Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
Tag: open access
The Maidan Massacre, Censorship & Ukraine: Interview with Ivan Katchanovski

By Natylie Baldwin, Consortium News, 10/20/23
Canadian-Ukrainian professor Ivan Katchanovski’s investigation of the Maidan massacre in Kiev in February 2014 found an organized mass killing of both protesters and the police, with the goal of delegitimizing the Yanukovych government and its forces and seizing power in Ukraine, as he wrote for Consortium News in an in-depth article in 2019. (On Wednesday three policemenwere sentenced for the massacre, one was acquitted and one was released for time served. The official investigation ignored Katchanovski’s academic research.)
The Maidan Massacre, Censorship & Ukraine: My Interview with Ivan Katchanovski
How the U.S. is pressuring Elon Musk to unlock Tesla EV chargers
The Department of Transportation next week is expected to finalize a requirement that will pressure Tesla to expand beyond its proprietary charging equipment in the U.S. and add the charger used by its competitors, Reuters reported.
How the U.S. is pressuring Elon Musk to unlock Tesla EV chargers
Biden Administration Announces All Publicly Funded Research Should Be Available For Free To The Public
Here’s some amazingly good news amidst all of the nonsense of late. On Thursday, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the White House announced that they were updating policy guidance to mandate that all taxpayer-supported research should be immediately available to the public at no cost. According to the actual policy guidelines, US departments and agencies have until the end of 2025 to make this change (though, it’s not clear that there’s any remedy if they don’t). This is really huge — and it seems to have come out of nowhere.
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Of course, it also wouldn’t surprise me if Congress comes back with bills to lock up such research again — or a future administration flip flops on this. But… for now… good news!
Huge News: Biden Administration Announces All Publicly Funded Research Should Be Available For Free To The Public