 bill to that fancy color laser printer and start making copies. You'll find out rather quickly who reviews the output of printers for factual accuracy and consistency with our democratic values before they're allowed to be distributed.
Easy solution (Score:2)
PSAs don't work for drugs because it's hard to make people feel dumb with them, but it's easy with misinformation. But Americans *hate* feeling dumb. It's one of the reasons Qannon is so hard to dislodge from people's heads. They'd have to admit they're dense for believing it. Do it in advertisements where they can watch them and feel safe. Spend around $5-$10 billion. It'll pay for itself in no time
A Two-Sided Danger (Score:1)
This fear is real but can also be used as an excuse to reduce legitimate free speech.
I agree more with the concept of marking claims as validated with links the validating support. One or more authorities could be established to provide these marks as 3rd party services. Hopefully, such markings would become symbols of trust adding acclaimed authenticity.
Problem #1 -- it is far easier to make false claims than to validate them.
Problem #2 -- who checks the "fact checkers" ?
Claims should be checked and cite
We need a comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
We need someone to compare the accuracy of preprint papers vs. the accuracy of published papers.
If I recall, when people try to replicate and verify results from published papers, they have a success rate pretty close to a coin toss. How much worse are preprint papers? How much worse could they be?
Re: We need a comparison (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well there are plenty of numbers between 0% and 50%. What a silly question.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We need someone to compare the accuracy of preprint papers vs. the accuracy of published papers.
If I recall, when people try to replicate and verify results from published papers, they have a success rate pretty close to a coin toss. How much worse are preprint papers? How much worse could they be?
If "published" papers, still result in a damn coin toss of odds, then we should probably start there, since policies, laws, and regulations are based off that crap.
A lot of lives are put at risk for an allegedly advanced scientific community producing 50/50 results. Preprint papers are comic books compared to those reputable news outlets.
We need to take action against all this dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Misinformation. Lets gather up a panel of authorities and organize them into an approved group and eliminate or control all the unapproved potential sources of misinformation. This group will be the source of the approved authoritative truth. We can call it the Ministry of Truth.
Or the Ministry of Love ...
BTW, since I must have done some 1984 searching, Google now shows me that there is a little cottage industry now of think pieces on how this situation is nothing like 1984, no sir, no way, and we are just morons for thinking so! Nothing quite like using automated propaganda to convince me of it, lol.
There are also misleading published papers (Score:2)
Publish And Perish (Score:3)
Papers from the preprint servers show up in a variety of conspiracy theories...and are misinterpreted wildly because these people aren't scientists...
Wow, if you think that's bad you should see what people and the media do with final published studies!
Re: (Score:2)
Obligatory PHD comics Science News Cycle [phdcomics.com].
Cost (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Another very reasonable theory is that papers from preprint servers show up in conspiracy theories because they are free to download. If Elsevier didn't charge John Q. Public $35 to access refereed papers, probably we'd see a lot more conspiracy theories referencing them, too.
I think you might be missing the point.
They aren't linking to them for the scientifically justified conclusions. They are linking to whatever fits whatever they already want to believe. No surprise it's more often going to be the 'bad science' that didn't make it past the peer review step.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh dear (Score:2)
Scientific researchers worry that the capacity for spreading misinformation "goes far beyond the big-name social media sites," warns the Washington Post.
Oh dear. We'd better extend the censorship to the little sites too then. The totality of the internet. No site, however small, can be allowed to escape. We could call it "totalitarianism" or something ...