This presentation will address how the negative phenomenon of academic cybermobbing is a novel form of censorship that the orthodoxy exercises where the stronger tools of 'Undone Science’ and narrative control within Higher Education by external funders seem to have failed.

1. Postdoctoral research project (2019-21)
Faculty of Informatics and Design
Department of Applied Design
#onlineacademicbullying
@TheNoakesF
Cybermobs for online academic bullying
a new censorship option to protect The Science™ ’s status-quo
support for questioning The Science ™
Adjunct Scholar
Faculty of Health and Wellness Sciences
Administration Department
Travis Noakes for Panda Open Society, December 6, 2023

2. 1. Travis’ research and The Noakes Foundation’s support for questioning The Science™
2. What is The Science™, and where is it?
3. Scientific suppression, Undone Science and “Safe” Research in Higher Education
4. Sites for knowledge production (Academia, Infodemic- and mRNA research)
5. Low carbohydrate social media advocacy shapes science and Swedish guidelines
6. Hard and soft approaches to 21st century online censorship of non-conventional science
7. Cyber harassment in the online academic bullying of science dissidents
8. Academic cybermobbing is distinct from academic mobbing
9. Well-meaning orthodox critics and others earn Academic Cybermobbing Rewards™
10. Types of agents in an academic cybermob
11. Many censorship options in a Fifth Estate
12. Protecting the COVID-19 Science™ from an Infodemic…
13. or protecting international health authorities from legitimate scientific dissent?
14. Macro, meso and micro-level examples of orthodox agents promoting health propaganda
15. Challenges in researching academic cybermobs
16. Research into celebrity cybermobs
17. Thanks!
Overview

3. About Travis’ research
Travis’ research portfolio has followed an interdisciplinary approach in
blending principles of brand management, multimedia design, and graphic
design, with academic research into digital voice. Such scholarship is
unusual in focusing on under-resourced teenagers and media studies students
from South Africa, and dissident scientists negotiating scientific suppression
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9566-8983
https://publons.com/researcher/1881059/travis-miles-noakes/
https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/Travis-M-Noakes/144922761
https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=-beyzEoAAAAJ&hl=en
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Travis-Noakes-2
https://capepeninsula.academia.edu/TravisNoakes?from_navbar=true
Travis is a volunteer director at The Noakes Foundation and runs Create
With Cape Town (createwith.net).

4. The Noakes Foundation (TNF) supports Questioning the Science™
TNF supports research into the low-carb high-fat (LCHF) diet
and the insulin resistance model of chronic ill health (IRMCIH)
paradigm. Also exploring how dissidents use digital voices to
work around censorship and cyber harassment.
Since its inception in 2013, The Noakes Foundation has raised
external funding for LCHF, IRMCIH and academic free
speech. In 2023, TNF has assisted 19 research projects
according to researchers' diverse needs. Such assistance can
include:
✅ developing external funding proposals
✅ funding and research project management
✅ research planning and participant recruitment
✅ scholarly supervision
✅ writing and publication support
✅ scientific communication advice
✅ work-arounds versus scientific suppression and cyber harassment

5. What is the Science™? An institutional approach to science.
Dr Mark Changizi describes The Science™ to be an institutionalized approach whose
experts stay in one field for the duration of their careers. Orthodox scientists defend their
ideas, which can include censoring dissident views as a legitimate approach to “dangerous”
counter-opinions. This approach views the “correct” science as being handed down from
scientific authorities. Having become wedded to their own orthodox position, scientists must
promote it and repeatedly argue against alternate explanations. To ensure that their academic
track’s contribution sticks through ‘the tincture of time’, scientists may be tempted to
support suppression, and even censorship, of rival views.
Members of an entrenched scientific orthodoxy may assume that there is no justification to
question their scientific hypothesis that has been transmuted into a single, monolithic body
of scientific knowledge. According to The Science™’s mistaken view, scientific facts are
always correct and permanently reliable, versus simply being one interpretation of the data.
Dr Mark Changizi’s talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGU1qHMuVow&t=12s
The Noakes Foundation on Questioning the Science https://thenoakesfoundation.org/questioning-the-science

6. The Science™’s focus represents the interests of funders (versus just public health’s)
Funding equals capacity (incapacity can undermine scientific freedom)
Prestigious fields require high combinations of capital to do state of the art research (for example. medical trials)
There is a small pool of potential funders for costly academic research projects, meaning funding sources are scarce.
No charitable donation will conflict with the financial interests of its donor (Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Tech)
Can Big Food sponsor unprocessed food research? Would Big Pharma sponsor research into unvaccinated populations?
Some charitable donations will directly promote donor’s interests, while others do so indirectly/eventually.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s (BMGF) philanthropy towards international health organizations eventually supports
the vaccine sales of companies that Bill Gates is a major shareholder in.
Problem with researchers’ disclosure of conflicts-of-interest
Disinformation research on anti-vaccination communication from an international body funded by BMGF is not
disinterested, since it supports Bill Gates’ investment goals. However, researchers can legitimately claim no conflict
of interest exist in being funded by an “independent” BMGF charity.
How ethical compliance can serve unethical ends would be an interesting research contribution!
Critical self-reflection on such research limitations is disincentivized within Higher Education
Honest expression about the constraints funders place on academic research is likely to be career-limiting, especially
in over-dominated disciplines
True academic liberty and science may contradict the interest of The Science™ funders
‘Dark academia’ is a conservative space that does not support contesting funders’beliefs, or academic authorities’dogmas

7. Situating a scientific researcher’s focus on particular problems (or their exclusion)
What is Bourdieusian epistemic reflexivity?
‘Interrogating the interrogation, this is what I call the principle of reflexivity.’
(Bourdieu, 2017. French translation)
Unlike scientific reflection in which researchers focus on concerns with their data and
methods, reflexivity steps further back to examine the scholar(s) making judgement. An
individual scientist, or ideally his or her whole scientific grouping considers the positionality
of the wider research discipline, and its field. This might cover what is taken for granted in:
how problems are defined; the research questions that tend to be included or excluded;
whether there a restrictive dominant paradigm; or even a relativist orthodoxy for ‘anything
goes’. In this way broader patterns of interpretation can be related to concerns within
scholars’ research. This relational approach of Bourdieusian sociology thereby strives to
achieve an epistemological repositioning of the dualisms between individual and society,
subject and object. ‘Reflexively, they are the same thing, seen from different points of view, in
constantly moving relationships of structural causality’ (Ribeiro and Miraldi, 2022).
Ribeiro, F., & Miraldi, J. (2022). Bourdieu, Reflexivity, and Scientific Practice. Configurações,
29(0), 111-130. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4000/configuracoes.15157

8. Cascades of capital shape the ongoing development of scientific knowledge
An example- Urgent COVID-19 research funding
in an overdetermined discipline
Cascades of capital recreate capacity
(& incapacity) for power in academic
fields (AKA cultural reproduction)
Professor Pierre
Bourdieu
Funders prioritize certain
research capabilities over others
Inclusion in an exclusive group
of essential knowledge workers
Contribute to knowledge and its
assimilation
Certification, awards and
other forms of recognition
Rapid genetic vaccine research
Undone science for low-cost interventions
Be a part of COVID-19 research teams
Ostracism of SARS-COV-2/COVID-19 dissidents
Do COVID-19 fieldwork & publish research
Deprioritisation of other areas (HIV, TB)
Recognition from peers and society for good work
Other valuable contributions may not be
acknowledged
Economic capital
Social capital
Cultural capital
Symbolic capital
Sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK)

9. The Science™ is where there is no debate between alternate viewpoints
Controversy mapping can map actors’ debates in Higher Education around health interventions
Science debates create ‘issue arenas’ (a public relation concern) The Science ™ is silencing opposition (silence is golden)
Insulin Resistance diet vs Lipid Hypothesis for Statins Prescribe insulin as the premier treatment
Responsible health choices vs Genetic vaccines COVID-19 genetic vaccination treatment for all
Health communication vs propaganda Non-consensual health interventions are justified
Counseling vs surgery for gender “affirmation” Gender reassignment surgery is the “optimal solution”
Natural immunity vs virus control Pandemic simulation and routine prevention
Climate fluctuation vs carbon dioxide control Mandating lower emissions for middle/working class
Population growth vs demographic controls Build Back Better + Great Reset for Neo-Malthusianism
Capacity cascade of cultural,
economic, symbolic and
social capital protects
experts for the status-quo
Dissidents “correctly”
ostracised for “heresy”
Alternate explanations excluded from
formal cultural and economic
opportunities (negative capacity
results in Undone
Science)

10. A bias towards the dominant orthodoxy leads to examples of
‘undone science’. This concept refers to research that could be
undertaken but is not pursued. Such gaps stem from research
findings that could potentially be unwelcome to powerful groups
(Frickel et al., 2010). Undone science is commonly found in the
areas of environment and health (Hess, 2016), and is a germane
concept for understanding gaps in health communication studies.
For example, little to no funding has been allocated to research the
dangers of amplifying flawed scientific research (“information”
that later turns out to be misinformation) and related failing
“health” policies and guidance from health authorities. There are
also gaps regarding communication interventions that promote
personal responsibility. For example, lifestyle choices that might
help optimise individuals’ health choices and behaviours in
response to minimising the impacts of SARS-CoV-2 infection and
COVID-19 sickness (Noakes et al., 2022).
What is ‘undone science’?

11. Noakes, T. M., Bell, D., & Noakes, T. D. (2022). Who is watching the World Health Organisation?
‘Post-truth’moments beyond infodemic research. 2022, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1263
How does scientific suppression relate to academic free speech?
Gatekeepers: funders - ethics boards - regulators – deans – supervisors - infrastructure
External control by The Science™ for accredited science and virtuous expertise
‘Suppression can be understood as a normative category of impedance
that is unfair, unjust and counter to the standards of academic behaviour
(Delborne, 2016). Academic freedom is a special right of academics-a
right to freedom from prescribed orthodoxy in their teaching, research,
and lives as academics (Turk, 2014). This right seeks to avoid corruption
from the vested interests of other parties, which ranges from scholarly
peers and university board members to corporate donors. This right is
foundational in supporting scholars to advance and expand knowledge,
for example by accommodating diverse voices (Saloojee, 2013).The
academic freedom of dissenting scientists, who have earned the right to
contribute, must be tolerated to speak, write and teach the truth as they
see it (Dworkin, 1996).’
Scientific autonomy took a long time to develop and can quickly disappear
Bourdieu, P. (2004). Science of science and reflexivity. The University of
Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo3630402.html

12. Autonomous science is unsafe and can overthrow The Science™
Its findings can prove negative for funders, but be beneficial for society
Dark Academia- (c)overt defender of The Science™’s narrative?
Pedagogy– highly influential field for knowledge discourse, and its assimilation
Promote (genetic) “vaccination” vs. question has mRNA been soundly-tested?
Research direction controlled via funding incremental progress with prior models
COVID-19 research grants may be a large percent of a university’s research budget.
Moral boundary setting for what a ‘good’ scientist can, and should, explore
Scholars speak to what’s established in the literature by current experts
Research programs exclude challenging topics as “unethical”
The carnivore diet, unmasked/unvaccinated publics
Controversial topics as time-wasting and career-limiting, or even academic job ending
Even with permission, getting outputs from challenging research will be inefficient.
Research to please administrators, deans and funders’long-term interests.
Self-censorship is common.
Higher Education as a “safe” research space for the ‘current thing’

13. Sites for knowledge production and its recontextualisation outside Academia
An example for COVID-19 featuring the higher education (HE), media and government fields.

14. Sites for knowledge production and its recontextualisation outside Academia
Noakes, T. M., Bell, D., & Noakes, T. D.
(2022). Who is watching the World
Health Organisation? ‘Post-truth’
moments beyond infodemic research.
2022, 18(1).
https://doi.org/10.4102/td.v18i1.1263
The example of the infodemic research agenda

16. Sites for knowledge production and its recontextualisation outside Academia
The example of the division of knowledge labour on mRNA vaccines

17. Low carb advocacy on social media has helped to change science and policy

18. Digital voices on Big Tech’s platforms as a Fifth Estate
The Fifth Estate- The Power Shift of the Digital Age by Professor William H Dutton
‘In the eighteenth century, the printing press enabled the rise
of an independent press—the Fourth Estate—that helped
check the power of governments, business, and industry. In
similar ways, the internet is forming a more independent
collectivity of networked individuals, which William H.
Dutton identifies as the Fifth Estate. Their network power is
contributing to a more pluralist role of individuals in
democratic political processes and society, which is not only
shaping political accountability but nearly every sector of
society. Yet a chorus of critics have dismissed the internet's
more democratic potentials, demonizing social media and
user-generated-content as simply sources of fake news and
populism. So, is the internet a tool for democracy or anarchy?
In The Fifth Estate, Dutton uses estate theory to illuminate
the most important power shift of the digital age. He argues
that this network power shift is not only enabling greater
democratic accountability in politics and governance but is
also empowering networked individuals in their everyday life
and work, from checking facts to making civic-minded social
interventions.
By marshalling world leading research and case studies in a
wide range of contexts, Dutton demonstrates that the internet
and related digital media are enabling ordinary individuals to
search, create, network, collaborate, and leak information in
such independent and strategic ways that they enhance their
informational and communicative power vis-à-vis other
actors and institutions. Dutton also makes the case that
internet policy interventions across the globe have increased
censorship of users and introduced levels of surveillance that
will challenge the vitality of the internet and the Fifth Estate,
along with its more pluralist distribution of power. Ambitious
and timely, Dutton provides an understanding of the Fifth
Estate and its democratic potential so that networked
individuals and institutions around the world can maintain
and enhance its role in our digital age.’
Source
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-fifth-estate-
9780190688370?cc=gb&lang=en&#

19. Scientific censorship is difficult to detect and measure, it is rarely empirically established.
‘Hard censorship- powerful authorities prevent dissemination.
Soft censorship – formal and informal social punishments or threats of them (ostracism,
reputational damage) aimed at pressuring the target.’
Clark, C. J., Jussim, L., Frey, K., Stevens, S. T., al-Gharbi, M., Aquino, K., Bailey,
J. M., Barbaro, N., Baumeister, R. F., Bleske-Rechek, A., Buss, D., Ceci, S.,
Del Giudice, M., Ditto, P. H., Forgas, J. P., Geary, D. C., Geher, G., Haider, S.,
Honeycutt, N., . . . von Hippel, W. (2023). Prosocial motives underlie
scientific censorship by scientists: A perspective and research agenda.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(48), e2301642120.
https://doi.org/doi:10.1073/pnas.2301642120
Scientific censorship- hard and soft approaches
Stop, Torturer! chat sticker artwork by Rupert Dolby
for Create With™ © 2023, Cape Town

20. 21st century methods
to suppress debate

21. 21st Century Censorship matrix versus non-conventional, health intervention scholarship
Direct Indirect
Stealthy
☝ Mobs prevent research and teaching on interventions
☝ Mobs launch academic bullying (in department and online)
☝ Public degradation ceremonies (letters to the press)
☝ Sponsorship of conferences to criticize minority opinions
☝ “Health” bodies launch public hearings
☝ Sponsors threaten lawsuits for “unscientific” advice
☝ Mobs withdraw credentials and positions
☝ Mobs demote, fire or retire
� Pressure to research only conventional interventions
� Prevent promising interventions being funded
� Limit access to leadership by non-conventional
� Mobs ostracize work colleagues
� Mobs reduce or remove outreach via institution
� Weak/non-existent institutional policies against
bullying and intellectual harassment
� Sponsors pay critics for public commentary
� Critics funded via industry-sponsored “independent” bodies
to defend scientism via outreach (web activism)
� Critics report online accounts to close them down
� Electronic surveillance of “non-conventional” scientists
� All apply covert pressure for such scientists’dismissal
� Mobs block publication of “non-conventional” views
� Research into promising interventions blocked as
‘unethical’
� Online petitions by critics against journal staff
� Withdrawal of funding and grants blacklisted
� Refereed manuscripts blocked from publication
Tools that Big Food, Bad Pharma and academic cyber mobs may use use to control or influence the production and
dissemination of information or opinion via Costly Academia. Control attention, not censorship.
High visibility of orthodox opinions via an information glut + Suppression of contesting scientific views that challenge “true” axioms
Visible

22. Background of a high-profile TARGET for academic cyberbullies
Director for UCT Exercise Science and Sports Medicine (ESSM) unit for over 25
years
NRF A rated scientist in exercise and nutrition since 2004
Over 500 scientific papers
H-index over 70 (40 for publications dealing with nutrition)
Doctor of Science
Influential public author
From the Lore of Running to Bob Woolmer’s Art and Science of Cricket
Funding and facilities
Co-founded the Sports Science Institute of South Africa in 1995
Raised large amounts for UCT over his lifetime
Donated large amounts to help fund needy students and staff positions
22
Professor Noakes’ contribution to the University of Cape Town (UCT)

23. 23
Associate Professor Zeynep Tufekci
in ‘Twitter and Tear Gas- the
power and fragility of networked
Protest’ (2017)
Goals of the powerful against social movements is
to break the causal chain between information
dissemination and individual agents’ wills to act.
1. Inundate audiences with an information glut;
2. Produce distractions to dilute online audiences’
attention and focus;
3. Delegitimize media that provide accurate
information;
4. Aggressively question credibility;
5. Create or claim hoaxes;
6. Generate harassment campaigns making it hard
for credible conduits of information to operate.
https://www.twitterandteargas.org/downloads/twitter-and-
tear-gas-by-zeynep-tufekci.pdf
Dissident social movements must negotiate stakeholders’ attention denial

24. What is harassment?
‘Harassment is typically understood as a willful and malicious
‘course of conduct’ directed at a person that would cause a
reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress and that
does cause the person to suffer distress.’
- page 124
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674659902
Stop, silly troll! emoji sticker artwork by Janine Venter
for Create With™ © 2023, Cape Town

25. Cyber harassment?
The cyber label captures the different ways the Internet
can exacerbate the injuries suffered.
- Citron, 2014, page 3
Cyber harassment consists of repeated ‘online speech’
(digital media- text, image, video) that is often
an anti-social, low-value contribution to discourse.
It can involve threats of violence, privacy invasions, reputation-
harming lies, calls for strangers to physically harm the victims and
technology attacks.
Cyber harassment is not an isolated incident, but rather features
repeated attacks.
Stop, silly troll! emoji sticker artwork by Janine Venter
for Create With™ © 2023, Cape Town

26. Distinguishing online academic bullying
Noakes, T., & Noakes, T. (2021). Distinguishing online academic bullying: identifying new forms of harassment in a dissenting
Emeritus Professor's case. Heliyon, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06326
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402100431X#!
Stop, Torturer! emoji sticker
artwork by Rupert Dolby
for Create With™ © 2023,
Cape Town

27. Varied extremes of cyber harassment
1. Cyberstalking and hyper-surveillance
2. Deception
3. Trolling and flaming
4. Cyberbullying
5. Wikipedia edits and Google bombing
6. Pariah profiles (eg on “rationalwiki’)
7. Invasion of privacy - doxxing
8. Revenge porn
9. Encouraging self-harm and suicide
10.Endorsing extremist views and terrorism
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tim_Noakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Noakes
https://www.medicalbrief.co.za/archives/noakes-litany-specious-comments-errors/

28. What is academic mobbing?
Academic mobbing is a toxic social process through which an academic is singled
out for ejection from academia (Seguin, 2016). It comprises methodical and
aggressive actions that can ostracise an academic target over a period of months
or years (Johnson, 2014; Khoo, 2010). The hallmarks of an event of academic
mobbing identified in a recent review (Prevost and Hunt, 2018) were all
identifiable in the Emeritus Professor’s case:
An unresolved conflict arose between him and members of his and other faculties,
as well as his university's administration (Noakes & Sboros, 2017, 2019). There
was a clear imbalance of power between the Professor and his attackers. He
experienced positional bullying from the dean of the medical faculty, its
professors and others in varied departments at his employer’s institution. The
intellectual, emotional and psychological attacks came from both academics and
non-scholars, who focused on his academic work. He was attacked for over six
months and heavily monitored, which took a psychological and emotional toll.
Stop, academic bully! emoji sticker artwork by Marlon Albertyn
for Create With™ © 2023, Cape Town

29. Stakeholders in the blood-lipid hypothesis
DIRECT
⦿ Bariatric surgeons
⦿ Cardiologists
⦿ Medical doctors - General practitioners
⦿ Diabetologists and Endocrinologists
⦿ Dietitians
⦿ Nutritionists
⦿ Nurses
⦿ Processed food employees
⦿ Statin businesses
⦿ Pharmacologists
⦿ Medical researchers
Communication in issue arenas
0. Academic free speech and digital voices
1. Insulin resistance vs. blood lipid hypothesis models
2. “Healthy Carbohydrates” are essential versus just Fat and Proteins
3. SAD vs. Low-carb eating guidelines + advice
4. Processed vs. real foods
5. Vegan – Vegetarian vs. Keto – Carnivore.
6. Humans as apex predators vs. animal rights
7. Meat factory vs. regenerative agriculture vs plant monoculture
8. Environmental sustainability and climate change
INDIRECT
⦿ Medical ethicists
⦿ Medical lawyers
⦿ Academic lecturers
⦿ Scholars
⦿ Journalists
⦿ University students
⦿ Patients

30. 30
International
ILSI
AND
Glimmer
Multinationals
Coca Cola
PepsiCo
Unilever
USA
USNAM
USNAN&D
ADA
AHA
CochraneC
NIH
South Africa
HPCSA
CANSA
MRC
SAMA
SAHA
HSFSA
SACMD
CapeHF
NRF
SAMRC
SSISA
ADSA
NSSA(SAJCN)
CNF
SA Sugar
Association
Medical Aids
University employees
COUNCIL
Marketing & Communications
Fundraising
HEALTH SCIENCES
Academic Hospital
Cardiology
Clinical Pharmacology
Dietetics & Nutrition
Endocrinology and Diabetes
Management
Hepatology
Lipidology
Nephrology and Hypertension
Psychiatry and Mental Health
Public Health and Family Medicine
Institutional and organisational stakeholders for the blood-lipid hypothesis
COMMERCE
Professional Communication
HUMANITIES
Philosophy
ETHICS committees
INSTITUTES
Cardiology Research
Chronic Diseases Initiative
Climate and Development
Canada
HSFC
Australia
AHPRA

31. Hypercriticism of @ProfTimNoakes
31
@Junior lecturer
@Medical Student
@Prof
bad science, book promoter,
Kim Jung Un of epistemology
@Dr/journalist Malema of Medicine, Rockstar scientist
hypocrisy, double standards, and
cherry-picking, a threat to white
Afrikaners
Once respected, eats salmon in his
mansion rather than doing the research
low carb movement is a fraud
@Paediatrician conspiracy theorist
anti vaxxer
@Virology Prof
@LawProf
health messiah, celebrity scientist,
fad diet promoter
@Journalism Prof
cholesterol denialist
@CardiologyProf
Across X (Formerly Twitter), Academic Blogs, Public Facebook Pages, News Articles, etc.
simplistic science,
stop spreading crap
defensive, plays the victim
@PCU lecturer
Quack

32. Academic cybermobbing as a distinctive phenomenon
1. CYBER HARASSMENT Creating digital content, amplifying and profiting off it is new
2. OVERT Highly public criticism (i.e. versus covert back-stabbing) for generating negative social capital
3. VISIBLE NETWORKS Attacks may be organic or coordinated from visible social networks
4. PLATFORM NORMS Digital platforms’ rules may conflict with other contexts’ rules (respectful academic debate)
5. HYPER-VISIBLE Online content is promoted, searchable and hyper-visible OR CENSORED by the platform
6. EXCESSIVE ARGUMENT Academic target may be targeted on multiple platforms by disparate critics from varied fields
7. NON-EXPERTS & UNKNOWNS Critics need not know their victim, or share similar expertise
8. FAKE & BOT ACCOUNTS Critics may not even be human
9. REMOTE MONITORING Critics can monitor their target’s feeds (i.e. for reporting to “authorities”) from a safe distance
10. PERSISTENT STIGMA Digital pariah profiles are an intractable problem
11. INCESSANT MOBBING The scale of harassment can feature many mobs
12. DURATION Harassment may span many years and seem never-ending
13. REACH Shape a victim’s reputation outside their university department (national & international influence)
14. TRAUMA Criticism has greater visibility and is more frequent, so may be less escapable + more traumatic
15. NO RECOURSE The recipient may have no support from an employer and its policies
16. LEGAL RISKS UNDEFINED Cyberbullies may be placing their institution/organization at risk for defamation
Stop, silly ass! emoji chat sticker artwork by Dominique Whelan for Create With™ © 2023, Cape Town

33. Types of agents in an academic cybermob
(i) Orchestrators of cyber-harassment {enforcers for orthodoxy}
Health authority representatives- expert stakeholders
Recontextualisers of science communication for The Science™ consensus
(ii) Dogmatic followers/fellow believers {pseudo-skeptics}
Pharmaceutically funded MSM amplifiers with chains of publication reaching large audiences
Infodemic monitors for “disinformation” “misinformation” and “malinformation”
(iii) Supporters of the The Science™
Pro-science (pseudo-)skeptics supporters
(iv) Trolls
The sad case of the ‘follower syphoner’- dredging off a dissident’s large audience
(v) Witnesses/bystanders
Colleagues for the consensus

34. Academic Cybermobbing Rewards™
Cultural capital
Symbolic capital
Social capital
Economic capital
Cascades of capital recreate power
in academic fields (AKA cultural
reproduction)
Pierre Bourdieu
Online content sharing can create (hyper)
visibility as a thought leader/ influencer
Measures of social network amplification
(followers, likes)
Build connections within groups for The Science™
Short (financial payments for writing,
public engagements) and long-term rewards
(better academic positions)
Stop, silly ass! emoji chat sticker artwork by Dominique Whelan
for Create With™ © 2023, Cape Town

35. Well-meaning censors of dissidents who are Standing Up For (The) Science(™)
Clark, C. J., Jussim, L., Frey, K., Stevens, S. T., al-Gharbi, M., Aquino, K., Bailey, J. M., Barbaro, N.,
Baumeister, R. F., Bleske-Rechek, A., Buss, D., Ceci, S., Del Giudice, M., Ditto, P. H., Forgas, J. P.,
Geary, D. C., Geher, G., Haider, S., Honeycutt, N., . . . von Hippel, W. (2023). Prosocial motives
underlie scientific censorship by scientists: A perspective and research agenda. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 120(48), e2301642120. https://doi.org/doi:10.1073/pnas.2301642120
‘Popular narratives suggest that scientific censorship is driven by
authoritarian officials with dark motives, such as dogmatism and
intolerance. Our analysis suggests that scientific censorship is often
driven by scientists, who are primarily motivated by self-protection,
benevolence toward peer scholars, and prosocial concerns
for the well-being of human social groups. This perspective
helps explain both recent findings on scientific censorship
and recent changes to scientific institutions, such as the
use of harm-based criteria to evaluate research. We discuss
unknowns surrounding the consequences of censorship
and provide recommendations for improving transparency
and accountability in scientific decision-making
to enable the exploration of these unknowns.’

36. Overt censorship tactics on digital platforms
1. Temporary suspension of an account (temporary ban)
2. Permanent suspension of an account (complete ban)
3. Sponsoring of hostile coverage designed to smear and intimidate
4. Manipulate rankings to foreground low-ranked anti-content (likes/comments/views)
e.g. Mayo Clinic versus keto diet
5. Warning labels that require click-throughs for accessing the content
6. Misuse of identity politics sensibilities (to question COVID-19 policies is “far right” or “fascist”)
7. Public threats of stochastic terrorism
8. Matrix attacks across several platforms at once for deplatformisation of targets
see https://x.com/drloupis/status/1707002508504089027?s=46&t=JHrXr-6-sGfX4uU06cgMeQ
8. Censorship from PowerMods on Reddit, Editors on Wikipedia
https://x.com/reddit_lies/status/1707077052258484734?s=46&t=JHrXr-6-sGfX4uU06cgMeQ
9. Legitimate messages blocked as spam, as shown by filter software to be in junk mail

37. Covert censorship on the Fifth Estate #1
10. Fact choke
11. Disabling public commentary
12. Requiring users to take down their own content
13. Restricting access to content for an account’s (potential) viewers
14. Visibility filters (NSFW view)
15. Reply de-boosting
16. De-boosting an account
17. Boosting rivals’ content
18. Demonetizing an account
19. Shadow-banning an account (visibility filtering)
20. Sopping a user’s access to an account, but keeping it visible with no obvious evidence that its
user is blocked <Prof Tim Noakes’ account was deactivated for months>
21. Not providing information on how these measures relate to users’ profiles, either to the
affected individual, the public
22. SEO hacks- burying unfavourable commentary
23. Claiming “algorithmic incompetence” (the machine hid it!)
Hard for audiences to spot (and very difficult to research)

38. Covert censorship on the Fifth Estate #2
24. Search blacklisted and blacklisting linked websites
25. Trend blacklist
26. Ghostbanning an account, or searchbanning it
27. Blocking a potential user’s creation of a new account
28. Deplatforming non-aligned/dissident services’s content
29. Closure of financial platforms, eg OffGuardian, blocked by Patreon
30. Defunding of capacity (Ripple Labs Inc., a Google-backed technology company with ties to the
White House, is funding research into algorithms that fine and “penalize” people for sharing
stories deemed “misinformation” or “fake news.”
https://twitter.com/nataliegwinters/status/1714706221994045609)
31. Drowning out with other information
Copying content titles that become the top-search result, replacing the original
(‘Out of the shadows’ documentary title by Liz Crokin used on many other videos)
32. Prebunking and trivializing critique with criticism from embedded professionals
33. Not offering a right-to-reply, or concealing critiques (eg not citing/linking to them in replies)
34. Choosing not to provide the full context in which an event takes place
eg a one-sided public shaming that ignores an individual’s actions versus hegemonic forces AND
a platform’s conflict of interest (community notes on X)

39. Challenges in researching scientific censorship and academic cybermobs
1 An unpopular academic research topic?
Self-own for prestigious fields in Higher Education
2 No strong rationale for the research, or its methods
What are the benefits?
When should qualitative, mixed or quantitative approaches be used?
3 Few research examples to follow
Cases for victims, cyberbullies and mobs are scant. What to focus on?
4 Costly methods
There is no external grant funder of this topic for (South) Africa, and scant funding elsewhere
5 Big data access, preparation and use
Partial view of the phenomenon on one platform
High quantum of data that must be cleaned
Missing data (cyber harassment from private, deleted or banned accounts is not provided via APIs)
Cyberbullies data may need to be anonymised
6 Ethics
Use of genuine identities may be harmful to academic cyberbullies
Research may pose a legal risk to university employers in the future

40. Related research that The Noakes Foundation supports
Pinky Motswhare’s PhD research proposal was approved in 2023.
As a PhD candidate, she is using Younglings Africa’s Social Media
and Internet Lab for Research (SMILR) to conduct X-tractions
(extractions from Twitter). This supports her research into the
historic cyber harassment of black male South African celebrities
on Twitter. Each experiences a life-changing outcome in response
to the digital practices of ‘celebrity cybermobs’.
Patrick Shai’s case
Riky Rick’s case

41. Thank you… … and you!
chat sticker illustrations
Stop,
torturer!
Stop, bully!
Hey, silly ass!
Stop, academic bully!
GRAPHICS CREDITS
Stop, sinner!