I'm starting a #Mastodon thread on the new #Trump administration's actions and positions on #OpenAccess to research.

I posted frequently about the actions of his first administration. But I did it on #Twitter / #X, which I no longer use.

Also see my separate Mastodon thread on outside efforts to capture and preserve research and data that the admin has taken down or might take down.
https://fediscience.org/@petersuber/114359552828366397

Also see this wiki page where I'm collecting my old Twitter posts on his first term and my new Mastodon posts on his second term.
https://cyber.harvard.edu/hoap/The_Trump_administrations_on_open_access_to_research

For updates, watch this space.

#DefendResearch #OpenWashing #OSTP #ScholComm #Takedowns #TrumpVResearch #USPol #USPolitics

petersuber (@[email protected])

Update. "With the recent announcement that numerous datasets — such as those from #NOAA — are scheduled for decommissioning in May, #PANGAEA has opened its archive to help safeguard these valuable resources. If you become aware of any endangered datasets, please don't hesitate to contact us. PANGAEA data!" https://pangaea.de/ #Censorship #DefendResearch #OpenData #Preservation #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

FediScience.org

Update. "The mad dash to protect environmental data from Donald Trump"
https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/18/24346025/data-donald-trump-climate-environment-epa
(#paywalled)

"Information about climate change vanished from federal websites under Donald Trump, who has repeatedly called climate change “a hoax.” Now, federal agencies could face deep staff and budget cuts overseen by Trump cronies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The proposed cuts not only threaten what kind of data the government shares but also whether it can collect and organize it at all....

One key resource that could languish under the Trump administration is the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool, #EJScreen.…Even if it stays online, the tool is not as useful without constant upkeep....

Much of the environmental data included in EJScreen is collected by the #EPA itself. The EPA isn’t likely to abandon its air quality monitors anytime soon, but #Project2025…proposes eliminating the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights that manages the tool...."

#Climate #ClimateChange #Environment #Takedowns

The mad dash to protect environmental data from Donald Trump

Researchers are bracing for new threats to government data on pollution and climate change under the Trump administration.

The Verge

Update. Here's a good use of #GitHub to track textual changes and page takedowns on federal govt web sites since #Trump took office.
https://www.404media.co/github-is-showing-the-trump-administration-scrubbing-government-web-pages-in-real-time/

This project is dedicated to the pages on #DEI. I hope someone launches a similar project on the pages dedicated to science and research.

#Censorship #Takedowns #USPol #USPolitics

GitHub Is Showing the Trump Administration Scrubbing Government Web Pages in Real Time

Watch the Trump administration play DEI whac-a-mole on this government agency's GitHub page.

404 Media

Update. "For the first time in its more than 60-year history, the #CDC's [#OpenAccess] Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (#MMWR) did not go out as scheduled because of a communications pause at federal health agencies issued by the #Trump administration."
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/generalinfectiousdisease/113905

#Censorship #Medicine #USPol #USPolitics

Trump's Gag Order Halts CDC Publication

MMWR did not publish as usual at 1 p.m. today

Update. As recently as January 2, 2025, #NASA had five modules for teaching #OpenScience on its web site. The #Trump administration has taken them down.
https://science.nasa.gov/open-science/tops/os101/

Here they are in the @internetarchive Wayback Machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250102141453/https://science.nasa.gov/open-science/tops/os101/

EDIT 01/09/26: The course is now back up on the #NASA website. (h/t @csmarcum)
https://science.nasa.gov/open-science/training/

#Takedowns #TrumpAntiScience #USPol #USPolitics

Open Science Trainings

Click on a tab below to learn about available open science training courses.

NASA Science

Update. If you're following this thread, also follow the Silencing Science Tracker from Sabin Center for Climate Change Law (at Columbia Law School) and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.
https://climate.law.columbia.edu/Silencing-Science-Tracker

#Climate #USPol #USPolitics

Silencing Science Tracker | Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Update. "Datasets aggregated on data.gov, the largest repository of U.S. government #OpenData on the internet, are being deleted, according to the website’s own information. Since Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, more than 2,000 datasets have disappeared from the database."
https://www.404media.co/archivists-work-to-identify-and-save-the-thousands-of-datasets-disappearing-from-data-gov/

#Data #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Archivists Work to Identify and Save the Thousands of Datasets Disappearing From Data.gov

More than 2,000 datasets have disappeared from data.gov since Trump was inaugurated. But analyzing exactly what happened and where it went is going to take some time.

404 Media

Update. "#USDA ordered to scrub climate change from websites"
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/31/usda-climate-change-websites-00201826

"Agriculture Department employees have been ordered to delete landing pages discussing climate change across agency websites and document climate change references for further review, according to an internal email obtained by POLITICO...."

#Agriculture #Censorship #Climate #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. I just posted an item outside this thread that belongs in the thread. Sorry. Here it is. The #Trump #CDC is asking staffers to withdraw pending scientific publications that use newly-prohibited terms like #transgender, #immigrant, or #LGBT.
https://fediscience.org/@petersuber/113946091994922725

#Censorship #ScholComm #USPol #USPolitics

petersuber (@[email protected])

"Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [#CDC] were ordered late on Friday to withdraw any pending publications, at any scientific journal, that mention terms such as “transgender,” “immigrant,” “L.G.B.T.” or “pregnant people.” https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02/01/us/trump-tariffs-news#trump-gender-research When CDC employees were co-authors of such pending papers, they were ordered to write to the journals and ask to be removed as co-authors. When all co-authors were CDC employees, they were ordered to ask the journal to retract the article from consideration. #Censorship #Retractions #ScholComm #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

FediScience.org

Update. "Top advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [#CDC] are asking the agency’s acting director to explain the abrupt removal of information and data from CDC websites, and say when it will be restored. In a sharply worded letter sent Saturday, the group asked Acting Director Susan Monarez what the rationale was for removing the data, if the consequences and legal authority of such a decision were considered, what was being done to safeguard the data sets that were removed, and when access to them would return. The letter asks for answers by Feb. 7."
https://archive.is/SWhYj

The CDC advisory board was disbanded by Trump in 2019 and revived by Biden in 2021. The members "expect to be fired" for asking the agency to explain and reverse the takedowns.

#Censorship #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "Represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, Doctors for America filed a #lawsuit today [Feb 4] against the Office of Personnel Management (#OPM), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (#CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (#FDA), and the Department of Health & Human Services (#HHS) for the removal of a broad range of #health-related data and other information used by health professionals and researchers from publicly accessible government websites."
https://www.citizen.org/news/doctors-for-america-sues-over-removal-of-health-information-from-hhs-cdc-fda-websites/

#Medicine #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Doctors for America Sues Over Removal of Health Information From HHS, CDC, FDA Websites - Public Citizen

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, Doctors for America filed a lawsuit today against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the…

Public Citizen

Update, on the #CDC order directing staffers to retract pending journal articles that use now-prohibited terms like #transgender and #immigrant (earlier in this thread) …

Bravo to the #BMJ (@bmj_latest) for calling this order "sinister and ludicrous."
https://www.bmj.com/content/388/bmj.r253

"This is not how it works. Medically relevant terminology and inclusive language follow evidence based reporting standards or are matters of individual journal style and policy. They do not follow political orders. Similarly, co-authors cannot simply scrub themselves from articles. Authorship gives credit and accountability for the work, and an article’s list of authors does not ghost contributors. If authors wish to withdraw submissions under review at a journal, this process is feasible should all of their co-authors agree. However, if somebody who merits inclusion in the authorship group of an article requests to be removed, even with the approval of the co-authors, this is a breach of publication ethics."

#Authorship #Retractions #ScholComm #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. Here's an online tool from #BradleyAllf to help you publish research in the #Trump age, especially if you're a US govt scientist. Just paste in your abstract and it will underline the banned words.
https://brad7280.github.io/thoughtcrime-checker/

#Censorship #ReviseAndResubmit #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Thoughtcrime Checker

Update. "Staffers with Elon #Musk’s [#DOGE] entered the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (#NOAA)…today, inciting concerns of downsizing at the agency."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/04/doge-noaa-headquarters

What's the #Trump or #Trumpist interest here?

1. "#Project2025…called for the agency to be 'broken up and downsized', claiming the agency is 'harmful to US prosperity' for its role in #climate science."

2. Andrew Rosenberg, a former NOAA official, "noted it had been a longtime goal of corporations that rely on NOAA data to prevent the agency from making the data public, instead of giving it directly to private corporations that create products based on it, such as weather forecasting services."

PS: Rosenberg is right. During the GWBush admin, Senator #RickSantorum (R-PA) repeatedly tried to take down NOAA's open weather data, to benefit AccuWeather, the for-profit weather forecaster in his state. I wrote about it often at the time and may have to dig out and reup those old pieces.

#OpenData #USPol #USPolitics

Doge staffers enter Noaa headquarters and incite reports of cuts and threats

Members reportedly sought access to IT systems at agency that Project 2025 has called ‘harmful to US prosperity’

The Guardian

Update. The #BMJ isn't the only journal pushing back against the #CDC directive that staff scientists should retract pending publications that use Trump-banned words. (Earlier in this thread.)

Kudos to the _American Journal of Public Health_ (#AJPH) for pushing back as well.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/114076

From publisher Georges Benjamin: "We at the American Journal of Public Health have no interest in following the president's prohibitions on language. We will publish things under our guidelines, under our ethical principles." Benjamin acknowledged that the journal may now get fewer submissions from government scientists.

AJPH is published by the American Public Health Association (#APHA).

#Censorship #Medicine #ScholComm #SocietyPublisher #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Public Health Journal Won't Be Complicit in Trump Admin's Censorship

'We will publish things under our guidelines, under our ethical principles'

DOGE Employees Ordered to Stop Using Slack While Agency Transitions to a Records System Not Subject to FOIA

Employees at Elon Musk's agency have been told "OMB is asking us to stop generating new slack messages starting now."

404 Media

Update. If you're following this thread, you might also follow Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to #Trump Administration Actions, from #JustSecurity.
https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal-challenges-trump-administration/

#USLaw #USPol #USPolitics

Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions

A public resource tracking the legal challenges to Trump administration executive orders and actions.

Just Security

Update. The Dept of Defense (#DOD) just released the implementation plan for its upgraded #OpenAccess policy under the Biden-era #OSTP #NelsonMemo.
https://discover.dtic.mil/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/DoD_PublicAccessPlan_Dec_2024.pdf

This is the first fed agency action of its kind since #Trump took office. Note that, so far, this work has not stopped or changed.

@petersuber It will be, though, won't it? Just because it came from the Biden White House.

@mike
We honestly don't know yet. On the one hand, #Trump has taken down govt science sites and datasets in his first and second terms. On the other hand, his Office of Science and Technology Policy (#OSTP) drafted an #OpenAccess policy for federal agencies much like the one later adopted by the #Biden OSTP through the #NelsonMemo. He could have stopped those OSTP efforts but he didn't. As the time came to make a decision and perhaps sign off on it, he was entangled in impeachment hearings. One way to read these conflicting trends is that he takes down science he has ideological reasons to dislike (e.g. on climate and gender) but doesn't oppose OA as such. Or, since he probably has no opinion about OA as such, the advisors he trusts might not oppose OA as such. For example, one passage in #Project2025 (p. 439) supports OA for EPA-funded research. We'll have to wait and see.

More details on both of this tension.
https://bit.ly/TrumpOA

The Trump administrations on open access to research - Harvard Open Access Project

@petersuber I very much hope you're right. I suspect the outcome will be nothing to do with whether Trump does or doesn't like OA, or even understand what it is; but will hinge purely on whether it's seen as a Biden White House thing.
@mike
Yes, he has a history of opposing whatever Biden did and just because Biden did it. In his first term, ditto with Obama. On the other hand, he might have allowed his (first-term) #OSTP to draft a stronger federal #OpenScience policy than Obama's in part because it would outdo what Obama was able to do on that front. In his new term, might he have a similar motive to outdo what Biden was able to do? Again, we don't know and will have to wait and see.
@petersuber Well, that would be extremely welcome, if unexpected.
Federal Register :: Request Access

@mike @petersuber
Not in the sense on public access though - rather, it limited the types of evidence that environmental regulators are allowed to consider.

@kdnyhan @mike
Yes. I called this #openwashing because it used the halo of openness or transparency to block regulations that would protect the environment and climate. (Medical studies on the harms of airborne pollution could not fully open their data, for reasons of medical privacy.) Here are the #OATP items I tagged with that sort of openwashing during the first #Trump administration.
https://tagteam.harvard.edu/hubs/oatp/item_search?q=(%23oa.trump+OR+%23oa.epa)+AND+%23oa.trump

But note that #Project2025 calls for both (1) this older kind of #EPA openwashing and (2) direct, unembargoed #OpenAccess (or #PublicAccess) to EPA-funded research, echoing the Biden-era #NelsonMemo. See p 439: "Add teeth to long-standing executive orders, memoranda, recommendations, and other policies to require that EPA regulations are based on transparent, reproducible science as well as that the data and publications resulting from taxpayer-funded activities are made immediately available to the public."
https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

TagTeam :: Search - Open Access Tracking Project (OATP)