I didn’t know that Twitter deleted Sci Hub account. That company already had a bad record of political censorship but now it attacks science too. Disgusting. Elbakyan is doing an amazing and important work with Sci-Hub, I hope the site will continue to exist for long.
Despite how you and I feel about Sci-Hub, it is breaking the law. Copyright infringement, whether you agree with it or not, is a crime. If Twitter received notice from the journals’ legal teams to take down the account, they may not have the ability to fight back (depending on the journals’ legal arguments).
Rosa Parks broke the (unjust) law, but that doesn’t mean everyone who didn’t do the same before her is bad. Are all black people who suffered oppression up to that point wrong for not fighting for their rights? I don’t think so. That’s all I’m saying. Just because Twitter choose to follow the law regarding copyright does not mean they’re “evil”. I honestly don’t see how people are reading my comment as support of Twitter taking down Sci-Hub? Literally, the first few words of my comment are: “Despite how you and I feel about Sci-Hub...” Key word: I.
If the Twitter account provided links to Sci-Hub’s website, it’d be very easy for the journals to construe infringement. Whether the account actually did, I don’t know. I’m just pointing out how it could work.
They could’ve. But just because they didn’t, doesn’t mean they’re complicit. Someone else mentioned Jim Crow laws as an example of unjust laws that should’ve been fought against. That doesn’t mean everyone who didn’t fight is complicit. If you don’t have the willpower or firepower (legal arguments) to fight something, that doesn’t make you bad for backing out.
I don’t know. Some would say “take a stand”, but all I know is that: if your legal team says there’s almost no way you’d win a lawsuit from the journals, and that you could be on the hook for millions of dollars in damages, you don’t “take a stand”. Because it’s not just the company you’d be taking down, but yourself from the inevitable lawsuits from angry investors. It’s sad, buts it’s the reality we live in.
Voting and contacting your representatives is pretty efficient... Yeah, lobbying from big entities is a problem that we need to solve, but come on, look at what we have already achieved. Convincing the average people around you is frequently more work.
