Protecting controversial thought: Editing Bioethics in the age of social media facilitated outrage

Much has been said about the harmful role played by algorithms that are deployed by social media platforms to ensure engagement. Less has arguably been said about the impact this had on editorial practices of academic journals that publish content that is vulnerable to the machinations of said algorithms. We have seen a few of these events over the years in our field, bioethics. Interested readers of the journal will recall the global outcry a paper by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva. It was caused by what they called provocatively ‘after-birth abortion’.1 In academic terms, the paper has been a runaway success, netting our colleagues over at the Journal of medical ethics a bit more than a million article downloads. Career development wise there were negative consequences suffered by both authors. Given that the Editor of the journal was under tremendous pressure to resign or be fired, I did publish a supportive Editorial in this journal at the time.2 Do you recall Rebecca Tuvel's article about transracialism in Hypathia some years back?3 The Editor of the journal, and the—at the time—junior, tenure-track academic, who published the paper, were subjected to endless ad hominem attacks on various social media platforms. Particularly disturbing was the participation of senior tenured academics in what constituted a concerted effort of the academic outrage machine to effectively end the academic career of a junior female philosopher without job security. Much of this pressure, as in the other examples I'm about to mention, was facilitated by social media platforms. Academics seemingly take to signing petitions aimed at boycotting, demanding resignations, retractions, and worse, in case they find published peer reviewed content disagreeable. Virtue signalling at its finest. Perhaps a response in the pages of the journal that published the offending paper is seen as too old fashioned by this sort of academic activism.

I have always thought that these types of reactions display a deeply troubling understanding of academic freedom. They are celebrating and defending the academic freedom of agreeable content, while failing to defend academic freedom when it matters most, namely when the content is disagreeable. There will be all sorts of verbiage thrown around from ‘epistemic injustice’ to varieties of ‘privilege’, but typically, the apparently so obviously flawed substance of what one disagrees with isn't confronted. However, precisely that is what ought to happen if one cared enough to ensure that diversity of thought is maintained in a field of inquiry such as bioethics. That doesn't mean that one has to concede a methodological free-for-all. I have gone on the record stating that public reason-based arguments are a conditio sine qua non of bioethical analyses that aim to have a universal appeal. Somewhat reassuringly the outrage machine tends to direct its vitriol at particular conclusions rather than the bioethical method. In the case of Tuvel, for instance, vague claims were made that she (and apparently the journal's referees) showed a lack of understanding of ‘the literature’. Suffice it to say that this was never substantiated. It really was about the disagreeable conclusions Tuvel arrived at.

In this journal, we have published during the last few years a fair number of papers by a small group of—arguably—activist antichoice academic writers. The conclusion of their papers was, invariably, abortion is bad, or some such. Prochoice academic social media activists lambasted the journal for publishing such content, questioning the integrity of both us Editors of the journal as well as the competence of our reviewers. We gave quite a bit of space to these authors and their views, provided their content passed standard peer review. Our—unwritten—policy, when it comes to such content, is to try to secure at least two reviewers, one who is somewhat supportive of the conclusions reached by these authors and one who is likely opposed to their conclusions.

Still, the social media outrage machine would have none of it. Peer review or not, such offending content should not be published. Suspicions of us Editors' motives were raised, were we perhaps secret supporters of a Handmaid's Tale type society? Also, of course, questions about the quality of the journal and its review processes appeared. How could we publish such obviously flawed papers? The operating principle seemed to be to throw mud against the journal, its Editors and its reviewers and hope that something sticks. Those concerns strangely never seem to arise vis a vis content these same academic social media activists find agreeable. These papers generated a fair bit of traction in that authors responded critically to this content in the pages of the journal. Publishing these arguments and the responses tested these views in an academically rigorous way. Publishing these arguments also helps addressing common claims of liberal bias that are routinely leveled by conservatives against the field of bioethics.

Similar issues surrounded a provocative Guest Editorial by Joona Räsänen.4 He discusses the health implications of sexual loneliness and quotes at one point a controversial conservative psychologist who reportedly favours societally enforced monogamy. The Guest Editorial was seen by the internet outrage machine as condoning incels' sexual abuse of women, among other crimes. I encourage you to read it for yourself. I can't find much else than a call on bioethicists to undertake critical ethical analyses of the arguments the opposing camps present.

Currently the journal features a Call for Papers for a special issue analysing the bioethical and medical ethics issues implications of the human tragedy unfolding in Gaza. I wrote to the brave Guest Editors, who stepped forward with a special issue proposal, that they should expect no thanks and plenty of vitriol, guaranteed by social media algorithms and the actors that feed them. They chose, among possible topics for potential contributors to consider, ‘The ethics of treating terrorists, and specifically the right of healthcare providers to refuse providing care to terrorists.’ Well, to cut a long story short, labelling an unnamed side in this conflict ‘terrorist’ offended a fair number of academic social media activists who proceeded to declaring that they would cease reviewing henceforth for the journal or contributing to it. Virtue signalling at its finest. I hope I'm not divulging too much when I note that those who protested loudest never contributed to the journal, either as reviewers or as authors.

What puzzles me about this behaviour is that it is antithetical to what academic freedom is all about. An appropriate response, as in the other examples I mentioned, would have been to submit a paper to said guest editors that takes their framing of the issue to task.

Let me end this Editorial by stating that we, as Editors of Bioethics, remain committed to protecting the journal as a space where diverse views will be published, including views some readers will consider offensive. The reader would be well advised not to draw conclusions from what content we publish on the views we as Editors of the journal hold on those issues. The journal has never been and will never become a mouthpiece for our own views.