Preprint server accused of censorship for removing “inflammatory” scientific papers

Cornell University’s arXiv, an open-access archive and free distribution service for scientific material, is embroiled in a controversy that has little if anything to do with science, but instead with “moderation” standards.

It started with the use of what the arXiv administrators have labeled as “inflammatory content and unprofessional language.”

arXiv is used as a “preprint server” for preliminary versions of scientific papers that are moderated but not peer-reviewed or published yet. The controversy’s source can be traced back to an article that had to do with room temperature superconductivity, Science magazine reports, but those who tried posting research that aims to prove an opposing point of view are in hot water on arXiv.