https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/twitter-shuts-down-account-sci-hub-pirated-papers-website Skip to main content ScienceMag.org Search X [ ] Advanced Search * Contents * News * Careers * Journals Read our COVID-19 research and news. Share [twitter_12] Press Association via AP Images Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub, the pirated-papers website By Jeffrey BrainardJan. 13, 2021 , 3:45 PM Twitter last week permanently suspended the account of Sci-Hub, the website that has posted millions of freely accessible copies of scientific articles pirated from subscription journals. Twitter said Sci-Hub had violated its policy against promoting "counterfeit goods," according to Sci-Hub's founder, Alexandra Elbakyan. The notification came shortly after a 6 January court hearing in India about a lawsuit filed by three of the world's largest journal publishers--Elsevier, Wiley, and the American Chemical Society--which are seeking to block public access to Sci-Hub in that country because of copyright infringement. Elbakyan says Sci-Hub's defense to the suit, filed in December 2020, will rely in part on tweets from Indian scientists who have said they support continued access to Sci-Hub because they cannot afford subscriptions to journal content. The now-suspended Twitter account had included some tweets that linked to Sci-Hub's website, Elbakyan wrote in an email to ScienceInsider. But the "account was used primarily for discussions around open science issues," she wrote. "There is a clear difference between some account that shares copyrighted material and [a] discussion account such as Sci-Hub['s]. ... The ban of [the] Sci-Hub account is either an error or a censorship." Twitter's press office declined to elaborate on the suspension. Sci-Hub started its Twitter account 9 years ago, and it had attracted more than 180,000 followers. That number pales in comparison with the more than 3 million unique internet addresses people used to download scholarly articles from Sci-Hub during a 6-month period in 2016, according to a news article in Science. The website now claims to offer more than 85 million papers for download--a large chunk of the world's scientific literature. The Twitter account had provided a measure of public support for Elbakyan's service, which publishers call a criminal enterprise but she calls necessary because of the high cost of subscriptions. "Sci-Hub is really a matter of public interest, and many researchers are against" publisher efforts to shut down the site, she wrote. Sci-Hub's supporters have included researchers in India, and Elbakyan said she had archived many such tweets before Twitter suspended Sci-Hub's account and now plans to cite them in court. But Sci-Hub's argument that it is meeting a popular demand has not won it victories in copyright lawsuits brought by publishers in other countries, including the United States and Russia, where courts have issued injunctions blocking Sci-Hub from operating. Sci-Hub has circumvented some orders by moving its website to new internet addresses. The three journal publishers suing in India are asking the court to block such a loophole there by issuing a "dynamic" blanket order that could apply to multiple internet service providers through which Sci-Hub can be accessed. At a 6 January hearing, a judge delayed the proceedings until February. But the plaintiffs got some interim relief: Sci-Hub agreed not to upload any new papers from the three publishers to its website, at least until the next court hearing in the case. Sanjay Kumar contributed to this article. Posted in: * Scientific Community doi:10.1126/science.abg5646 Portrait of Jeffrey Brainard Jeffrey Brainard Jeffrey Brainard joined Science as an associate news editor in 2017. He covers an array of topics and edits the In Brief section in the print magazine. * Email Jeffrey * Twitter More from News * an individual shows off a sticker on their upper arm. The sticker reads "I chose the COVID-19 vaccine." 'Compelled by stories.' A marketing expert's tips for promoting COVID-19 vaccination * An aerial photo of the collapsed platform and damage to the dish of the Arecibo Observatory. 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