Sci-Hub Twitter account suspended(twitter.com)
twitter.com
Sci-Hub Twitter account suspended
https://twitter.com/Sci_Hub
139 comments
I have been off Facebook for years. I was forced to rejoin because our head of marketing departed and I had to take over our company page. OH MY F*** GOD. I could not believe the mess of user engagement triggers and dark patterns that confronted me. (I'm an ops guy, a dev and a successful entrepreneur, currently a high growth CEO) I was literally nauseated. I've actually postponed the job just to avoid the damn thing.
As someone who left for a long time and looked at it with a fresh set of non-desensitized eyes, I can tell you with absolute certainty that FB is bad for your mental health.
I think the trouble with social is that it's really hard to tell people what they don't want to hear. Anyone who lived through the 80s knows how pissed a smoker would get when you'd tell them they're killing themselves. You felt like an asshole. Same with Facebook, Insta, Twitter, etc. Tell someone who's into it (most of us) they're self harming, and it doesn't exactly improve your relationship with them.
But I think the ship has sailed. These are companies making north of 100 Billion per year (in FB's case) with massive lobbying cannons, who are now entrenched and ingrained in our culture and day to day life. It may sound overly dramatic, but I think the truth is that, this sucks for the species boys and girls.
[Sorry, had to add the boys and girls. Little Starship Troopers hat tip]
As someone who left for a long time and looked at it with a fresh set of non-desensitized eyes, I can tell you with absolute certainty that FB is bad for your mental health.
I think the trouble with social is that it's really hard to tell people what they don't want to hear. Anyone who lived through the 80s knows how pissed a smoker would get when you'd tell them they're killing themselves. You felt like an asshole. Same with Facebook, Insta, Twitter, etc. Tell someone who's into it (most of us) they're self harming, and it doesn't exactly improve your relationship with them.
But I think the ship has sailed. These are companies making north of 100 Billion per year (in FB's case) with massive lobbying cannons, who are now entrenched and ingrained in our culture and day to day life. It may sound overly dramatic, but I think the truth is that, this sucks for the species boys and girls.
[Sorry, had to add the boys and girls. Little Starship Troopers hat tip]
If Facebook is cigarettes is HN alcohol ? Half joking, I often read about social media "detox" here on HN but at the same time HN is something like a social media platform that sucks more of my time than Facebook or Twitter. The only other platform I spend more time on is YouTube. I guess it's more to do with your tendencies than platform needing dark patterns.
HN is like coffee, use it with moderation and you'll be fine. Both are enjoyable.
Quitting coffee (all caffeine, with coffee being my favorite source) brought my dreams back after two weeks or so. Not browsing HN (my socmed toe-dip after years with zero) helps me focus on making things, and also sometimes inspires me to make things, and is much easier to take a break from than Twitter was.
after spending time here, i feel enriched
after spending time 'there', i feel drained
after spending time 'there', i feel drained
The time you spend on it isn't the issue, you're focusing on the wrong thing.
Let's say the time is part of the issue.
(I took a month off HN, this is my first comment coming back.)
(I took a month off HN, this is my first comment coming back.)
[deleted]
Other humans acknowledging your existence and even agreeing with your various opinions is a very very euphoric experience, it is true of any social media. Suddenly you have hundreds or even thousands of people that "get" you, that understand how great and clever you are. This is the drug that people can't quit.
People won't quit because they'd be unable to tell people that they've quit.
Another take could be that we are just all very lonely and that when you stop using social media you are left with emptiness that is harder to fill with real connections with friends especially during covid.
People won't quit because they'd be unable to tell people that they've quit.
Another take could be that we are just all very lonely and that when you stop using social media you are left with emptiness that is harder to fill with real connections with friends especially during covid.
> Other humans acknowledging your existence and even agreeing with your various opinions is a very very euphoric experience, it is true of any social media. Suddenly you have hundreds or even thousands of people that "get" you, that understand how great and clever you are. This is the drug that people can't quit.
It’s always funny to see people discussing “social media” as some insidious drug that other people use to get confirmation about their opinions from other people…
…as comments on Hacker News, a site that lets people post their opinions and have other humans acknowledge their existence and validate their opinions (upvotes == likes).
We can debate the differences between real names and screen names and pictures or no pictures all day, but when it comes down to it Hacker News is a social media platform and you’re participating in the very thing you’re describing. It’s time we stopped pretending that “social media” is only something that other people use, while the rest of us on HN and other social platforms are doing something more noble. It’s all the same.
It’s always funny to see people discussing “social media” as some insidious drug that other people use to get confirmation about their opinions from other people…
…as comments on Hacker News, a site that lets people post their opinions and have other humans acknowledge their existence and validate their opinions (upvotes == likes).
We can debate the differences between real names and screen names and pictures or no pictures all day, but when it comes down to it Hacker News is a social media platform and you’re participating in the very thing you’re describing. It’s time we stopped pretending that “social media” is only something that other people use, while the rest of us on HN and other social platforms are doing something more noble. It’s all the same.
I'm interpreting your comment as HN is like Twitter, HN is good therefore Twitter is good but I have the opposite opinion. HN is like Twitter, Twitter is bad, HN is bad
HN for me, HN's social media feature (the POINTS) are as bad as twitter and i've banned myself from it twice because of how addicting it is for me. (blocking it in my browser, setting my noprocrast to billions, even blocking it in my DNS server).
Seeing those points go up, a stupid as it is, is that "euphoria" mentioned above. If I notice that little number jump then I immediately want to know "wow, what comment of mine did people like" and similarly if it goes down I immediately get defensive and want to go respond to whichever comment was downvoted.
This time I wrote a chrome extension to remove the points which for me as a force multiplier in it's addictiveness.
https://github.com/greggman/hn-points-exorcism
HN for me, HN's social media feature (the POINTS) are as bad as twitter and i've banned myself from it twice because of how addicting it is for me. (blocking it in my browser, setting my noprocrast to billions, even blocking it in my DNS server).
Seeing those points go up, a stupid as it is, is that "euphoria" mentioned above. If I notice that little number jump then I immediately want to know "wow, what comment of mine did people like" and similarly if it goes down I immediately get defensive and want to go respond to whichever comment was downvoted.
This time I wrote a chrome extension to remove the points which for me as a force multiplier in it's addictiveness.
https://github.com/greggman/hn-points-exorcism
It’s not the same. I don’t have an option of who to build my echo chamber with.
On Twitter and Facebook you get to remove anyone that challenges your thought process. That’s what makes it so dangerous and euphoric. Everyone you see is clapping for your stupid ideas and people just live in different realities now because of it.
On HN we all get the same front page, same comments, etc. You might not like what gets the upvotes, but at least you saw it.
You’re right this is social media, but it’s not the cancerous “choose your reality” style that people usually are talking about when they decry “social media”.
On Twitter and Facebook you get to remove anyone that challenges your thought process. That’s what makes it so dangerous and euphoric. Everyone you see is clapping for your stupid ideas and people just live in different realities now because of it.
On HN we all get the same front page, same comments, etc. You might not like what gets the upvotes, but at least you saw it.
You’re right this is social media, but it’s not the cancerous “choose your reality” style that people usually are talking about when they decry “social media”.
> It’s not the same. I don’t have an option of who to build my echo chamber with.
Maybe not immediately, but Hacker News is absolutely an echo chamber. People who don't toe the line on certain popular opinions (e.g. social media bad) quickly learn not to comment because they know they'll get massively downvoted.
Hacker News upvotes and downvotes are supposed to be about whether or not the comment is a quality post that contributes to the discussion, but in practice they tend to function as "agree" and "disagree" buttons. Post something that is disagreeable on certain echo chamber topics and it's immediately met with downvotes, regardless of the quality of the content.
This effect is most obvious in posts about social media, big tech companies, drugs, and certain parts of the law. For example, I hesitate to even participate in posts about "LSD cures depression" stories any more because most of the commenters don't even read the studies and any comment that isn't 100% enthusiastic about psychedelics curing depression is met with a wave of downvotes.
Likewise, when I see a story about social media I can tell before clicking on the comments that it will be full of comments that start with "I don't use social media but..." and then a straw-man caricature of social media that doesn't match reality.
These comment sections are absolutely an echo chamber. People who disagree are barraged with downvotes and abusive comments, so they simply leave.
I actually had to change screen names on HN once already because I pointed out some flaws in a certain author's books, and one of that author's fans tracked me down and tried to argue with me on my personal e-mail address. Nothing like that has ever happened to me on any other social media site.
Maybe not immediately, but Hacker News is absolutely an echo chamber. People who don't toe the line on certain popular opinions (e.g. social media bad) quickly learn not to comment because they know they'll get massively downvoted.
Hacker News upvotes and downvotes are supposed to be about whether or not the comment is a quality post that contributes to the discussion, but in practice they tend to function as "agree" and "disagree" buttons. Post something that is disagreeable on certain echo chamber topics and it's immediately met with downvotes, regardless of the quality of the content.
This effect is most obvious in posts about social media, big tech companies, drugs, and certain parts of the law. For example, I hesitate to even participate in posts about "LSD cures depression" stories any more because most of the commenters don't even read the studies and any comment that isn't 100% enthusiastic about psychedelics curing depression is met with a wave of downvotes.
Likewise, when I see a story about social media I can tell before clicking on the comments that it will be full of comments that start with "I don't use social media but..." and then a straw-man caricature of social media that doesn't match reality.
These comment sections are absolutely an echo chamber. People who disagree are barraged with downvotes and abusive comments, so they simply leave.
I actually had to change screen names on HN once already because I pointed out some flaws in a certain author's books, and one of that author's fans tracked me down and tried to argue with me on my personal e-mail address. Nothing like that has ever happened to me on any other social media site.
> Maybe not immediately, but Hacker News is absolutely an echo chamber. People who don't toe the line on certain popular opinions (e.g. social media bad) quickly learn not to comment because they know they'll get massively downvoted.
That’s not special to social media. There have been unpopular opinions among communities since before the internet. This all part of being in a large community based on interests. Learning how to deal with that is critical to learn how to function in society.
The other components of your reply complaining about the community having emergent plurality opinions completely misses the point. HN is better because these biases and things you disagree with are right in your face.
> I actually had to change screen names on HN once already because I pointed out some flaws in a certain author's books, and one of that author's fans tracked me down and tried to argue with me on my personal e-mail address. Nothing like that has ever happened to me on any other social media site.
People get stalked and harassed due to their Twitter posts all of the time by using their real name. Swatting is a thing. An argument over email is tepid in comparison to the real violence that happens from people using real identities on public social media every day.
That’s not special to social media. There have been unpopular opinions among communities since before the internet. This all part of being in a large community based on interests. Learning how to deal with that is critical to learn how to function in society.
The other components of your reply complaining about the community having emergent plurality opinions completely misses the point. HN is better because these biases and things you disagree with are right in your face.
> I actually had to change screen names on HN once already because I pointed out some flaws in a certain author's books, and one of that author's fans tracked me down and tried to argue with me on my personal e-mail address. Nothing like that has ever happened to me on any other social media site.
People get stalked and harassed due to their Twitter posts all of the time by using their real name. Swatting is a thing. An argument over email is tepid in comparison to the real violence that happens from people using real identities on public social media every day.
Totally agree that HN checks a lot of the same boxes, but there are some significant differences.
1. Advertising. (Or lack thereof)
2. Moderation. Downvotes here literally slowly erase content that the community doesn’t like; I think this compliments the swift hand of dang in a great way.
3. Participation. This is just a WAG, but i think more HN users post comments or submit stories than Twitter users tweet. There is a very low percentage of users posting the vast majority of tweets. I like HN because I can actually interact, not just follow.
We really had realized most of the promise of online socializing with forums 20 years ago, IMO. Twitter is exhausting.
1. Advertising. (Or lack thereof)
2. Moderation. Downvotes here literally slowly erase content that the community doesn’t like; I think this compliments the swift hand of dang in a great way.
3. Participation. This is just a WAG, but i think more HN users post comments or submit stories than Twitter users tweet. There is a very low percentage of users posting the vast majority of tweets. I like HN because I can actually interact, not just follow.
We really had realized most of the promise of online socializing with forums 20 years ago, IMO. Twitter is exhausting.
> Downvotes here literally slowly erase content that the community doesn’t like;
Most of the time downvotes are used to erase abusive content, but it's shocking how quickly some of the well-formed opinions in the content sections go gray if they don't agree with the popular opinion on HN.
At this point, I almost don't bother replying to HN comments if I know they'll just be met with waves of lazy downvotes.
The invisible hand of HN creates an echo chamber by teaching us not to post "content that the community doesn't like", which is often just comments that disagree with popular sentiment.
Most of the time downvotes are used to erase abusive content, but it's shocking how quickly some of the well-formed opinions in the content sections go gray if they don't agree with the popular opinion on HN.
At this point, I almost don't bother replying to HN comments if I know they'll just be met with waves of lazy downvotes.
The invisible hand of HN creates an echo chamber by teaching us not to post "content that the community doesn't like", which is often just comments that disagree with popular sentiment.
[deleted]
I think there is a meaningful difference between social media that centers the person posting vs. centering the content. Twitter centers the person, HN centers the content. One is not uniformly better than the other, but the UI/UX differences promote very different cultures. Imagine the discontent if HN people were forced into a Twitter or Reddit style UI that spends lots of screen real estate on the person posting.
> Twitter or Reddit style UI that spends lots of screen real estate on the person posting.
Not sure I follow this. Reddit focuses on the content just as much as HN. The nature of the network (and quality of content in general) is quite different from HN of course.
There's a lot to not like about Reddit, but it's the only social media apart from HN that I still enjoy using after quitting FB/Twitter/Insta/Snap.
Not sure I follow this. Reddit focuses on the content just as much as HN. The nature of the network (and quality of content in general) is quite different from HN of course.
There's a lot to not like about Reddit, but it's the only social media apart from HN that I still enjoy using after quitting FB/Twitter/Insta/Snap.
Old reddit is like HN but new reddit has a slot for an avatar by everyone's posts and generally a lot more distractions.
The quality of Hacker News discussion is orders of magnitude better than any other platform I’ve tried. (Thanks, dang, for everything you do!)
So, this is the only social media I use.
So, this is the only social media I use.
When writing my reply I actually thought about mentioning how ironic it was that every upvote on my comment would have exactly the effect I describe. I completely include myself in the "human" group.
> is a very very euphoric experience
I think you're overstating it.
I think you're overstating it.
I used Twitter for about 10 years. Over that time, my timeline -which consisted mostly of tech workers and artists- became a cesspool of political rants and toxicity, no matter how many times I "cleaned it up", and how hard I tried to restrict content to professional stuff. Quitting TW was definitely a good decision.
Some people want social media to be a force for political change and social justice. I think this is a mistake and goes beyond what those platforms are suitable for.
Personally I just want to share my photography with friends. Social media works great for that. I'll probably never quit.
Personally I just want to share my photography with friends. Social media works great for that. I'll probably never quit.
It works great if you only care about the short term moment of sharing. The technology is all there to make something superior to the family photo album but marking everything for eventual deletion makes it an inferior medium. Everything is designed to get rid of your words and images as soon as the content stops serving a party with motivations not aligned with the user. People tend to think their unique experiences and unique perspective is not worth anything but the sum of those billions might be the most important thing we've ever owned.
In sone countries twitter et al are the best way to get information that is not directly controlled by the government. They are imperfect (accounts banned, state funded troll farms etc) but still better than the alternatives
Like finding out the new official domain, since it is constantly changing, most countries don't directly block facebook/twitter so you can use it for official communications, many scam domains masquerading as sci-hub trying to get you to install malware browser plugins. There's also a Telegram bot https://telegram.me/scihubot assuming your country hasn't blocked Telegram (China).
It's not so much what the social networks need to do, but rather what you as a user need to do. Or to have. Or to be. You need to have sufficient willpower. And you also need to have a job that does not rely on social media to function. I.e. not an entertainer, not a journalist, not a blogger, not an SMM, etc.
>what do these social networks need to do to make you quit using them?
They have apparently not done enough to warrant a mass exodus to greener, more privacy (and human dignity, intellectual honesty) respecting pastures. What's a few dozen PII data leaks, or misuse of the former information provided explicitly for authentication; or what's about massive poorly regulated if not ignored misinformation campaigns on such platforms, poorly automatized reporting systems but also manual trending manipulation et similia? And it may never be enough for some, otherwise it's a continuous slope of degradation that will continue unstopped until its momentum ceases by gradual abandoning of the platform, most likely in waves as every new controversy happens or becomes public.
They have apparently not done enough to warrant a mass exodus to greener, more privacy (and human dignity, intellectual honesty) respecting pastures. What's a few dozen PII data leaks, or misuse of the former information provided explicitly for authentication; or what's about massive poorly regulated if not ignored misinformation campaigns on such platforms, poorly automatized reporting systems but also manual trending manipulation et similia? And it may never be enough for some, otherwise it's a continuous slope of degradation that will continue unstopped until its momentum ceases by gradual abandoning of the platform, most likely in waves as every new controversy happens or becomes public.
We need an alternative. Simple personal Rss will do. Users will go wherever the techies tell them to go
That's never been the case. Users at large want convenience above all. If Twitter were to hire a private army and take over a small remote island exterminating its indigenous populace in the process, I would bet good money they would lose fewer users than if they were to force mandatory 2FA and >16 character passwords.
I don't care about users at large they can keep debating their politics at twitter. But it is also the equivalent of a public feed for all kinds of important people and personalities
[deleted]
> Users will go wherever the techies tell them to go
Only if those techies make it worthwhile. How do we make something like private RSS feeds as easy as facebook?
Only if those techies make it worthwhile. How do we make something like private RSS feeds as easy as facebook?
First by having rss feeds. Then by creating competing readers
"techies"
Twitter really isn't a social network. If you follow industry professionals and academics, it's a feed of interesting and important news tied to your direct interests.
Except for the ones who are banned for violating the “Twitter Rules.”
So it’s good if you like a feed of things tied to your direct interests, that Twitter allows.
I’m interested in Sci-Hub. I don’t want to use Twitter for part of my interested and the ??? for other things.
So it’s good if you like a feed of things tied to your direct interests, that Twitter allows.
I’m interested in Sci-Hub. I don’t want to use Twitter for part of my interested and the ??? for other things.
> Except for the ones who are banned for violating the “Twitter Rules.”
This reminds me of criticisms of "metoo". Yes, i'm sure someone somewhere got a raw deal. But as far as I can see the people banished deserve it, and the overall ecosystem is better for it.
This reminds me of criticisms of "metoo". Yes, i'm sure someone somewhere got a raw deal. But as far as I can see the people banished deserve it, and the overall ecosystem is better for it.
So you think SciHub deserves it? And that we’re better off without their voice?
Obviously, you’re free to think what you like but this seems like a sad and limited worldview. Assuming that everything removed from my perception deserves to be removed.
Obviously, you’re free to think what you like but this seems like a sad and limited worldview. Assuming that everything removed from my perception deserves to be removed.
I don't know. For what it's worth, the account is back and the entire basis for this conversation (a perm suspension) is null and void.
The system largely works, from what I can see. Getting thrown off Twitter for 24h isn't that bad of a mistake even, given the scale of the challenge they face to enforce their TOS to billions of accounts.
The system largely works, from what I can see. Getting thrown off Twitter for 24h isn't that bad of a mistake even, given the scale of the challenge they face to enforce their TOS to billions of accounts.
Can't be banned from HN right?
Alas, this reads like a drug dealer distinguishing crack from cocaine.
I would hope anyone distributing any of the related substances DO distinguish between “crack” and “cocaine”..
Or it's a simple distinction between what more resembles an RSS feed for people vs. traditional social media.
But if you've made up your mind that it's all rubbish, by all means don't let me interrupt.
But if you've made up your mind that it's all rubbish, by all means don't let me interrupt.
On reddit you've got your mates page which shows you only posts from people you follow, on facebook you can curate your wall to some extent to only see news from your family and friends. You can do the same thing on twitter. It's still social media and an extremely toxic implementation of it at that.
Sorry but you are still equating content from your friends with content from trusted sources and experts. I love my friends, I don't care what their opinions are on most things (because they are often uniformed). And I don't want to see endless pictures of their kids.
Let me guess, you dislike twitter because of the hyperbole and lack of nuance ... which you just used
I don't think drug dealers do. Only the government does.
Maybe instead use some maillist instead of Twitter for important information? Not sure how expensive a server could be.
If they asked for money, I'd stop using them.
>"what do these social networks need to do to make you quit using them?"
Nothing. I have FB account as it was the only means for me to find and connect to a person but other than that do not really use those networks.
Nothing. I have FB account as it was the only means for me to find and connect to a person but other than that do not really use those networks.
AFAICT, no one really uses Twitter anymore, certainly not for actual interaction outside of influencers and streamers.
Instead, it’s become an easy billboard for companies to post their news. The alternative, of course, would be to make their own websites and post news there. However, it’s far simpler for users to search a company on Twitter than to guess around for their website URL on Google (god forbid you have multiple sites).
Instead, it’s become an easy billboard for companies to post their news. The alternative, of course, would be to make their own websites and post news there. However, it’s far simpler for users to search a company on Twitter than to guess around for their website URL on Google (god forbid you have multiple sites).
You are literally using social media right now.
There is nothing people who have "quit social media" like to do more than virtue signal about the dangers of social media on more niche social media platforms. It gets a little tiring.
There is nothing people who have "quit social media" like to do more than virtue signal about the dangers of social media on more niche social media platforms. It gets a little tiring.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Deplatforming is the way, social media sucks!
> As someone who hasn't used social media in 5+ years, what do these social networks need to do to make you quit using them?
HN is social media (we’re here posting things and socializing, right?), so I’m assuming you’re referring to Twitter and Facebook type sites instead of social media in general.
I admit that I’ve used sci-hub a lot, and I strongly agree that publicly funded research shouldn’t be hidden behind paywalls.
However, ethical debates aside, I also have to admit that sci-hub’s activities are violating copyright law, whether we like it or not. I’m not going to pretend to be surprised when public companies choose to suspend accounts which violate their policies. If anything, it’s helpful to have consistent guidelines for what is and isn’t against their policies. Obviously they can’t have perfect enforcement of every Tweet and every account, but I can’t really blame a company for consistently enforcing policies which are consistent with the law.
As for social media: I’m a light Twitter user, but I don’t go to the site for Twitter itself. I go for the connections I’ve made on the site. Most of the people I know who are boycotting Twitter for whatever reason aren’t people who actually liked using the site in the first place, so their boycott isn’t really much of a statement.
Likewise, I don’t use Twitter or Instagram or HN or any other website as my exclusive source of interaction, so one site’s enforcement of their honestly quite consistent policy isn’t some sort of dire threat to my freedoms. By now, we’re all well aware that no website is perfect and no social media platform can keep everyone happy at scale. If I rage quit every site that did anything anywhere that I didn’t fully like, I wouldn’t have many social platforms left (HN included)
Refusing to use any platform unless they act in perfect lockstep with our own desires is not a realistic expectation at scale.
HN is social media (we’re here posting things and socializing, right?), so I’m assuming you’re referring to Twitter and Facebook type sites instead of social media in general.
I admit that I’ve used sci-hub a lot, and I strongly agree that publicly funded research shouldn’t be hidden behind paywalls.
However, ethical debates aside, I also have to admit that sci-hub’s activities are violating copyright law, whether we like it or not. I’m not going to pretend to be surprised when public companies choose to suspend accounts which violate their policies. If anything, it’s helpful to have consistent guidelines for what is and isn’t against their policies. Obviously they can’t have perfect enforcement of every Tweet and every account, but I can’t really blame a company for consistently enforcing policies which are consistent with the law.
As for social media: I’m a light Twitter user, but I don’t go to the site for Twitter itself. I go for the connections I’ve made on the site. Most of the people I know who are boycotting Twitter for whatever reason aren’t people who actually liked using the site in the first place, so their boycott isn’t really much of a statement.
Likewise, I don’t use Twitter or Instagram or HN or any other website as my exclusive source of interaction, so one site’s enforcement of their honestly quite consistent policy isn’t some sort of dire threat to my freedoms. By now, we’re all well aware that no website is perfect and no social media platform can keep everyone happy at scale. If I rage quit every site that did anything anywhere that I didn’t fully like, I wouldn’t have many social platforms left (HN included)
Refusing to use any platform unless they act in perfect lockstep with our own desires is not a realistic expectation at scale.
I think the law (generally in western countries) gives you some liberty to express how you disagree with it.
The issue with having as you mention guidelines in line with the law, is that it prevents people discussing it. Which is an absolute necessity for lively democracies.
You're going to tell me that you can discuss the law without breaking it. But that's a very debatable point. Generally the law moves because of pressions from interest groups that would be beneficiary from a change. So banning them would in effect ban the most vocal proponents of changes and those that really understand the fine details and issues and that can meaningfully make the debate progress.
The issue with having as you mention guidelines in line with the law, is that it prevents people discussing it. Which is an absolute necessity for lively democracies.
You're going to tell me that you can discuss the law without breaking it. But that's a very debatable point. Generally the law moves because of pressions from interest groups that would be beneficiary from a change. So banning them would in effect ban the most vocal proponents of changes and those that really understand the fine details and issues and that can meaningfully make the debate progress.
Why?
This morning, Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan informed us that Twitter has suspended the site’s official account, which had over 185k followers and operated without notable issues for nine years. Elbakyan believes that it may be directly related to the legal action in India....
The reason for the suspension is related to Twitter’s “counterfeit policy.” The social media platform doesn’t list any concrete takedown requests but simply mentions the policy violation and the fact that its decision can’t be appealed.
“Your account has been permanently suspended due to a violation of Twitter policies, in particular the Counterfeiting Policy. This decision is not subject to appeal,” Twitter writes, translated from Russian.
(January 8, 2021)
https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hub-founder-criticises-sudden-t...
The reason for the suspension is related to Twitter’s “counterfeit policy.” The social media platform doesn’t list any concrete takedown requests but simply mentions the policy violation and the fact that its decision can’t be appealed.
“Your account has been permanently suspended due to a violation of Twitter policies, in particular the Counterfeiting Policy. This decision is not subject to appeal,” Twitter writes, translated from Russian.
(January 8, 2021)
https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hub-founder-criticises-sudden-t...
Yeah, would definitely be curious to see what reason Twitter gave (if any).
Probably the same reason as at the beginning of January: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25684838
I am wondering if it's because they were linking to the Sci-Hub pages in both tweets and the profile
Why now is what I’m wondering.
Probably because Twitter is an arm of the state and weaponized against threats to their desired monopoly on information
honiti(1)
join sci-hub rescue mission https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/nc27fv/rescue_...
there is a new p2p client being developed (in Go) that makes sci-hub papers accessible via DOI https://www.reddit.com/r/libgen/comments/ompcvk/need_help_fr...
it could use some help with indexing & IPFS integration (or just code review), see e.g. https://github.com/Trim21/sci-hub-p2p/pull/23
there is a new p2p client being developed (in Go) that makes sci-hub papers accessible via DOI https://www.reddit.com/r/libgen/comments/ompcvk/need_help_fr...
it could use some help with indexing & IPFS integration (or just code review), see e.g. https://github.com/Trim21/sci-hub-p2p/pull/23
I would seriously consider focusing on IPFS integration and indexing using a distributed table. Most of these documents are already pinned on IPFS, focusing on bittorrent requires users to change how the files are shared, and we have all seen the rot that happens with bittorrent and trackers, try to find something from 30 years ago using bittorrent, or even 10 years ago in many cases. If you want to make these documents available well into the future and make it easier for scihub users to transition, focus on IPFS.
> try to find something from 30 years ago using bittorrent
The clients are bad nowadays. Old utorrent could easily seed many thousands of torrents. With utorrent web I don't even know how to get the torrent files or magnets out. I hear some ppl with seedboxes run multiple clients and restart each periodically. Thats not how things are suppose to work.
The clients are bad nowadays. Old utorrent could easily seed many thousands of torrents. With utorrent web I don't even know how to get the torrent files or magnets out. I hear some ppl with seedboxes run multiple clients and restart each periodically. Thats not how things are suppose to work.
That might be a problem, but the big problem is that users of the system focus on consumer content such as movies and TV shows, and so people wind up seeding newer stuff or very popular stuff and as time goes by the number of seeds for older content goes down and the content gets lost, and there's little interest in seeding stuff from the 70s or 80s. Bittorrent is a bad way to archive anything long term because it is unreliable due to user dynamics.
Can some other system fix those dynamics and become a more robust way to archive data? Maybe. Or maybe the problem is due to how people think. I like to think though that a system where downloads are not tracked by seeders would be more conducive to archiving.
Can some other system fix those dynamics and become a more robust way to archive data? Maybe. Or maybe the problem is due to how people think. I like to think though that a system where downloads are not tracked by seeders would be more conducive to archiving.
Yes, things are overly focused on pirating new releases and the clients are feeding into that problem (or that line of thinking)
I use to seed say 100 old things, sort by seeds, if there are leaches and no seeds give it 5-10 kb until a copy exists again (everything else I don't seed) I've also had things complete after years.
Disk space is cheap. It seems doable for clients to periodically run over archived torrents and seed the dead ones. In stead the whole list is actively parsed for every action.
Say someone has a youtube channel with 500 videos. Also distributing the videos over bittorrent shouldn't have to cost much. But then they have to jump a lot of hoops, run a client with 500 active seeds in it. Its so user-unfriendly a different [more dedicated] medium is probably a better idea at this point.
I use to seed say 100 old things, sort by seeds, if there are leaches and no seeds give it 5-10 kb until a copy exists again (everything else I don't seed) I've also had things complete after years.
Disk space is cheap. It seems doable for clients to periodically run over archived torrents and seed the dead ones. In stead the whole list is actively parsed for every action.
Say someone has a youtube channel with 500 videos. Also distributing the videos over bittorrent shouldn't have to cost much. But then they have to jump a lot of hoops, run a client with 500 active seeds in it. Its so user-unfriendly a different [more dedicated] medium is probably a better idea at this point.
What keeps IPFS immune to the same rot? Who is going to pin these things?
I don't mean to sound cynical about such projects with good intentions, but I'm not convinced this effort will last without the cooperation and approval from the sci-hub admin herself.
Having said that, any alternative way to access sci-hub would have to use a p2p architecture just like this.
Having said that, any alternative way to access sci-hub would have to use a p2p architecture just like this.
Looking at the project, They don't really connect to SciHub at all, SciHub on downloading a paper (using the credentials) saves it on libgen so it could be accessed later by others quickly. These just look like attempts to p2ping easy access to libgen (Which has a huge database (public), and would be sad to lose)
SciHub would be a perfect example for a decentralized searchable repository.
agilob(1)
Pretty stupid of twitter to suspend someone for not actually linking to pirated content. By that logic anyone working on NewPipe/FOSS P2P clients could also be removed if targeted by govts/publishing houses-lobbying
Remember how youtube-dl and torrent tracker nyaa were DMCAed from GitHub?
Only after a lot of heat on HN & twitter did they do anything
Which is why the heat and pressure is important.
I am no scientist, and I have no access to paywalled platforms and publications. So Sci-Hub is my only available option, and it is increadibly valuable when it comes to doing research on a specific topic. - I can remember the old days of the internet, pre-wikipedia, when encyclopedias were a paid thing. And I did not have the means to subscribe to them. And I remember the days of the internet pre sci-hub, where a layman had no access to publications. Those were sad days. We should not go back to those days. Everyone should support efforts that are towards the vision of shared knowledge, accessible by anyone. Especially in a world where misinformation is spreading like a virus.
My cheat code for research publications is to go to a University library on weekends, one of the universities that will actually let you in if you're not a student or staff, and download all the publications I want or need onto a USB stick.
But none of the stuff should be behind paywalls in the first place if it was funded by the government of any nation. Good luck fixing that.
But none of the stuff should be behind paywalls in the first place if it was funded by the government of any nation. Good luck fixing that.
if I had fewer scruples I'd infect one of the library computers and use it as a VPN from home. or maybe tuck an rPi behind a bookshelf and have it connect/bounce through WiFi. the easiest legal way would probably be for me to enroll somewhere and take some classes I'm already interested in.
Straight from Wikipedia:
> In 2011, Swartz was arrested by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) police on state breaking-and-entering charges, after connecting a computer to the MIT network in an unmarked and unlocked closet, and setting it to download academic journal articles systematically from JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT. Federal prosecutors, led by Carmen Ortiz, later charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release. Swartz declined a plea bargain under which he would have served six months in federal prison. Two days after the prosecution rejected a counter-offer by Swartz, he was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment, where he committed suicide. In 2013, Swartz was inducted posthumously into the Internet Hall of Fame.
It is impossible to talk about this without getting emotional, especially on a site like Hacker News, so I won't.
> In 2011, Swartz was arrested by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) police on state breaking-and-entering charges, after connecting a computer to the MIT network in an unmarked and unlocked closet, and setting it to download academic journal articles systematically from JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT. Federal prosecutors, led by Carmen Ortiz, later charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release. Swartz declined a plea bargain under which he would have served six months in federal prison. Two days after the prosecution rejected a counter-offer by Swartz, he was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment, where he committed suicide. In 2013, Swartz was inducted posthumously into the Internet Hall of Fame.
It is impossible to talk about this without getting emotional, especially on a site like Hacker News, so I won't.
The optics of this from a power and privilege perspective is abyssmal.
I can just imagine how negatively this effects scientists and researchers in the developing world, that lack so much content because these miscreants have absconded with so much from us. They did not create this content, they are worse than accursed gatekeepers, serving only to compile the work of others, then extract blood. Infernal blood sucking parasites are what these companies are.
By nature of my well heeled employer I have access to almost everything. However, I think it is unconscionable now, how much of it is paywalled, rent-extracted, and hidden from view. That so much of the world is missing out on this information because some extortionists want $ for something they had minimal, if any, involvement in creating.
I can just imagine how negatively this effects scientists and researchers in the developing world, that lack so much content because these miscreants have absconded with so much from us. They did not create this content, they are worse than accursed gatekeepers, serving only to compile the work of others, then extract blood. Infernal blood sucking parasites are what these companies are.
By nature of my well heeled employer I have access to almost everything. However, I think it is unconscionable now, how much of it is paywalled, rent-extracted, and hidden from view. That so much of the world is missing out on this information because some extortionists want $ for something they had minimal, if any, involvement in creating.
Not to take away from Sci-Hub, but even without institutional access, there are often alternatives:
- more and more research institutes have a public repository of articles.
- plenty of authors put their own (preprints of) papers on their personal website, a preprint server like arxiv, or researchgate.
- lastly, you can mail an author and request a preprint. Not all will reply, but plenty will be happy that someone noticed their work and send a copy.
- more and more research institutes have a public repository of articles.
- plenty of authors put their own (preprints of) papers on their personal website, a preprint server like arxiv, or researchgate.
- lastly, you can mail an author and request a preprint. Not all will reply, but plenty will be happy that someone noticed their work and send a copy.
Many of the papers I'm interested in are published long ago and the authors dead.
For some reason, they're also slow to respond to emails.
For any papers published before 1965, even with maximal renewals available at the time of publication, the works would now be in the public domain under copyright law at the time of publication. Otherwise, many works published prior to 1976 which were either only renewed once or never registered would similarly have lapsed to public domain, or always been so.
That's a huge effectively-lost trove of knowledge.
For some reason, they're also slow to respond to emails.
For any papers published before 1965, even with maximal renewals available at the time of publication, the works would now be in the public domain under copyright law at the time of publication. Otherwise, many works published prior to 1976 which were either only renewed once or never registered would similarly have lapsed to public domain, or always been so.
That's a huge effectively-lost trove of knowledge.
So if you have access to all the papers anyway, why make it harder than it has to be? What is the point of shutting down sci-hub?
[deleted]
If you have a public university nearby, you can access most popular journals in the libraries. Since they are state funded, generally any resident of the state has a right to use their libraries.
Maybe scihub was a protoevent quickly dying but spreading the way to do on other official places.
CiteSeerˣ is a great resource for CS papers: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/index
Imagine if every citation contained a URL: "Email author to request a preprint". Authors often include email addresses in papers or at least an affiliated instution. Their contact information is usually public. Aside from people who have been graduate students not many doing research are going to understand that this is possible. Never have I seen a citations service that makes users aware of it. There must be reasons they dont.
Those take effort and time (hours or days) to make them work. Sci-Hub type solutions are the only way to make this work at scale.
Oh definitely it takes more effort than Sci-Hub. Should've mentioned that in the post.
For a single paper, googling for the pdf, failing that, searching for author page / institutional repo doesn't take much effort. A few minutes, I'd guess.
That still becomes prohibitive for >10 papers sought. Then you need institutional access, something like Sci-Hub, or a lot of patience.
Mailing works as a last resort option.
Honestly, part of the reason i jump through such hoops is to justify not including a paper. I have institutional access and all these options. If none of that suffices, I feel justified in considering the alleged article as not part of the scientific record.
For a single paper, googling for the pdf, failing that, searching for author page / institutional repo doesn't take much effort. A few minutes, I'd guess.
That still becomes prohibitive for >10 papers sought. Then you need institutional access, something like Sci-Hub, or a lot of patience.
Mailing works as a last resort option.
Honestly, part of the reason i jump through such hoops is to justify not including a paper. I have institutional access and all these options. If none of that suffices, I feel justified in considering the alleged article as not part of the scientific record.
> That still becomes prohibitive for >10 papers sought. Then you need institutional access, something like Sci-Hub, or a lot of patience.
That's a fraction of the citations on most interesting papers. I'm not a practicing scientist (now or ever) so my access patterns are different but every time I explore a topic in academic journals that process becomes prohibitively expensive almost immediately. Even when I had institutional access it was a pain in the ass - without SciHub every doi is a game of subscription roulette.
That's a fraction of the citations on most interesting papers. I'm not a practicing scientist (now or ever) so my access patterns are different but every time I explore a topic in academic journals that process becomes prohibitively expensive almost immediately. Even when I had institutional access it was a pain in the ass - without SciHub every doi is a game of subscription roulette.
I do not know, I use scholar.google.com and most of the publications not accessible for free. It is impossible to ignore a publication if you do not have access to it, it is highly demotivating, like doing something that is already done.
Asking by email.. too many publications at the moment.
Asking by email.. too many publications at the moment.
Support how?
Is the source code of the Sci-hub proxy open source (i.e. their secret sauce)?
SciHub relies on credentials donated (or sold) by people with access to journals to obtain the papers. (If you are in a university, your university likely provides access to many journals and pays for it on your behalf). So yeah, even if they did open source the code, you'll still need to obtain the credentials somehow. Which isn't very pratical.
Well, that's not necessarily true for current existing documents that are already available. I believe they're pinned on IPFS nodes, and so are available through IPFS. So if you did clone their front end and index you should be able to continue operating the system, at least with current availability.
What would be nice would be a distributed table that functions as an index specifically for these documents, that way researchers with access could pin to IPFS themselves and add the keywords and content hash to the table. This would be basically unstoppable.
What would be nice would be a distributed table that functions as an index specifically for these documents, that way researchers with access could pin to IPFS themselves and add the keywords and content hash to the table. This would be basically unstoppable.
Unless company behind IPFS bans it. They are a US company after all.
The fact IPFS effectively allows anyone to 'ban' a content hash makes it effectively useless.
Is that true? As in, I can ban a hash and nobody can then access it? I've never heard of that.
It's an oversimplification
If you run a node, you could block hashes of content you don't want hosting. Other nodes can still host it though.
If you run a node, you could block hashes of content you don't want hosting. Other nodes can still host it though.
You can do more than that. You can position yourself in the DHT in a place that even though you don't host the specific data, all users must go through you to find out who hosts it. You then falsely tell all requesters that the data doesn't exist.
Do you have any more details on this problem?
Can other nodes find it?
If that's the case, I don't see how it is a problem. The user should be able to decide what content their node hosts.
If that's the case, I don't see how it is a problem. The user should be able to decide what content their node hosts.
Protocol labs? How can they ban something on a distributed network?
Suspension of Sci-Hub's twitter account is a shame. This is not new development however, the Twitter account has been suspended since early January 2021 [0,1].
[0]: http://web.archive.org/web/20210109003829/https://twitter.co...
[1]: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/twitter-shuts-down-a...
[0]: http://web.archive.org/web/20210109003829/https://twitter.co...
[1]: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/twitter-shuts-down-a...
Their platform their rules. Scihub can create their own twitter.
Edit /s for those missing the point
Edit /s for those missing the point
There you go. They can suspend or ban whoever they want and whenever due to their slippery 'guidelines' and even if you criticise them or attempt to sue them over this, they will just say: 'Too bad. We just a private platform and the account violated our guidelines.'
Do people 'really' think that they 'own' their Twitter accounts when they can be taken away in an instant?
Do people 'really' think that they 'own' their Twitter accounts when they can be taken away in an instant?
Phone company cut my line today. They said I am too critical of their parent company in my conversations. But - what can I do? Their phone platform, their rules. Right?
be your own phone company
Stick with the truth over lies.
Your line wasn't cut.
Your line wasn't cut.
Thanks for the helpful reminder to honesty, brand new account in classic world/number format.
Why that's true! It's a real shame some people don't understand there's no first amendment protection on social media. Nor is there at your day job, but I digress.
Is SciHub available on other social media platforms, ie Mastodon?
Not that I'm aware.
There's a bot which repeats the Twitter account:
https://botsin.space/@scihub
That's not updated in over a year.
Alexandra Albakyan's personal Twitter account remains effective AFAIU:
https://twitter.com/ringo_ring/
There's a bot which repeats the Twitter account:
https://botsin.space/@scihub
That's not updated in over a year.
Alexandra Albakyan's personal Twitter account remains effective AFAIU:
https://twitter.com/ringo_ring/
Alexandra Albakyan's personal Twitter account remains effective AFAIU:
https://twitter.com/ringo_ring/
https://twitter.com/ringo_ring/
Why now?
How many TB is sci-hub database? Could a home server serve those papers through BitTorrent?
>50
Yikes that’s too mucho for a home setup…
The segments are much smaller at 100GB each. Please see this thread for some information.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/nc27fv/rescue_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/nc27fv/rescue_...
r/datahoarder would disagree
There has to be some threshold but I just don't understand how this threshold hasn't been crossed for more people.
I don't want to see Twitter legislated or controlled. The counter balance and equilibrium should be doing crazy things causes a massive loss of users so crazy things do not happen. Twitter is not a public utility like electricity or drinking water. You actually need to drink water.