My scholarship was silenced by an algorithm. What now?

In recent times, for most scholars, including myself, social media platforms like Facebook have become an important tool with which to "bring research out of the ivory tower". They enable us to reach the general public and foster a spirit of research for the common good.

However, I have recently learned a salutary lesson: that such an approach can be so easily undermined, with a platform's own community standards weaponized against the very academic debate it claims to protect.

This article is my personal account. I often post about academic materials on my Facebook account: my own research, discussions of relevant studies, and critiques of educational issues.

The context is Vietnam's foreign language education sector, which is growing very fast and is a lucrative market. For example, to attract students, many private language schools promote what they call 'unique language learning methods' - which often are more of a marketing device than a genuine scholarly innovation. It was a post on this topic that led to my account’s removal.

In one posting, I commented on a newspaper article in which a teacher from a well-known language school promoted their method while criticizing the supposed lack of systematic teaching in Vietnam. Believing that the claim was neither academically sound nor for educational purposes but rather for marketing ones, I referred to it as questionable.

A few hours later, my post, along with others containing the word 'IELTS' - the International English Language Testing System - was reported for violating intellectual property rights. The agent reporting was listed as 'the University of Cambridge', though the claim was linked to a domain registered in India, strongly suggesting that the profile was a fraudulent impersonation. My account was soon disabled. Appeals to Facebook have had no effect.

A system open to abuse

My own experience is a stark illustration of how an academic debate can be shut down through the weaponization of a non-human content control system, and it was accomplished with alarming ease. In this instance, I believe the fake identity of a real brand was utilized, and Facebook's unsophisticated system appeared to identify a violation where there was only legitimate academic discourse.

This was a turning point that made me reflect on how easily academic voices can be silenced the moment they raise concerns about pseudoscience being used as a marketing strategy. This is not a new problem.

Businesses have always invented 'scientific stories' for their products. Those who have practised real science have persisted, but often they are ignored or silenced.

It is an unfair game. On one side, science often sits in the ivory tower, where ‘impact’ is measured by h-indexes instead of lives improved or generations educated. On the other side, those that try to bring knowledge to the public are forced onto for-profit social media platforms which lack the infrastructure necessary to protect them.

An uneven fight for resources

But what it comes down to is one simple question: who's more resourceful? Who has the power and means to fashion tools that can easily exploit the weak security systems of platforms like Facebook?

A malicious actor can silence a critic with minimal time and money investment. The victim, meanwhile, is left facing a faceless, automated system that is designed without nuance, context or even fairness in mind. While I doubt Facebook has ever taken its responsibility for free speech seriously, to say the least-the fact that its weak system is susceptible to fraudulent claims that suppress legitimate debate-is a worrying one. It becomes a passive agent of censorship. Absent of that, the call to leave the ivory tower is little more than an invitation into a digital wilderness where the loudest or wealthiest voice prevails, not the most truthful one.