Thread by @brembs

As Paul Abrahams is tweeting in his capacity as "Chief Communications Officer at RELX", let's fact-check his three statements here, one by one, as an example of just how trustworthy such public statements from RELX / #Elsevier can be (1/9):

https://twitter.com/paul_abrahams/status/1635242535730970624

1. "Elsevier provides above-average quality".
Let's pretend, for now, RELX were not chiefly a surveillance platform and data broker enabling ICE mass deportations (some quality!), but instead an academic publisher with above average overall impact factor. (2/9)

In that case, given the negative relation between impact factor and quality, Paul's company actually provides *below average* quality:
frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…
Which makes him 0/3 in correct statements so far.
(3/9)

2. "below average prices"
From the Q&A
relx.com/~/media/Files/…
on occasion of the release of the latest 2022 RELX financial statement,
relx.com/investors/annu…
we learn that #Elsevier published 600,000 articles yielding a revenue of 2,909 £m.
(4/9)

Accordingly, an average article from Elsevier cost the tax payer 4848£ or US$5850. Which, even if one assumes the upper bound average cost of an article at US$5000:
f1000research.com/articles/10-20…
is more than average.
Still 0/3 correct statements in a single #Elsevier tweet.
(5/9)

3. "You just don't think the private sector should be involved in the diffusion of scholarly knowledge."
Let's take a recent article on the topic with me as a co-author and check the abstract:
doi.org/10.5281/zenodo…
(6/9)

"It [the journal replacement] needs to replace the monopolies of current journals with a genuine, functioning and well-regulated market. In this new market, substitutable service providers compete and innovate"
One cannot make it any clearer.
Still 0/3 correct statements.
(7/9)

Interestingly, Paul "Chief Communications Officer at RELX" Abrahams, seems to interpret our proposal as a threat to their monopoly and rightfully so: our call for a market threatens their gargantuan profit margins with competition, something they fear a lot, it seems. (8/9)

So all 3 statements by the CCO of RELX turned out to be demonstrably false. Not surprising for the most reviled corporation in academia, where probably the least damning quality is that they also fit the consensus definition of a predatory publisher:
bjoern.brembs.net/2019/12/elsevi…
(9/9)