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Timnit Gebru (she/her).
Timnit Gebru (she/her).
@timnitGebru@dair-community.social  ·  activity timestamp last month

Friends, at a time when science is under attack and people are economically hurting, the scientific community should work to make access easier not harder. @ACM, Association for Computing Machinery, is doing the complete opposite by introducing paywalls that didn't exist.

Features that were previously free and open to the public are now "Premium
Access" features.

If you are opposed to this measure, join me in signing this petition asking the ACM to stop.

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/restore-fully-free-and-open-access

Petition Restore Fully Free and Open Access to the ACM Digital Library

Restore Fully Free and Open Access to the ACM Digital Library
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draNgNon
draNgNon
@draNgNon@hachyderm.io  ·  activity timestamp last month

@timnitGebru I have boosted your post as I agree with public accesses, but is it possible the paywall isn't just profit-taking by @ACM and instead a defensive measure against this kind of scraping? what other defense is there?

I am wondering if the described behaviour isn't also one of the energy costs of the LLMs that has been shifted to others.

https://hcommons.social/@kfitz/115854657278743117

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Timnit Gebru (she/her).
Timnit Gebru (she/her).
@timnitGebru@dair-community.social  ·  activity timestamp last month

@draNgNon @ACM I feel like the scrapers would go around that stuff anyways, as they do with other websites.

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Timnit Gebru (she/her).
Timnit Gebru (she/her).
@timnitGebru@dair-community.social  ·  activity timestamp last month

@draNgNon @ACM w.r.t. paywalling something, and if its about rising costs due to DDOsing, then ACM should work more on holding BigTech accountable rather than punishing the public.

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draNgNon
draNgNon
@draNgNon@hachyderm.io  ·  activity timestamp last month

@timnitGebru @ACM

I was more thinking it would stop the scraper bots cold. of course I agree other solutions are vastly more desirable!

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Timnit Gebru (she/her).
Timnit Gebru (she/her).
@timnitGebru@dair-community.social  ·  activity timestamp last month

@draNgNon @ACM I was saying that scrapers have gone around paywalls in other scenarios so I don't think it would stop them here.

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Federation Bot
Federation Bot
@Federation_Bot  ·  activity timestamp last month

My papers are some of the most downloaded in a number of ACM's conferences and magazines.

While rich institutions have bought in, it seems like nearly every community college in America is locked out! Students, researchers, and practitioners are excluded from features necessary to navigate and understand the computing literature---features that were available to them free of charge a month ago.

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