Springer Nature has removed two studies by Max Planck

Overview of incident

• Commenters highlight that historic physics papers were removed from journal archives, likely due to automated plagiarism checks misclassifying duplicate publications and same-titled responses as violations.
• People emphasize two absurdities: the journal serving only a blank “withdrawn” page while still charging ~$40, and claiming details can only be shared with the (long-deceased) author.
• Many see this as not just an error but an example of opaque, unaccountable behavior by a dominant publisher.

Critiques of academic publishing & capitalism

• Strong sentiment that for‑profit journals are “parasitic,” extracting public and grant money while relying on unpaid authors, reviewers, and often underperforming copy-editing.
• Several argue the system is “working as intended” under profit-maximizing capitalism: keep knowledge paywalled, minimize costs, use legal and regulatory capture instead of product improvement.
• Others distinguish: the system’s economics are “fine” but the academic culture that grants publishers so much prestige is broken.

Automation, bots, and censorship concerns

• Many assume internal bots flagged and retracted the papers; they find it “ghastly” that retraction—a serious sanction—can be triggered algorithmically.
• Concerns include: no meaningful appeal path, no human override, and the risk of mass silent disappearance of less-famous work.
• Some frame this as a warning about increasing reliance on black-box automation for consequential decisions.

Prestige, incentives, and self‑plagiarism

• Discussion over “self-plagiarism”:
  • One side: republishing the same work or text is gaming metrics, wastes reviewer time, and undermines journals’ role in filtering genuinely new work.
  • Other side: calling re-use of one’s own text “plagiarism” is seen as absurd and moralistic; readers can just skip familiar material.
• Broad agreement that careers hinge on publication counts and venue prestige, which sustains incumbent journals despite widespread dissatisfaction.

Access, piracy, and alternatives

• Many advocate for public, open repositories operated by governments or consortia of universities; some suggest mandates for CC-licensed preprints.
• arXiv and similar services are praised but seen as incomplete substitutes given current hiring and funding norms.
• Piracy is widely acknowledged as a de facto workaround, especially for historic or paywalled material.