That is a second part of corrections to The Verge article on Sci-Hub, that will be devoted to the conflict with the Dynasty foundation.
In May 2015, as part of a sweeping effort to insulate Russia from foreign influence, the Kremlin labeled Russia’s only private funder and popularizer of scientific research, the Dynasty Foundation, a “foreign agent.” Unlike much of the scientific community, Elbakyan was happy about change.
That is not very important, but I would question how it was measured that much of the Russian scientific community was disturbed by this change? Simply the fact that someone said that cannot be considered to be statistically significant result. From what I can say, many researchers never heard about the Dynasty foundation. Even with Sci-Hub, some users only learnt about the website in 2017.
It was effectively a think tank that assisted education initiatives that taught modern political science from a liberal perspective in Russian schools — including Elbakyan’s. This is ostensibly what qualified as “political activity.”
I attended the lectures, and from my point of view, they were political propaganda, not academic lectures. On the very first lecture, the professor said: those who support Putin has lower IQ than those who oppose him. I got very interested, and with honest curiosity asked after the lecture where I can lookup the statistics. The professor replied: I just made it up! Happened this today, I wouldn’t be surprised, but in 2012 I was very disturbed by such answer. The professor left to Washington to watch elections after reading a few lectures.
What I especially found nasty about Dynasty and its followers is the fact that they were trying to misrepresent political activity as pure academic research.
Many scientists protested, but Elbakyan didn’t understand the outrage. As far as she was concerned, Dynasty — particularly through its funding of the LMF — had spread “propaganda against Putin and the Russian authorities.”
That quote is obviously taken from my short article about Dynasty in Sci-Hub social network group. Here is that article, in full, translated to English:
That note is about inclusion of Zimin’s foundation «Dynasty» to the list of foreign agents. On the Internet many politically biased information appeared on this topic. And what actually happened?
In Russia starting from 2012 there is an amendment to the law about NGO’s, according to which organizations that:
(a) involved in political activity
(b) receive funding from abroad – have to register as «foreign agents»
The law does not require stopping the activity. There is a special notice that scientific activity does not count as political.
Such law is not a purely Russian invention. The similar laws about organizations – foreign agents are working in the USA.
After examination of the foundation the Ministry of Justice stated that «Dynasty» conforms to the criteria listed and it is a foreign agent.
For example, the Dynasty foundation is one of the main sponsors of the foundation «Liberal mission». That foundation supports, developes an promotes the «liberal» ideas. In the Russian realities, that means supporting Euromaidan, protests and propaganda against Putin and russian authorities. In one if his interviews, Zimin openly says:
– Of course, I have been to Bolotnaya and to Manezhnaya [where protests took place] Right after interview I will drive to the «Rain» TV channel [the political opposition outlet]
Zimin’s son through his foundation «Sreda» sponsored oppositional media, such as the «Rain»
What do we have? In the case Zimin’s foundation only sponsored science, and only science – nobody would recognize it as a «foreign agent»
By the way, last year the foundation spent on science about 172 million rubles. Compare this to the government expenses to science: «for basic research in the following year is planned to give about 130 billion rubles, for citizen applied research – two times more»
ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Иностранный_агент
ruposters.ru/news/26-05-2015/zimin_dinastiya_po_kom
trv-science.ru/2014/10/07/byudzhet-na-nauku-2015
That’s it. I did not even attach an image to illustrate the article, as I do with most other posts. I wrote this very short and concise piece to state Sci-Hub position, and to show that Dynasty was actually involved in politics, and as a result eventually got restricted. Because in other sources, the events were mis-represented. Everyone was writing about how innocent, purely scientific initiative got restricted because of government stupidity. However, the Dynasty foundation was never pure science – and I found myself obliged to disclose this fact. I told the Verge about this.
The result of this short and not very harsh criticism was an outrage. The Verge writes that many scientists protested. However, protested many people who were not scientists, but politicians who supported Dynasty activities. Even people from Ukraine posted many comments. I deleted all comments that I found offensive, and removed such people from the Sci-Hub social network group.
She describes Zimin’s work through Dynasty, and the organization itself, as “anti-communist,” though she’s vague about how. Elbakyan says the foundation and Sci-Hub are “ideologically opposed”
That’s true: I view Sci-Hub as a communistic initiative. Sci-Hub opposes intellectual property on research articles that publishers hold. Research papers are common and not the property of some publisher. Even further, Sci-Hub opposes exploitation of researcher’s labor and restriction of masses from knowledge, that communist revolution opposed. Zimin, as I could understand from his interview, hated USSR. And Zimin was publishing Richard Dawkins books and was supported by some fanatic atheists. I’m not atheist.
Taking all that, I had no reason to love Zimin and be his ardent supporter – and many others in Russia too. However, my criticism was not based on these ideological differences: I simply noted the fact that true, Dynasty was involved in political activity. What’s wrong in disclosing that?
So, she began writing posts presenting instances of Dynasty supporting liberal-leaning groups. She asserts that she didn’t want to “[argue] any kind of side.” But the posts read with surprising acrimony for someone ostensibly attempting to be objective. She dubbed Dynasty’s supporters “the Brigades of the ‘Dynasty.’” She also re-shared negative articles about Dynasty that were written by state-controlled media outlets, and even shared Photoshopped pictures doctored to cast Zimin in a blatantly suspicious light.
Where did the journalist take this information from? There were only three posts published about Dynasty foundation in Sci-Hub group. The first post was that short and concise note saying that Dynasty was actually very political organization. The other post was a quote from Vera Mysina, a russian researcher who supported Dynasty to be considered a foreign agent.
«I think we did everything right. Because the activity of the foundation was ambiguous… our science and young researchers will not lose anything without the foundation» she said.
The quote was followed by a poll: should science be international, or not, because governments are competing with each other? Most users voted for the first option.
I never asserted that I’m trying to be objective. However, I do not find anything especially bitter or acrimonious in these posts. What was acrimonious is the reaction, for example, someone characterized Vera Mysina as «bitch and whore». Sci-Hub, on the contrary, did not use such kind of criticism against opponents, nor was calling them having low IQs, mad and retarded.
The cyberbullying started even before the first post about Dynasty in Sci-Hub group was published. I shared my opinion in other group that promoted Richard Dawkins and skepticism. I was told in obscene words, that Dynasty is much better than Sci-Hub. After post in Sci-Hub the insults increased, so I created a poll. I wrote about being bullied and asked users to vote: what will be more damaging for Russian science to lose: Sci-Hub or Dynasty? Sci-Hub won 80:20, after that Dynasty supporters started flowing into the group and the final result became 70:30. I removed the poll from the group afterwards, but you still can find it on individual users pages to check.
She dubbed Dynasty’s supporters “the Brigades of the ‘Dynasty.’”
Where did I say this? Perhaps in some private chat.
She also re-shared negative articles about Dynasty that were written by state-controlled media outlets
I do not remember sharing articles, however the first post about Dynasty cited one source about Dynasty, that talked about the political activity of the foundation.
…and even shared Photoshopped pictures doctored to cast Zimin in a blatantly suspicious light.
I do not remember myself sharing any such pictures.
In other words, there was no comprehensive attack on Dynasty from Sci-Hub as this article is trying to represent. I only shared the fact about Dynasty involvement in political activity. And even that was very short and concise.
Shortly afterward, something strange happened. Many of the former members of Sci-Hub’s vKontakte group say that they simply got booted for supporting Dynasty.
That is a blatant lie. There were people who simply said that Dynasty was a good foundation, helped Russian science and etc. and such opinions were never deleted and were never the reason to ban user. I said this before in Sci-Hub group, but my voice was never heard.
One scientist, Dmitry Perekalin of Nesmeyanov Institute, said that Elbakyan asked her group to vote on which was better for Russian science, Sci-Hub or Dynasty. “I wrote that it was a false dilemma and was immediately banned”
Because there was no dilemma. The poll was simply asking users to estimate, on their opinion, what could damage the Russian science more, the shut down of Sci-Hub or Dynasty. Where is the dilemma? Even further, this person is a liar: there is a big difference between asking «what is better» and «what would be more damaging to shut down»
I could comment much more on the completely unethical behavior of the Dynasty supporters in this conflict and afterwards, but enough. I sometimes think that perhaps, these people were not the true supporters of Dynasty: the simply used the foundation as an exuse to attack Sci-Hub. The never tried answering the criticism of Dynasty foundation with arguments, only with insults.
Ultimately, Elbakyan shut down Sci-Hub in Russia for several days
That did not happen immediately. The Dynasty «supporters» attacked me for two years after this conflict happened. Even though the government was behind the closing of Dynasty, they never tried to stop the war. Those people who ardently supported Dynasty still work in government-funded institutions, have good salaries and receive prizes from Russian government. On the other side, Sci-Hub was never receiving any support from government, even though it was, by the opinions of many researchers, very important project to help develop science.
That, and other reasons, such as new laws restricting freedom of information on the Internet, led me to shut down Sci-Hub in Russia as a sign of protest against all that is happening. That is somewhat similar to Wikipedia shutting down the website when they protested against SOPA and PIPA.
