The aim of preprint servers is to allow researchers to publicise their research before submitting it to a journal for the formal review process and then publishing. This allowed researchers to share and receive feedback on their articles. However, this all changed during the Covid era – any research that challenges the official Covid narrative is now rejected.
In an article, using specific examples, Professors Norman Fenton and Martin Neil describes the censorship their research has been and is subjected to by two preprint servers: medRvix and arXiv. The two professors also refer to how Wikipedia defames and delegitimizes anyone who dares to raise concerns about, or even question, the official Covid narrative.
medRvix is a preprint server for health sciences. Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been certified by peer review.
[The] preprints [are] complete but unpublished manuscripts that describe human health research conducted, analysed, and interpreted according to scientific principles … medRxiv provides a platform for researchers to share, comment, and receive feedback on their work prior to journal publication … [It] aims to improve the openness and accessibility of scientific findings, enhance collaboration among researchers, document provenance of ideas, and informongoing and planned research. [emphasis our own]
arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for scholarly articles. It boasts it is a research-sharing platform open to anyone.
The whole point of research paper preprint sites like medRxiv and arXiv is that they are supposed to enable researchers to publicise their work prior to any formal review process. It used to be the case that, providing the material passed automated checks for plagiarism and offensive language, then it would be published within a couple of days.
But all that changed in the covid era. We have reported many times how all of our covid papers, that in any way challenge the ‘official narrative’, are now routinely rejected by both medRxiv and arXiv (see, for example, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE). As the twitter post below makes clear, this censorship is now openly stated by medRxiv:
