<
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/06/25/trumps-war-on-knowledge-requires-re-inventing-academic-publishing/>
"A year ago,
Walled Culture wrote about a growing risk that we will lose
access to the world’s knowledge, because of a failure by traditional academic
publishers to place copies of the articles they publish in key backup archives.
Although unacceptable, that oversight is more a matter of laziness and cost
cutting on the part of publishers, rather than a result of outright animosity
to the preservation of academic learning.
Indeed, if anyone a year ago had suggested that a far more serious assault on
knowledge might take place, one that was a conscious and thoroughgoing attempt
to expunge hard-won facts from the record, it would have rightly been ridiculed
as too absurd a notion even to consider. And yet that is precisely what Donald
Trump has been engaged in since coming to power. The fact that the unthinkable
is happening has important consequences not just for learning, but also for
academic publishing. The first signs of what was to come appeared in February.
The Guardian reported:
Donald Trump’s administration has started to remove or downgrade mentions of
the climate crisis across the US government, with the websites of several
major departments pulling down references to anything related to the climate
crisis.
After expunging words, the Trump administration moved on to wiping out entire
databases. In April, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
quietly announced that it would be deleting key datasets relating to marine and
climate science. Environmental and science groups are now suing the US
government for removing public information in this way."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
