Monday, 4 May 2026
A few user experience improvements for Academia.edu to consider
Written for the future benefit of academia.edu's users, if the front-end developers of Academia Inc address these unsolicited suggestions. Updated- 8 May, 2026
Dear Dr Richard Price and whom else it may concern, below are some issues that academia.edu might consider addressing to provide a better service for subscribers like yours truly.
1. A route to see the citations flagged in Academia Manuscript alerts
It can be exciting to learn that one's work is cited in an email alert (see Figure 1). |
| Figure 1. Academia.edu Mentions - claim your citation email alert (screenshot in author's Mail, 2026) |
In stark contrast, it's underwhelming that the 'View your Citation' button's link simply takes one to one's personal academia.edu stream, versus that specific mention*. This would not be so irritating, if your subscriber could then follow a route under Mentions to spot the specific, flagged citation. Or at least have the option to view citations for the mentioned article, rather than scrolling through many that one has already reviewed. Without efficient navigation routes for reviewing a specific article's citation, such emails can be interpreted as clickbait targeted to drive visits. It's certainly not an alert that is easy for users to act on with many unverified citations.
* I appreciate that the non-specific link may be caused by Mimecast's security checks in my university email address. This creates a long link, e.g. https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/url=https%3A%2F%2Furl.za.m.mimecastprotect.com%2Fs%2FyPrKCDREy2sANNPXuWfrUjI5xu%3Fdomain%3Dacademia.edu&data=05%7C02%7Cusername%40cput.ac.za%7Cbb1bb20f47b74b5fc07d08dea9ab2ffe%7C90bb22dba73a4971b7d67ca3ef90cf06%7C0%7C0%7C639134749886270150%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=l4AQJ8IKnUYPhIT%2Bc0IxBQD1Q3fN3BbtQfbWpsqmYks%3D&reserved=0.
Given that this is likely to be happening for many academic email addresses, providing a workaround for users to locate the exact citation would be helpful to them.
2. A route to better identify one's mentions vs. those whose initial(s) and surname match
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| Figure 2. Screenshot of academia.edu identifying mentions of T Noakes (2026) |
Being the son of a prolific Emeritus Professor whose first initial I share, my experience is admittedly an outlier's. But while this issue may not affect many of your users, the current identifying Mentions route shown in Figure 2 will be highly inefficient for those impacted unfortunates. In my case, I would appreciate having the option to preclude all outputs that originated before my publication record began from 2011. Hopefully, this would substantially cut down the 6,000 odd mentions I still "need" to review! Then, for those that remain, it would be good to have a mass selection option for 'This is not me', rather than slowly doing them one-by-one to get closer to my Google Scholar citations profile that shows just over 200. As you can appreciate, that's a lot of 'This is not me' still to identify 😅...
3. Add a 'This is fake!' button to report hallucinated references and fake outputs
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| Figure 3. Screenshot of the 'This is me' and 'This is not me' button choices on academia.edu (2026) |
4. Consolidate to reduce Academia.edu's email overload
Figure 4. Screenshot of Academia.edu emails, 16 - 25 April (2026)
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| Figure 4. Screenshot of Academia.edu emails, 16 - 25 April (2026) |
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| Figure 5. Screenshot of Academia.edu emails, 2 - 14 April (2026) |
Academia.edu provides an extensive range of notification options to select from under one's Account > Email Notifications. Despite disabling many options, I receive almost daily email correspondence. For example, Figures 4 and 5 consolidate all the email alerts received for April. Do consider offering the option to consolidate alerts for; General Announcements, Your Network, Analytics, Discussions, Your Papers and Other Emails all into a weekly update. This alternative is preferable to unsubscribing from communications that may be helpful, but seem far too frequent.
5. Support easy reporting of article duplicates
Since each academia.edu author can upload a co-authored paper, it is relatively easy for multiple records to be created for the same manuscript. |
| Figure 6. Screenshot of four duplicate records for the same article by one author under Academia.edu's My Mentions |
These doppelgängers become very obvious when Academia.edu's My Mentions is organised by 'Recency'. Multiple records for same article are then shown underneath each other (as per Figure 6's example for a sole-authored paper that strangely has four records), so are hard to miss. It would be helpful if there was a tickbox to select such records and suggest that they be merged.
6. Flag co-authors names that are missing-in-action
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| Figure 7. Screenshot of academia.edu article edit showing all four co-authors being credited (2026) ... |
It is possible for co-authors to be added in a research output's edited record, but not be shown in that output's listing. An example of this is shown in Figure 7, where four article co-authors are credited, but only two are shown under the article's listing (see Figure 8).
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| Figure 8. ... but only two authors are shown under the title for the same Academia.edu record (2026) |
There should be an option to report on academia.edu that co-authors' names are missing-in-action through not being displayed for a particular output. This may in turn assist Academia.edu in cleaning up separate records for the same research output.
7. Offer citation exports for popular referencing file formats
Please shift from offering only a 'cut-and-paste' referencing option to supporting downloadable references. It would be helpful for researchers to be able to export citations in popular referencing file formats, such as RIS (.ris), BibTeX (.bib) and EndNote XML (.xml).
Thank you in advance for your consideration, Academia.Inc.
Readers, kindly add any additional suggestions in the comments below, thanks.
Saturday, 14 February 2026
A research article’s digital cul-de-sac. How to fix an academic paper that is hidden and/or unreachable
Written for researchers keen to understand potential obstacles to their articles not being readily searchable via academic indexes and search engines thanks to broken linkages, a metadata mismatch or non-submission. Updated- 22 March 2026
Most researchers are keen for their works to be well-indexed, quick-to-find, and reliably linked to their academic publisher’s landing page from search engine results. This is especially true for scholars whose performance reviews include consideration of their works’ impact in reaching interested readers. Such impact scores can include citations, amplification and readership, as tracked via altmetrics and other sources.
However, each author was unable to select this listing for automatic addition, despite entering the assigned DOI index number, the full handle.net address (Figure 10) or the journal's URL.
Instead, I shared a screenshot of the details I used (Figure 11) which each author copied for adding the same details.
The primary responsibility for submitting and maintaining Crossref entries typically lies with the publisher in being formal Crossref members. CRIMSA publishes Acta Criminologica : African Journal of Criminology & Victimology. The editor ensures that high-quality metadata (such as ORCIDs and funding info) is received from authors before manuscript approval. CRIMSA would then be responsible for submitting accepted articles' bibliographic metadata (including URLs and references, plus registering DOIs), then ensuring this information remains up-to-date. The publisher handles the technical side of generating "Crossref XML" files, or using deposit tools.
If there is a problem, it is most likely to be taking place in the earliest phase of the Research Data Lifecycle (RDLC)- this broad concept is used to describe the "cradle-to-grave" journey of research data:
However, until this happens, authors keen to share their Acta Criminologica publications via their scholarly profiles and social networks must do a lot of extra work. My colleagues and I followed work-arounds to address the placeholder DOI index information in phases 2 to 4. These included listing their article's and/or handle.net address in manual entries on ORCID's centralised registry, academic aggregators (e.g. Google Scholar or Bielefeld Academic Search Engine). Plus, shifting to using the handle.net address in academic social network posts. These work-arounds required extra labour from the four authors, three of whom are independent and not formally affiliated to any university. As the journal publisher already covers the journal's Crossref fees, such extra work can readily be avoided. Hopefully, the journal will put aside the resources necessary for generating the required XML metadata, and for depositing its full archive, plus new publications via Crossref's record manager.
N.B. Kindly add a comment below if you have any related suggestions or other feedback...
Most researchers are keen for their works to be well-indexed, quick-to-find, and reliably linked to their academic publisher’s landing page from search engine results. This is especially true for scholars whose performance reviews include consideration of their works’ impact in reaching interested readers. Such impact scores can include citations, amplification and readership, as tracked via altmetrics and other sources.
This post provides an example to illustrate why a research author should not assume that every article of theirs will be properly indexed. As result, this work may not be seen by potentially interested parties searching for pertinent work with salient keywords, despite the work's merits. Metadata mismatches and broken linkages can unwittingly emerge during academic publishing, and may persist if not checked, flagged, and corrected. This post gives helpful advice for correcting or working around a few key problems. It shares the practical example of errors that impacted a South African journal article's availability after its digital publication on the 1st of December, 2025:
'Brandjacked for social media advert fraud'- a ghost in the fog...
The first publication from a research project that began in 2021, Brandjacked for social media advert fraud: Microcelebrities' experiences of digital crime, was published in the Acta Criminologica: African Journal of Criminology & Victimology journal. Ordinarily, new articles should only take a few weeks after being indexed by an an academic metadata aggregator, such as Crossref, before featuring on authors' academic profiles. Crossref can update researchers' ORCID and Google Scholar records, followed by listings on academic social networks. These may be preceded by results in search engines and in Artificial Intelligence results (such as Grok). While search results for Brandjacked were quickly available from the last two, it could not be found under any of the former by February, 2026.
This post explores such challenges, the root cause of the article not being be properly indexed for academic searches, plus the work-arounds that Brandjacked's authors followed. While their paper technically existed, it could not efficiently be shared online by the four co-authors, with some listing results defaulting to a 'page not found' error message, rather than the publisher's article landing page:
Multiple URLs as expected
A normal part of the academic publishing process sees several URLs being created for a particular publication. In Brandjacked's case, these are from the handle.net domain (pointing to hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2) and journals.co.za's (onto journals.co.za/doi/10.10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2). Sabinet African Journals (journals.co.za) is a searchable platform providing a comprehensive, full-text collection for over 600 African-published electronic journals. Handle.net is developed by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) to support a distributed information system for persistent, unique, and actionable identifiers (handles) for digital objects over the internet. The Handle System is the underlying technology used by the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) setup for identifying content, particularly for digital publishing and commerce.
Brandjacked's DOI value changed post-publication
A DOI is a unique, permanent alphanumeric string that is assigned to digital objects. DOIs include a prefix always starting with 10 and a suffix, separated by a forward slash (/). Prefacing the DOI with doi.org creates an actionable link. Originally, the Brandjacked article was allocated the DOI 10.10520/ejc-crim_v2025_nse1_a2. However, this was subsequently changed to 10.10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2 to reflect the article’s publication as the second in the 38th volume’s third issue. Commonly linked to journal articles, books, and research datasets, each DOI should provide a stable, long-lasting link to a research output’s internet location, regardless of whether its online address [or Uniform Research Location (URL)] gets changed.
Social media shares…
On social media, academics, researchers and scholars typically share the DOI version of URLs, since a DOI's usage is the primary identifier for tracking comments and mentions via altmetrics. Attention for academic publications is typically sparse, with most not being shared via social media, and a significant portion only being shared once via popular platforms. Only a few papers, often with high public interest or "quirky" topics, receive the vast majority of shares. To help Brandjacked's visibility, I wrote a 31 tweet long thread at x.com/travisnoakes/status/2001585342000898177, shared a LinkedIn post at linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7407406366052569089/, and wrote this public Facebook post at facebook.com/share/p/1BtsXaJtQC/.
… but no AltMetrics listing yet
On the Brandjacked article’s landing page, the altmetrics badge only shows a question mark at the date of this post's publication (see Figure 1 below).
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| Figure 1. Screenshot of No AltMetrics listing for Brandjacked article,12 Feb 2026. |
Nor are results for the Brandjacked article shown on app.dimensions.ai/discover/publication?search_mode (see Figure 2).
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As a research blogger, I like to share Altmetrics badges for my publications, but none is available for Brandjacked via badge.dimensions.ai/details/doi/10.10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2?domain=https://journals.co.za. Nor for a PlumX badge, searching with Branjacked's DOI value at https://plu.mx/plum/a/?doi=10.10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2.
No automatic ORCID profile article update
Each of Brandjacked’s four authors have an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) address. This is a 16-digit persistent digital identifier (e.g., 0000-0001-9566-8983) that uniquely identifies research-contributors all over the world. Like the DOI value does for research outputs, ORCID resolves name ambiguity. It links all research publications, datasets, and grants to an individual, regardless if their name or institution changes. Authors can set their ORCID profile to be automatically updated with research outputs that are linked to them. As at this post’s publication date, the Brandjacked article had not automatically been linked to any of its authors’ ORCID profiles.
Google Scholar links to a 404 error
The academic search engine, Google Scholar, is popular due to offering the widest automatic global indexing of scholars' works. Its account holders can create manual entries for their research outputs, or select pre-existing records featuring their author name. In Brandjacked’s case, I created a manual record in late December, since no record for this paper was available for selection (Figure 3). Since then, Google Scholar has come to list two versions of the article.
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| Figure 3.Screenshot of Two versions of Brandjacked on Google Scholar, 12 Feb 2026. |
The top version, which can be Saved and Cited, produced a '404 not found' error when clicked through to Acta Criminologica (Figure 4).
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| Figure 4.Screenshot of DOI not resolved from Google Scholar, 12 Feb 2026. |
Thinking that this may have been caused by the manual record I created featuring the initial DOI, I chose to delete the article from my record. Then went into Google Scholar trash and selected ‘Delete Forever’. However, the article available for manual selection (Figure 5) still links to a '404 not found' result.
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| Figure 5. Screenshot of Google Scholar manual selection of Brandjacked, 12 Feb 2026. |
Report a failed DOI link via doi.org
A manual entry created on ResearchGate (at researchgate.net/publication/398814505_Brandjacked_for_social_media_advert_fraud_Microcelebrities'_experiences_of_digital_crime_in_South_Africa) lists the correct DOI (Figure 6), but it also showed a '404 not found' error when attempting to link to the digital publication.
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| Figure 6.Screenshot of ResearchGate DOI being correct for Brandjacked, 12 Feb 2026. |
At least this page presented an option to report the failed DOI. So, I submitted this error report to DOI: "The article 'Brandjacked for social media advert fraud' should be available at this DOI. Related working URLs are: https://journals.co.za/doi/10.10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2 & https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2. Thanks in advance for fixing this."
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| Figure 7. Screenshot of DOI error report for Brandjacked, 12 Feb 2026. |
As a shortcut for checking-and-reporting DOI errors, authors should open www.doi.org, then scroll down to the 'Try resolving a DOI name' section. There they can enter a DOI value to check it, and report a DOI URL address that fails in throwing a '404 not found' error.
![DOI Prefix [10.10520] Not Found.png](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDEzqL4beKD8zMIGkhp6iWGUj-JBn6HNu5Kxiuk7YzppaCG5je4xEOMY0xNKm7XroYFTLduiyNrxPPZprQV-PDNvHlEmgVh5_aY4jmLe47-YFoi1U09UxXqurCEexdlvbO6fPvuf-BQ5T4CPmPYtfHufuU5oqAXWrvsZyzt5Tl5uQim1lw1W7pTg-qI1sq/s2108/DOI%20Prefix%2010.10520%20Not%20Found.png "DOI Prefix [10.10520] Not Found.png") |
| Figure 8. Screenshot showing DOI Prefix 10.10520 Not Found error message, 12 Feb 2026. |
Just a few downloads...
Acta Criminologica’s ‘Open Access’ policy initially provides restricted access via the South African Bibliographic and Information Network (SABINET)'s archives. These are available via university libraries’ annual SABINET subscription for SABINET African Electronic Publications (SA_ePublications). There is a 12-month open access embargo from the date of publication/loading on the Criminological Society of Africa (CRIMSA)’s website.
Perhaps being published before the Christmas holidays in an access-restricted versus open-journal format contributed to Brandjacked only being downloaded five times in the first two months. But even achieving that readership is not been helped by a ghost-listing amidst a heavy stream of academic publications. As Trend MD reports, nearly 8,000 research articles are published each day. In this flood of information, the visibility of our niche publication is hampered through not being indexed in aggregators for academic (meta-)data or authorial content registries. Consequently, it is vital for scholars to work with the journal, their publisher, and co-authors to achieve work-arounds. Authors should also build awareness around remedying any root causes that undermine their visibility of their academic work.
Emailed the editor
Given that the landing page URL is throwing a '404 not found' error and the DOI is not resolving, it seemed likely that the error was a flaw on the publisher's end. In response, I wrote to the journal's editor requesting that the Crossref metadata be updated. I hoped that the journal’s production team could soon ensure that: (i) the landing page URL for the article is correctly mapped to its DOI. And that (ii) the metadata provided to Crossref and other aggregators could be updated to reflect a functional DOI link. As this issue impacted other articles in the Cybercrime special issue, it seemed crucial to fix for the visibility of all its authors’ articles.
Subsequent investigation spotlighted that the failure for the DOI to resolve actually applied to all articles in the journal: prior to 2017, the 'Acta Criminologica: African Journal of Criminology & Victimology' journal was known as 'Acta Criminologica: Southern African Journal of Criminology'. Its first issue started in 1988, and entering its first ever article's DOI produces exactly the same error as shown in Figure 8.
Feedback from the publisher
A product manager for content services at SABINET replied to the editor's query that the DOI link is not working as the journal is not using registered DOIs yet. The 10.10520 prefix is a "dummy" DOI that SABINET uses to ingest content. By contrast, the persistent link to resolve each article is at a fully-functioning https://hdl.handle.net address.
The product manager offered to reach out to the Google Scholar team to ask that they use the handle link rather than the DOI code, unless they use the complete URL. She also flagged that the DOI issue can only be addressed for future Acta Criminologica articles once their allocated actual DOIs are registered with Crossref. This issue relates to a broader problem around the visibility of African journals that Asubiaro and Onaolapo (2023) have spotlighted- their 'low representation in Crossref, a free indexing infrastructure that could be harnessed for building an African‐centric research indexing database, is concerning'. This paper flags how less than fifty percent of journals from Africa feature in Crossref.
Not being indexed there has an important knock-on effect, as it provides data for other bibliographic databases. These include Dimensions, The Lens and Scilit. In the Lens' case, it serves global scholarly records. These are compiled and harmonised from Crossref and PubMed, enhanced with OpenAlex and UnPaywall open access information, CORE full text and links to ORCID. Data from The Lens can be imported into ORCID records, allowing authors to synchronise their records.
A manual ORCID listing
In the absence of such synchronisation for Brandjacked, I could not select a DOI or handle.net address in ORCID for automatically linking to my record. Instead, I created a manual one. Its entry route provided an option to define both the DOI's 'identifier value' (10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2) and the full identifier URL's address (https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2) (Figure 9). I asked my co-authors to add this manuscript to their ORCID records, which correctly resolves to the publisher's article landing page.
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| Figure 9. Screenshot of applying the handle.net identified in manual ORCID listing, 16 Feb 2026. |
However, each author was unable to select this listing for automatic addition, despite entering the assigned DOI index number, the full handle.net address (Figure 10) or the journal's URL.
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| Figure 10. Screenshot showing handle.net URL does not work for co-author selection via ORCID, 16 Feb 2026. |
Instead, I shared a screenshot of the details I used (Figure 11) which each author copied for adding the same details.
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| Figure 11. Screengrab of manual ORCID entry for co-authors to copy, 16 Feb 2026. |
By using the same DOI and handle.net address, we wanted to ensure that just one record was captured via ORCID for our paper (versus four separate records for all co-authors!).
A manual Academia.edu entry
Like ORCID, Academia.edu's manual field entries for an article support both the entry of the DOI value, and also related Links/URL (Figure 12). This contrasts to ResearchGate's support for just one DOI address.
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| Figure 12. Screenshot of adding handle.net entry to manual Academia.edu record, 16 Feb 2026. |
Cannot get (a) Kudos (addition)
Kudos is a networking platform designed to increase the visibility, reach, and impact of published research It supports scholars with explaining their work in plain language, and adding salient context. In theory, a DOI, article title or recent manual entry on ORCID should support Kudos with finding 'Brandjacked for social media advert fraud'. However, none of the three searches worked (Figure 13).
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| Figure 13. Screenshot of Kudos search options - DOI, text search & ORCID, 16 Feb 2026. |
I emailed Kudos' support team to flag this issue, asking if there was an alternate route for authors to add a publication. They replied that Kudos currently depends on the entry of DOIs: 'Please be aware that we do plan to create more options to add a publication to Kudos in the future and this is on our product roadmap. In the meantime we recommend that you kindly contact your publisher and ask them to send published work metadata to Crossref so it is more discoverable, and appears in Kudos and other online services' (email correspondence, 4 March, 2026),
Who is responsible for submitting to Crossref?
The primary responsibility for submitting and maintaining Crossref entries typically lies with the publisher in being formal Crossref members. CRIMSA publishes Acta Criminologica : African Journal of Criminology & Victimology. The editor ensures that high-quality metadata (such as ORCIDs and funding info) is received from authors before manuscript approval. CRIMSA would then be responsible for submitting accepted articles' bibliographic metadata (including URLs and references, plus registering DOIs), then ensuring this information remains up-to-date. The publisher handles the technical side of generating "Crossref XML" files, or using deposit tools.Like many small organisations though, CRIMSA's office bearers may be stretched across many roles. So, not able to prioritise learning how to do Crossref submissions as a new responsibility, let alone find the time to do them. The extra funds to pay for such work may also not be available.
In the near future, CRIMSA's academic journal does plan to submit metadata to Crossref for new articles. I have encouraged Acta Criminologica's editor to organise that its full archive becomes retroactively registered with Crossref. The estimated cost of $0.15 per article’s uploaded meta-data should hopefully not prove a showstopper. Supplying the correct metadata for all articles will benefit this journal's visibility, and hopefully support not just its altmetrics results being listed, but also Acta Criminologica being listed on journal portals used to rank and compare academic journals (and country-level scientific output). Notably, the free Scimagojr and Scilit portals.
Conclusion
After overcoming the challenges of review, revisions, and achieving a digital publication, academic authors may face a new challenge- following up that their publications are well-indexed. As this post illustrates, this must not be assumed. Rather authors must check that their article's DOI identifier does indeed link to their article's publication page. And that their paper's social media impact and amplification is being correctly reflected via that page's Altmetrics badge.
If there is a problem, it is most likely to be taking place in the earliest phase of the Research Data Lifecycle (RDLC)- this broad concept is used to describe the "cradle-to-grave" journey of research data:
In terms of sharing research outputs, it includes curation of metadata that is standardised, ensuring outputs are both disseminated, and findable via academic search engine optimisation (ASEO). And that the article's reach, amplification and media interest can be measured via Altmetric statistics.
In the case of our article, the DOI indexing flaw lay in phase 1 of output sharing. The journal does not supply metadata for its articles to the academic metadata aggregator, Crossref. Instead, the journal's publisher setup a temporary DOI as a workaround. While this may work as a stopgap measure, it poses a major obstacle for scholars keen to share the work with centralised registries in phase 2, since each co-author must manually create an ORCID record. In phase 3, academic aggregators (such as Google Scholar) may direct users to a 'page not found' response on doi.org or from the journal's website. In phase 4, researchers may face a similar problem on academic social networks (such as ResearchGate) which require an accurate DOI link. For phase 5, the ability of altmetrics services to track an article's amplification, reach and media interest is scuppered. By contrast, the article's citations are still tracked.
However, until this happens, authors keen to share their Acta Criminologica publications via their scholarly profiles and social networks must do a lot of extra work. My colleagues and I followed work-arounds to address the placeholder DOI index information in phases 2 to 4. These included listing their article's and/or handle.net address in manual entries on ORCID's centralised registry, academic aggregators (e.g. Google Scholar or Bielefeld Academic Search Engine). Plus, shifting to using the handle.net address in academic social network posts. These work-arounds required extra labour from the four authors, three of whom are independent and not formally affiliated to any university. As the journal publisher already covers the journal's Crossref fees, such extra work can readily be avoided. Hopefully, the journal will put aside the resources necessary for generating the required XML metadata, and for depositing its full archive, plus new publications via Crossref's record manager.
Related suggestions
Journal publishers and editorial teams can help their authors upfront by being transparent about what the opportunities and limitations of their journal's current indexing are in relation to sharing publications online. Plus, publishers should provide advice to authors for how these strengths and weaknesses support, or limit, the online visibility and potential amplification opportunities for their new works. For example, in Acta Criminologica : African Journal of Criminology & Victimology's case, it has several strengths, such as indexing works in the reputable databases of SABINET and African Journals OnLine (AJOL). However, its metadata is not currently submitted to Crossref, nor does the journal appear in Scopus title lists. As described regarding Crossref, this requires authors to make several work-arounds to ensure their articles become visible via centralised registries and academic aggregators. Authors must also accept that they cannot source altmetrics for their work, and cannot use services solely reliant on DOI link entries.
Publishers and editorial teams who provide transparency about their journals' academic indexing issues, could also make public their plans to resolve them. This would be performing a helpful service, not just for their authors, but also for potential case-study research in an area for which there seems to be a dearth of detailed local descriptions to learn from. With less than half of African journals being indexed in Crossref, there must be systemic problems preventing their indexing. Learning in detail from African journal publishers and editors on why this is the case, plus how it might be addressed on the ground, would seem a worthwhile gap for scholars to research, and close.
N.B. Kindly add a comment below if you have any related suggestions or other feedback...
Thursday, 18 December 2025
Brandjacked for social media advert fraud: Microcelebrities' experiences of digital crime in South Africa
Written for readers interested in the virtual epidemic of digital crime and online scams.
The Noakes Foundation established the Fake Celebrity Endorsement (FCE) research project in 2023 to address research gaps regarding the brandjacking of South African public figures in fake social media adverts. I’m delighted to share that the FCE's first peer-reviewed article is now available in a special Cybercrime issue from Acta Criminologica: African Journal of Criminology and Victimology. {Please note that the journal's ‘Open Access’ policy initially provides restricted access via the SABINET archives. These are available via university libraries’ annual SABINET subscription for SA_ePublications (Sabinet African Electronic Publications). There is a 12-month open access embargo from the date of publication/loading on CRIMSA’s website, so expect external access to be available from January, 2027}.
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| Japhet, Travis, Karen and Taryn in The Cellars-Hohenhort's garden. |
The article was written by myself, Dr Taryn van Niekerk, Dr Karen Heath and Mr Japhet Mutomb Kayomb to begin covering the cybervictimization experiences of a hard-to-reach sample of South African public figures. This post provides some context to the (i) neglected digital crime problem that our scholarly contribution spotlights before summarising (ii) the article's literature review, (iii) the research and its key findings, (iv) their broader implications, plus (v) suggested areas for future research:
i. Digital crime cybervictimisation as a neglected research problem in the Global South
A massive footprint of digital crime looms right across South Africa. Pumped through a hypnotic body of popular social media platforms that include; Alphabet's YouTube, Bytedance's Tik Tok, Meta's Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp, Microsoft's LinkedIn and xAI's X. Forced labour cybercrime compounds pump billions of scam adverts through these platforms daily into the path of locals' scrolling fingers. Once clicked on, algorithms push even more scam slop to users. Once tricked, victims are completely unsupported. They have no recourse against cybercriminals cloaked behind expensive privacy services. Nor will an apology be forthcoming from unscrupulous and unrepentant advertising hosts. Notably, Meta earned 16 billions of dollars of ill-gotten gains in a year from sharing criminal clientele's adverts (Horwitz, 2025).
In South Africa (SA), it can be unclear to victims which authorities to report these crimes to. Financial victims will not be reimbursed by their bank, and cannot expect support from law enforcement or other local authorities (Noakes, 2025). This complete lack of societal support for victims of 'digital crime' distinguishes this online crime from 'cybercrimes'. These target corporations, whose employees are often better positioned to respond with the support of corporate technical teams and cybersecurity countermeasures (Olson, 2024). For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, SA businesses were targeted with spear phishing emails impersonating colleagues, line managers, and senior executives (Minnaar, 2020: 45). Executives in blue-chip companies using cyber defence services, such as ZeroFox, benefit from proactive monitoring and countermeasures versus executive impersonation. In stark contrast, even the most influential public figures outside corporate cannot access such costly support for fighting digital crimes.
Their scale approximates an epidemic, with Africa being among the fastest growing regions in terms of cybercrime activities (Kshetri, 2019). Its rapid growth of digital crime follows patterns in the Global North, where cybercrime now represents up to half of all crime (Aebi, Caneppele & Molnar, 2020). Growing at 15 percent a year, the economy of cybercrime would be the third largest in the world if it were considered a nation. Only the economies of the United States and China are larger (Bo, Franceschini & Li, 2025). A recent taxonomy of scams (Zhou et al., 2024) identifies that many different types contribute to a rapidly evolving fraudulent economy:
1 Financial fraud (e.g. phishing “employment” scams)
2 Identity theft (impersonation and brandjacking of small businesses)
3 Internet health scams (weightloss ads brandjacking doctors)
4 Advert fraud (marketing fake “pop concert” tickets)
5 E-commerce and product scams (non-existent “flash sales”)
6 Online harassment (cyberstalking, cyberbullying and doxxing)
7 Social engineering (business phone fraud and cold calling scams)
8 Crowdfunding and charity scams (a fake crowdfunding site purportedly linked to a political party’s “fundraiser for student bursaries and groceries”)
9 Lottery and prize scams (unsolicited messages claiming recipients have won prizes, and that they should pay a fee or provide their bank details)
10 Employment scams (impersonate hiring companies to request fees for job placements)
11 Romance and relationship fraud (cyberdating that leads to “employment” offers)
12 Spam (unsolicited SMS and email communications featuring marketing offers or scams)
13 Miscellaneous (QR phishing code scams that elude email security software)
2 Identity theft (impersonation and brandjacking of small businesses)
3 Internet health scams (weightloss ads brandjacking doctors)
4 Advert fraud (marketing fake “pop concert” tickets)
5 E-commerce and product scams (non-existent “flash sales”)
6 Online harassment (cyberstalking, cyberbullying and doxxing)
7 Social engineering (business phone fraud and cold calling scams)
8 Crowdfunding and charity scams (a fake crowdfunding site purportedly linked to a political party’s “fundraiser for student bursaries and groceries”)
9 Lottery and prize scams (unsolicited messages claiming recipients have won prizes, and that they should pay a fee or provide their bank details)
10 Employment scams (impersonate hiring companies to request fees for job placements)
11 Romance and relationship fraud (cyberdating that leads to “employment” offers)
12 Spam (unsolicited SMS and email communications featuring marketing offers or scams)
13 Miscellaneous (QR phishing code scams that elude email security software)
In stark contrast to the high prevalence of digital crime, little research addresses people’s cybervictimisation experiences in responding to online scams. In response, we wrote a paper that starts covering South African public figures whose reputations were brandjacked for fake endorsements. This ever-evolving digital crime can involve six scam types: 1. financial fraud, 2. identity theft, 3. internet health scams, 4. advert fraud, 5. e-commerce and product scams, plus 7. social engineering.We also address how digital crime content spans a myriad of digital services: from (A) ads on popular social networks to "research reports" on academic networks; across (B) search engine results, blogs and online forums; from (C) clickbait news to fake business index listings, plus shopfronts; and (D) onto local fulfilment via global retailers or local sellers.
The inspiration for our paper started in 2019, from when the reputations of Prof Tim Noakes and Dr Michael Mol were repeatedly brandjacked for fake endorsements, primarily in Facebook ads for non-existent products (e.g. ketogummies). Dr Karen Heath, myself and other reps worked to raise public awareness of these scams, and to stop them on social networks. We didn’t have much success with the latter, especially on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, where most victims reported being scammed. With Prof Noakes and Dr Mol's revictimization being an intractable problem in 2022, I identified a gap in scholarship on this particular digital crime. The Noakes Foundation's Academic Free Speech and Digital Voices project launched the FCE as a new Digital Visibility Risks theme. It catalysed novel interdisciplinary work between health communication, psychological and digital forensic experts for understanding cybercriminals’ fake endorsement adverts on social media platforms, and celebrities experiences in responding. In 2023, Dr Adrie Stander (Advanced Digital Forensics) did an Open Source Intelligence investigation that established the vast extent of the scam. This investigation also revealed that the scammers used professional tools, such as CloudFlare. This made even locating their continental origin impossible.
ii. Literature review
The team’s ongoing literature review suggested an opportunity to respond to an urgent call for 'exploratory cybervictimisation research that can help address ever-expanding patterns of online victimisation’ (Halder, 2021, 4-6). Just as FCE micro-frauds typically evade detection by authorities, they also seem by-in-large to have escaped scholarship. There seemed to be no scholarly accounts of SA celebrity influencers’ lived experiences of cyber-victimisation, brandjacking, and impersonation. This contrasted to many press reports- we tracked how over 50 SA celebrities had been brandjacked by 2024. Brandjacking is the allegedly illegal use of trademarked brand names on social network sites (Ramsey, 2010, p. 851).
The psychologist and victimisation expert, Dr Taryn van Niekerk, led our interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of celebrities' and their reps' accounts. Taryn also led a literature review on cybervictimisation across the North-South divide. It unpacks the development of Northern scholarship on cybervictimology, plus the growing literature on this topic from the global South. Importantly, it highlights the gap in knowledge around the subjective experiences of digital victims, and more specifically, microcelebrities. Our paper proposes that the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of victim identity within global Southern cybercriminological scholarship can be reimagined. We further suggest what is required to develop a body of scholarship that yields insights into cybervictims' needs, and routes to recourse.
iii. Research and key findings
During the preliminary research process, we tested our approach by interviewing representatives from The Noakes Foundation. In late 2024, Price Green Creative Studio approached over 50 SA celebrities’ agents to request they participate in cybervictimisation research. Almost all in this hard-to-reach sample declined, despite generous incentives. Such research resistance is an interesting topic in itself, as Professor Michel Anteby describes in The Interloper (2024). The agents’ common feedback was that their celebrities were concerned about the potential for revictimisation. They seemed unfamiliar with how research ethics would protect them. For example, as part of securing ethical approval, the FCE organised cybervictimisation experts to provide psychological support should interviews have proved traumatising.
We completed fieldwork in early 2025, with: Dr Michael Mol and a rep; Shashi Naidoo; Prof Tim Noakes; and his representatives having done separate, semi-structured interviews. Their feedback supported an exploration of how individuals’ positions as public figures shaped their lived experiences as victims of complex webs of digital crime. The findings showed how fake endorsements and brandjacking were experienced as relentless and as interwoven with other forms of online fraud, highlighting the deep intricacies of their mechanisms. These digital crimes varied in their severity, ranging from impersonation to sextortion for child pornography, leaving trauma and emotional chaos in their wake. They were furthermore aggravated by their unknowable and unpredictable nature, leaving many unanswered questions. Each celebrity victim was left without closure i.e., who the cybercriminals were, where the crime originated, where they might next be brandjacked online, and if it would ever end! Finally, as novices in cybercrime fighting, both the celebrities and their representatives attempted varied techniques to stop the work of ‘savvy cybercriminals’; however, many described this battle as grim and having minimal impact.
iv. Broader implications from our research
These findings have important practical implications for SA’s regulatory environment, digital crime reporting and law enforcement authorities, plus victim support:
New laws are urgently needed to regulate social media platforms that profit significantly from scam advertisements. For example, Meta’s internal documents describe how it fears regulation as the only credible threat to its scam advertisement business (Horwitz, 2025). Regulation could mandate reporting on advertising fraud, impose penalties for slow takedowns of scams, and provide local micro-agencies (e.g., Meta Trusted Partners based in South Africa) with the opportunity to take down scammers’ accounts and content. Artificial intelligence watermarking could also be mandated for identifying AI-generated content to aid in tracing its provenance.
The epidemic of digital crime may largely go unreported and remain invisible to local law enforcement authorities. This gap must be addressed by the state increasing support for formal channels to report digital crime. Regular, publicly accessible reports on digital crime and cybervictimisation could be mandated to raise awareness while also supporting platform accountability.
It seems likely that there will be a long wait before regulatory and enforcement measures are in place to protect victims of cybercrime. In the interim, an anti-digital crime network could be established to advocate for and provide support to victims and future targets of online scammers’ digital crimes. This network could raise funds for the neglected area of digital crime scholarship in the Global South, tackling important gaps, such as who is vulnerable and what types of preventative education are most impactful.
Addressing this paper’s meaningful questions about ‘risk’ and victimhood in the online domain can offer opportunities for more extensive dialogue about cybervictimisation experienced by the broader public. As a digital crime, fake celebrity endorsements target private individuals and the general public with limited access to resources for combating fraud. Many of the financial victims are elderly, with little disposable income.
We trust that our research may additionally inform legal and social media policies that can better support South African victims of this crime. Such a contribution seems highly salient for the challenging environment that SA law enforcement faces in resolving online crimes.
v. Suggested areas for future research
Our study offers an exploratory focus on a novel area of research and recommends that future studies develop this focus on microfrauds and their cybervictimisation of civilians. Research on cyber victims must gain traction to motivate digital platforms and law enforcement to better assist individual victims. This study illuminated just three SA public figures’ cybervictimisation experiences, but other local celebrities’ experiences may differ according to their contrasting roles and types of exposure. There is also an opportunity to explore public figures' experiences in the Global North. Scholars can also address how realities ‘on the ground’ prevent brandjacking cases from being stopped, and what some solutions might be.
There are many future research directions that could enhance the understanding of digital crimes and cybervictimisation in the Global South. In particular, researchers could expand our understanding of the online experiences of victimisation beyond public figures to include everyday citizens. Scholars can urgently contribute to our understanding of who may be vulnerable, how they are targeted online, and the damage they experience. Academics can also contribute to a growing understanding of how individuals can be better empowered to guard against the myriad of digital crimes from which labour compounds and Big Tech profit. For example, little is known about how multi-cultural anti-crime communications might be improved for more effective outreach. The development of knowledge by SA scholars on cybervictimisation, digital crime reporting, and regulatory remedies, along with anti-crime education, seems vital for assisting citizens in combating the overlooked frontline of digital crime.
To further mobilise this body of work to ensure SA’s protection of digital consumers, this study offers several recommendations for future research and the development of policy. In stark contrast to the well-resourced cybercrime fighting efforts in the corporate sector, digital crimes that target ordinary individuals are often neglected. Therefore, there are significant incentives for expanding this body of work on digital crime, particularly from a Global South perspective, where cybercriminological scholarship is growing and requires further insights into victims’ experiences and support. In terms of theoretical contributions, this study’s utilisation of IPA as a qualitative tool to gain insights offered meaningful observations into the relational experience of victimhood shared by the participants. It demonstrated how cybervictimisation is experienced as persons-in-context and contributes to the extensive literature on IPA by providing novel insights into digital forms of victimisation.
Help support our future research
The size of the digital crime problem is vast, but little scholarship of it exists. This is directly related to how the global leaders behind research funding far prefer prioritising making grants to tackle the "harms" (unproven) of (mis-, dis- and malinformation). This MDM- with no A focus, seems to be an addictive topic for censorious 'hall monitors' in the Communication and Media Studies fields.
Not so for The Noakes Foundation which has worked with Price Green Creative Studio to prepare a funding proposal 'Protecting South Africans from “petty” digital crimes: a case for urgent funding'. It proposes to tackle key areas in (v) future digital research, and research funders are welcome to contact me for a copy on noakest@cput.ac.za. I also welcome advice on any related external funding opportunities linked to digital crime in SA.
Not so for The Noakes Foundation which has worked with Price Green Creative Studio to prepare a funding proposal 'Protecting South Africans from “petty” digital crimes: a case for urgent funding'. It proposes to tackle key areas in (v) future digital research, and research funders are welcome to contact me for a copy on noakest@cput.ac.za. I also welcome advice on any related external funding opportunities linked to digital crime in SA.
Gratitude
Our article developed from a collaboration between two public benefit organisations. I greatly appreciate The Noakes Foundation’s and Dr Mol's support, plus the research participants’ contributions. The qualitative research contribution of psychologist Dr Taryn van Niekerk was integral to our manuscript. In particular for leading the literature review and applying a critical interpretative phenomenological approach’s analysis from Big Q Qualitative Specialists (Pty) Ltd. Thanks too, Dr Adrie Stander and Dr Alize Pistidda-Scheenstra for digital forensic advice. And Mrs Megan Lofthouse for assisting with the project’s fieldwork, plus Dohne Green from Price Green Creative Studio for driving outreach to celebrities' agents. The authors also greatly appreciate the legal advice of John Spengler and Adam Pike of Pike Law regarding local laws and regulations that cover fake celebrity endorsements and social media advertising frauds. Thanks too to Dr Ashwill Phillips and Professor Francois Steyn for their journal’s positive response to our abstract's submission. Plus for their assistance in the review process and organising helpful reviews that helped particularly with addressing our article’s context and contributions to the field. We also appreciate The Criminological Society of Africa (CRIMSA)'s for its role in supporting and publishing Acta Criminologica.
In the press
Lyse Comins from the Mail and Guardian has covered our concerns in Meta criticised for slow action as deepfake adverts target South African celebrities (2024).Comments welcome
I am particularly interested in comments related to scholarly collaborations, digital crime research funding leads, or offers related to anti-digital crime networking support.
Monday, 20 October 2025
Understanding the resistance health experts face in dissenting from medical science orthodoxy and challenging its dogmas during COVID-19 #WNS2025
Written for those keen to understand the resistance that health experts face in challenging dogma, plus why new knowledge might not change public health policy, or the Medical Sciences field.
On Saturday the 18th, I gave a talk that addressed the World Nutrition Summit (2025)'s theme- 'Rewriting the Rules: Nutrition, Science and Chronic Disease'. My speech focused on two cases of evidence-based contributions from health experts being confronted by heavy resistance for challenging COVID-19 policy. This talk’s three sections addresses the many ways in which even the agency of eminent experts is not as free to shape public health policy as they might hope, or even reasonably expect. This talk's insights emerge from a new research project with Dr Piers Robinson aiming to develop a framework for the challenges that eminent experts negotiate whilst criticising dogmas. Below is the talks slides on Slideshare, and the transcript that I read:
On Saturday the 18th, I gave a talk that addressed the World Nutrition Summit (2025)'s theme- 'Rewriting the Rules: Nutrition, Science and Chronic Disease'. My speech focused on two cases of evidence-based contributions from health experts being confronted by heavy resistance for challenging COVID-19 policy. This talk’s three sections addresses the many ways in which even the agency of eminent experts is not as free to shape public health policy as they might hope, or even reasonably expect. This talk's insights emerge from a new research project with Dr Piers Robinson aiming to develop a framework for the challenges that eminent experts negotiate whilst criticising dogmas. Below is the talks slides on Slideshare, and the transcript that I read:
Section 1 - Two cases of resistance
SLIDE 1
#2
As regards “Rewriting the rules" this talk’s three sections speaks to the many ways in which even the agency of eminent experts is not as free to shape public health policy, as they might hope, or even reasonably expect. This presentation’s insights emerge from a new research project aiming to develop a framework for the challenges that eminent experts negotiate whilst criticising dogmas. Hopefully, such research helps us better understand all the ways in which critics' autonomy is reduced. Particularly as they become vulnerable to strategic campaigns from powerful decision makers.
Given the great lies that Nick Hudson identifies*, it's important to understand how the evidence-based contributions from health experts can confront heavy resistance for challenging supposedly scientific guidelines.
* Nick spoke earlier about 'Hudson's Razor'- how false scientific propaganda can readily be identified in it featuring; (i) a global crisis, (ii) a need for a global solution to this threat, and (iii) being accompanied by strong censorship. His talk addressed the large scale scams of (a) statins, (b) the COVID-19 phenomenon, and (c) "man-made" climate change.
#2
As regards “Rewriting the rules" this talk’s three sections speaks to the many ways in which even the agency of eminent experts is not as free to shape public health policy, as they might hope, or even reasonably expect. This presentation’s insights emerge from a new research project aiming to develop a framework for the challenges that eminent experts negotiate whilst criticising dogmas. Hopefully, such research helps us better understand all the ways in which critics' autonomy is reduced. Particularly as they become vulnerable to strategic campaigns from powerful decision makers.
#3
Here follows two cases from very different contexts: The first is for a frontline doctor in Mitchell’s Plain who was censored against sharing his successful COVID-19 treatment protocol. The second is for a US presidential health adviser whose evidence-based challenge to lockdowns, etc. became sidelined. Both cases suggest the high levels of resistance that experts face in attempting to “rewrite the rules” with their individual contributions. Even during a “public health emergency” that should necessitate health experts challenging each others' ideas to uncover the best scientific explanations!
#4
In his practice just 30 kilometers away, Dr Rapiti was one of a few brave doctors who continued to see patients at the start of COVID. This was despite him being 72 years old then, placing him at higher risk. Early into COVID, both international and local authorities advised clinicians that there was no treatment for the “novel coronavirus”. In stark contrast, Dr Rapiti developed a successful, low-cost protocol for treating almost 4,000 patients. He’s drafting a 100+page book that shares Table 10 on the right. It illustrates this protocol's success across each COVID wave.
#5
His practice believed that health authorities’ guidance disagreed with the foundational principle of medicine- to treat early and prevent deterioration. Its patients were treated with an aggressive, high-dose protocol of: Ivermectin, corticosteroids, anti-inflammatories, anticoagulants, and targeted nutritional supplementation. This protocol’s cost ranged from R 400 to 700 per patient (so under $30). Interestingly, his practice avoided COVID-19 testing as being a needless expense that often-produced false positives. He argued that to do testing was not cost-effective medicine, when many of his patients could barely afford food. Plus, the obvious diagnosis was pneumonia* requiring urgent treatment.
* Dr Rapiti adds (email correspondence, 21.10.2025), 'A major contributing factor for my huge success during the Delta phase was that I discovered a set of simple clinical tools which helped me to predict COVID pneumonia and to treat it before it was detectable on X-ray or on MRI scans. With approach I was able to nip the disease in the bud, ensure rapid recovery and prevent major complications. I was never recognised for this finding which could have been widely used by under-resourced countries in Africa, Asia and South America.'
#6
Instead of learning from Dr Rapiti’s direct patient experience and early therapeutic successes, academic institutions and policy makers ignored it. Similarly, the video content that he shared on his successful protocol was censored by YouTube and Facebook. Plus, his interviews on BiZNews, and talks to the Good Hope Christian Church.
#7
On Instagram and Medium, he was deplatformed entirely for "contravening community standards". He also experienced interference against speaking out for Ivermectin on Heart 104FM. Several doctors wrote to Radio 786, warning against featuring Dr Rapitis’ outspoken views on COVID-19 vaccines and the pandemic. His scheduled talk there was cancelled and he was never invited to speak on 786 again. Instead of radio audiences having access to open views in SA's "free society", the airwaves were dominated by official COVID narratives.
#8
Dr Rapiti’s outreach on the US’ National Public Radio became an opportunity for a journalist to smear his practice’s use of Ivermectin… drawing on Professor Salim Abdool Karim’s critique of this “untested” drug... by then proven to work on over 700 of Robert's patients! Dr Rapiti was smeared in Google’s search results, and by fact checkers. In response to content takedowns by major social networks, his practice’s weekly Sunday communications shifted to Rumble, Substack, Telegram and Twitter (now X). These platforms did not remove content, such as his 300 videos showcasing successes.
#9
Dr Rapiti continued with community outreach on Loving Life internet TV, Dr Tess Lawrie’s show, the Good Hope Christian Centre, and the station LN42. Many people then began contacting him regarding treatments for their post- mRNA vaccination injuries. Many were also affected by mental illness, which his practice was unusual in addressing via psychotherapy.
#10
His practice continues to develop its holistic psychological approach- promoting the low-carb lifestyle, and prescribing a 14 hour digestive break. Learn more about this innovative work on Dr Rapiti's website, Substack, or by reading his book on addiction treatments.
#11
During COVID, Robert gathered many testimonials, which included this pertinent example. His intervention supported a daughter in releasing her 71-year-old father from hospital where he was receiving a poor quality of care.
#12
Benefiting from home-care and following Dr Rapiti’s protocol, the patient recovered within six weeks. He moved off oxygen and could shower, eat and move freely. Such success as evidenced in this testimonial would seem valuable information?
#13
A public health response typically requires non-conventional thinkers to develop low-cost solutions for rapid treatment innovation. In Dr Rapiti’s chats with me, he raised an interesting point about “missing information” in COVID-19 being itself a source of misinformation. He flagged that it should be a point of concern that the learnings of many frontline doctors seemed ignored, despite their successes. At the same time, the voices of academic experts who did not treat patients were dominant in setting policy. He did not believe it was sound that his observational studies, and the empirical results from his practice, should face vilification and censorship.
#14
The next case is very different in foregrounding how a pro-vaccine US presidential health advisor’s argument for ending lockdown measures, and their negative impacts, became ignored for reasons of political perception. The title of Dr Atlas’ 2021 book “A Plague Upon Our House’ references Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in which Mercutio curses the feuding Montague and Capulet families, he was no member of. Like Mercutio, Dr Atlas blamed the heavily polarised Republican versus Democrat struggle for the persistence of bad policy choices. In particular, lockdowns’ catastrophic economic harms that worst impacted America’s working class, and African Americans. Instead, Dr Atlas argued for focused protection in two 2020 articles for the Hill. The second foregrounded the five key facts, in pink here, that seemed ignored by advocates for total lockdowns.#15
Due to his public health expertise and prominent criticism of the poor scientific basis for lockdowns, Dr Atlas was approached to be a presidential health adviser. In visiting the White House to be screened for this role, he became concerned at how simple PCR testing indicators still informed the government’s response after six months. By contrast, he believed that the five points in pink should have by then have been in use. He was also concerned that the COVID-19 Task Force did not have a public health expert on it, believing this contributed to that Force ignoring an analysis of the steep costs that lockdowns cause, particularly to society’s most vulnerable- children, the poor and the elderly.
#16
At the same time, Dr Atlas was concerned at the negative bias of America’s mainstream pro-Democrat broadcast media, who keenly flagged any poor outcomes to spotlight Trump administration was "not listening to The Science™️". The expert presence of Dr Atlas at media briefings threatened this narrative.
Likewise, providing scientific support for reopening businesses and schools challenged official COVID-19 policy. As Dr Atlas’ activities were also perceived as potentially aiding Trump’s re-election, he describes becoming a target for smears in the mainstream media, censorship on social media platforms, plus criticism from senior academic peers. Many examples are provided in his book, but my talk is short, so I’ll cover key examples: For starters YouTube pulled down a Hoover interview in which Dr Atlas spoke to why reopening schools would be safe, with children’s low-risk of COVID. Likewise, an expert panel discussion on the flawed scientific rationale behind the extended lockdowns, outdoor masking, plus masking of children, was removed under YouTube’s ‘medical misinformation policy’ in March, 2021.
#17
Twitter also temporarily banned Dr Atlas’ account after he questioned the efficacy of masks. Despite quoting sources, such as the CDC, WHO, and Oxford, and reiterating official mitigation protocols. He was reinstated after recognizing his Twitter censorship, but remains highly concerned at the implications for science in a supposedly “free society” that such censorship holds. This includes Facebook’s removal of 7 million pieces of COVID-19 dissent and an unfair Wikipedia profile claiming Atlas spread “misinformation”. In a seemingly unprecedented move, the Stanford Faculty Senate issued a resolution claiming that Dr Atlas had “fostered” falsehoods and misrepresentation of science. Prof John Cochrane wrote an interesting critique of this resolution, asking its authors to provide concrete examples of the opinions and statements they took issue with before he might sign it. They did not reply.
#18
In addition to chilling open debate, the resolution also catalysed threats to Dr Atlas that necessitated a police presence outside his home and the installation of expensive home security equipment. While Dr Atlas was successful in providing more protection for people in nursing homes, he was ultimately frustrated in changing policies around testing, lockdowns and re-opening education. A strong example of policy inertia was evidenced in attempt to redefine the CDC’s guidelines on COVID testing: To improve timely results for priority cases, Dr Atlas had motivated that new guidelines should provide clearer guidance on both focused testing for the vulnerable, and for the public. After this new testing guidance was published it received pushback from talking heads on TV, senior Democrat politicians and public health organisations.
#19
After a two-week flurry of attacks, the CDC posted guidance that reverted to the old measures- the power of public perception seeming to trump scientific revisions. Media control was also evidenced both via the White House’s failure to publicise a meeting between its Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Professors Bhattacharya, Gupta and Kulldorff. Likewise, the BBC pulled out of interviewing them unless a perspective for the lockdown narrative could be included. This after the BBC had featured only pro-lockdowners for months! Alongside CNN, Forbes, Politico, New York Times, The Washington Post and other media, dissenters were demonized after calling for focused protection and reopening. "Herd immunity" became a weaponized term, while COVID-19 fears were exaggerated to manipulate support for lockdowns.
#20
Such fear-mongering pushed unhinged individuals to harass Dr Atlas in Washington DC, and via social media. He resigned from his public health advisor position in December. Despite presenting stong arguments, he was unable to change the COVID Task Force’s policies for mass testing, business lockdowns and educational closures. His case serves as another cautionary tale on “Rewriting the rules” as it bridges many concerns: Political polarisation infecting medical science and academia, contributing to a desire to censor alternate viewpoints. The power of the mainstream media in propagandising for a fake scientific consensus, and smearing dissenters. Finally, scientific discovery can be actively suppressed by bureaucrats, when enabled by conflicted politicians, and further abetted via censorship on Big Tech.
#21
Despite being a public health policy expert, Dr Atlas’ most valuable contributions were blocked by bureaucrats. They ensured that lockdowns, mass testing, masking, and educational facility closures were applied, whilst their negative impacts went largely undiscussed.
#22
Drs Atlas and Rapiti’s cases suggests 11 key points on resistance: Both doctors were well-positioned to challenge COVID-19 narratives due to their extensive medical knowledge. Each had to negotiate a huge asymmetry between their resourcing versus the orthodoxy’s. A sanctions stack’s pressure influenced the duration and motivation of their respective resistance- while Dr Scott Atlas left the White House in anger and disgust, Dr Rapiti has become even more motivated to challenge the status-quo. During COVID-19 he was leading his practice at all hours, so could not formally contribute to the academic literature on his successes. This suggests how during an emergency the scholarly literature will exclude important frontline knowledge as “missing information”. Many scholars may not appreciate the extent of this, thanks to The Science™️’s heavily controlled “health communication for consensus” architecture.
#23
Despite their expertise, both doctors were quickly presented as part of a medical “fringe” for raising inconvenient questions. In terms of changing policy, Dr Atlas' opportunity to contribute as a presidential adviser proved not to be as influential as he expected, given that powerful networks he seemed unfamiliar with were actually controlling COVID-19 policy. These two slides help explain why changing policy, knowledge to ‘Rewriting the Rules' is so hard, even for the most eminent dissidents. At a meta-level, there is also the challenge of a lack of explicit disclosure around what the Undone Science is. Likewise, scientific suppression’s role in supporting bias is under-researched. A lack of awareness around health communication as propaganda, scientific suppression and Undone Science, are all important blind-spots in the academic Health Sciences, and its literature.
#24
Blindness to all three pose an obstacle for academics and their students understanding what is taught as truth. A topical example is the recent promotion for the EAT-LANCET’s “planetary health diet”
First funded by mega billionaire Gunhild Stordalen and launched in 2019, this diet was updated by the EAT-Lancet Commission 2025. 20 of the most influential critics of the original diet were targeted for pre-bunking in advance through the Meat vs EAT LANCET report. It falsely claims that the meat industry not only funded criticism of the original “planetary health diet” but also directed dissenters in their successful backlash. This report is just one of many “health communication” pieces planned by the GPPP’s plant-based, processed food stakeholders for their One Health approach.
Section 2 - Unanswered questions from the COVID-19 “public health” response (AKA a Global Biodefence Public-Private Partnership’s Chorus Effect)
#25
Such an example points to how the “public health” response context in which experts operate in
can serve as a mirage, concealing the apposite agendas of funders.
#26
Here are some questions that required answering but seem not to have been prioritized during COVID-19. Both doctors contributed to this knowledge in the brackets shown here. Framing resistance to their answers, helps us learn how authoritarian networks block knowledge contributions that might catalyze social change.
#27
Experts’ free speech and civil rights were heavily constrained during COVID-19. Like most countries, South Africa did not see the practice of active academic freedom with robust debate on campuses, or even in many journals. Nor did its national science organisations fund unorthodox research, notably as regarding personal health prevention, or into brave physicians' development of successful, low-cost protocols.
#28
Before COVID-19, such brave frontline work would be a key part of a standard public health emergency response. As per (ii) in a list of five guidelines described in Debbie Lerman’s book. While COVID saw the healthcare capacity increase, points (i), (ii), (iv) and (v) were ignored. The Deep State goes Viral's compelling explanation is that by mid-March the COVID response had been transferred in many countries from Departments of Health to Military and National Security agencies. This shift supported a “quarantine until vaccine” approach, previously applicable for countering bio-terrorism. With this change, public health planning switched to non-stop ‘lockdown until vaccination’ communications.
#29
Such an unprecedented shift reflected the triumph of a ‘dual-use’ endeavour: The National Biodefence complex’s collaboration with the Global Public-Private Partnership (GPPP). Its agents are shown in the table on the right. ’Dual use’ describes efforts that may serve both military and civilian objectives.
Pathogens can be bioweapons, but they can also spread naturally. Countermeasures from the Pandemic Preparedness Industry can be used against both natural outbreaks and bio-terror attacks. After 9/11, biodefence research grew dramatically, supported by government and non-profits keen to support the study of pandemic counter-measures. The civilian side of this research was mostly funded by public health agencies and mega-nonprofits interested in vaccine development to control natural disease outbreaks.
As these were potentially useful against bio-terror attacks too, it was unsurprising that these fields merged into a dual-use entity called ‘biodefense’ or “health security”. This symbiotic military/civilian enterprise could attract more funding and exert greater influence than biodefence or pandemic preparedness alone.
#30
The growth of such collaboration in the USA, also coincided with a shift of power away from nation states, as capital and political power migrated into the GPPP. This is the context of a “health security” leviathan for mRNA vaccination emerging during COVID-19, as an indispensable system “too big to fail”. Its alignment to long term GPPP Great Reset ambitions, provides an interesting context to ground
resistance in each case: Dr Rapiti proved that a viable, low-cost treatment existed, which would pose a threat to Emergency Use Authorisation of the experimental “vaccines”. Likewise, Dr Atlas’ questioning of lockdowns, mass testing, and masking challenged the environment of fear necessary for maintaining social control past the roll-out of mass vaccination. Do read the books below for more on this nefarious reality.
#31
The Global biodefence PPP builds on the large influence of Big Pharma, which already exerts a huge amount of financial control via the ‘Chorus effect’. Journalist John MacGregor’s book spotlights this effect. There is huge commercial buy-in across all key social agents, which poses a challenge for them
appreciating any value in “heretical” vaccine critiques, such as in the books on the right.
#32
Research into the resistance dissidents face can help us better appreciate the complicated context of why experts confront suppression of evidence-based contributions. Resistance research can also help scholars appreciate how scientific suppression impacts what is neglected, or entirely absent in the scholarly literature.
Section 3 - Flagging the impacts of powerful resistance to experts
#33
This section addresses how the field of resistance studies help us understand suppression versus those attempting to ‘rewrite the rules’. Resistance studies supports understanding marginalized social agents who aim at developing intellectual autonomy and oppositional ways of thinking for combating epistemic injustice from networks of power exercising domination. Unusually, we focus on cases where resistance is readily identifiable, since COVID-19 dissenters inevitably must strive to gain visibility for their contributions.
#34
In preliminary research, we are collating cases for varied types of experts' COVID-19 contributions, where individuals describe facing strong resistance.
#35
These myriad of examples presents an opportunity to address a neglected topic; how institutional and other structural constraints work against dissident experts. Answering the first question entails exploring the concern of systematic bias against dissent in the top medical journals. While the second addresses how experts felt constrained in making their critical contributions. The third covers the myriad of constraints that led to a bias for the official COVID-19 narrative in medical academia.
#36
Due to its broad interdisciplinary nature, resistance studies is well-suited for describing the Undone Science of COVID, plus the varied tactics that authorities can use to suppress legitimate academic contributions from a diverse group of experts.
#37
For example, the typology of ‘Internal Challenges in Medicine’ spotlights a continuum from resistance into rebellion, and onto heresy. Heresy is a suitable concept for our cases since medical orthodoxy has the power to define which COVID contributions were “unacceptable”, meriting greater resistance and marginalisation.
#38
Delborne’s conceptual framework is useful for describing the contrarian science of COVID dissidents and the types of impedance and outright suppression their contributions faced in failing to be reviewed, or to receive strong counter-arguments against their ideas. Plus, resistance to their research program, and even dissidents’ entire scientific field.
#39
The “Classification for Suppression Methods in Science” will also be referenced, since it is likely that the experts we interview will describe self-censorship, experiencing external complaints, blocking of their outputs, with attempts to stigmatise and discredit their work. And direct attacks on career prospects.
#40
The first characteristic, in pink here, that Prof Martin flagged in ‘Censorship in Science: Deeper Processes ' (2024) flags how scholarship would seem dangerously one-sided if it does not fairly address treatment paradigms outside of costly mRNA vaccination. The 13 unanswered questions spotlighted in the previous section speak to ‘Undone Science’. Last, the issue of incorporated science is flagged- GPPP investors are not disinterested parties, as the COVID-19 response transferred trillions of dollars of wealth from us, as private citizens, to the GPPP’s supporters.
#41
The previous frameworks are just a small sample of what’s been written on institutional resistance against dissenting individuals. We will be writing a review article to define what’s been done. This will ground our research plans and help us develop a comprehensive framework for undergirding our hard cases and research articles. The two cases shared with you today spotlight that the suppression of experts’ contributions is not a minor matter. Hopefully, our project will raise greater awareness for this, whilst contributing to policies that can better support the rights of individuals to express credible dissent, and to over-write bad rules, and the lying rulers who enforce them.
#42
Thank you for listening to our work.
#43
And thanks to the team that supports TNF’s Academic Free Speech focus, and to CPUT and the Organisation for Propaganda Studies.
#44
Thanks too to the Nutrition Network for this opportunity.
#45
Please contact me on with any questions, comments or concerns about this presentation…
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