Authorship Positions Being Sold on Facebook
Learn about the shocking discovery of authorship positions being sold on Facebook for 5K or more. Understand the implications of this for the scientific community and the need for real-time fact-checking.
Elisabeth Bik
Science integrity consultant, PhD. #ImageForensics Currently without cat or blue check, but soccer-mom of godson. She/her. https://t.co/V4MR7WVHiT 🇳🇱🇺🇸
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Wow, this is pretty blatant.
— Elisabeth Bik (@MicrobiomDigest) June 19, 2023
Author has gotten acceptance letter for their paper from the journal "Molecular Biology and Evolution", and now authorship positions are being sold on @facebook for 5K or more. #PaperMill pic.twitter.com/8ya55PGbl0 -
The title of the journal is identical to that of an @OUPAcademic journal, but the name of the person signing at the letter above is not the same as listed on the official journal's website. They also misspelled the name of the journal "Evalution" 🤔https://t.co/ip0xbgCMBQ
— Elisabeth Bik (@MicrobiomDigest) June 19, 2023 -
The author of this (public) Facebook post has several other similar postings.
— Elisabeth Bik (@MicrobiomDigest) June 19, 2023
Here, he is selling authorships for a paper in @TrendsinBiotech with an acceptance letter by editor @Pavalavavlavich. Is this letter real, Matt?
(note typos and grammar errors in journal title) pic.twitter.com/Joog2csci1 -
These advertisements are very similar to those described by @AbalkinaAnna and @nickwizzo and others.
— Elisabeth Bik (@MicrobiomDigest) June 19, 2023
I hope @Facebook will consider removing these ads. -
There are many more of these advertisements @facebook . Since acceptance letters look fake (similar layout, misspelled journal name etc), one might wonder where the papers will eventually appear. If someone has some time leftover for detective work, please help by keeping track. pic.twitter.com/SaWG1H5YTr
— Elisabeth Bik (@MicrobiomDigest) June 19, 2023 -
Update: These papers indeed appear to be fake. The authors might be fake too. This might be an organization trying to sell a non-existing product. That should be reason enough for @Facebook to shut this down, one would hope. I reported a few, but have little hope it will help.
— Elisabeth Bik (@MicrobiomDigest) June 19, 2023