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Today it is public!
After months of watching and lamenting the lawsuits from @IHU_Marseille and its former director, Didier Raoult, against critics like @MicrobiomDigest @AlexSamTG and I, I decided to sue the former director for defamation and he is under investigation
1/n https://t.co/deyAeFhHsc
Shortly after he announced a lawsuit against @PubPeer @MicrobiomDigest and @BorisBarbour, I wrote with other such as @BrianNosek @GidMK @DamsnotJT @AnthonyGuihur et al. an open letter to support academic whistleblowers
2/n
https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/2awsv
This open letter was covered by many prestigious newspapers which did not try hard to hide their support for the work of @MicrobiomDigest
3/n
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/scientists-rally-around-misconduct-consultant-facing-legal-threat-after-challenging
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/may/22/world-expert-in-scientific-misconduct-faces-legal-action-for-challenging-integrity-of-hydroxychloroquine-study
https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/how-a-sharp-eyed-scientist-became-biologys-image-detective
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01430-z
Following this, the former director of IHU associated my name with what appears to be an ironic tweet from someone else and stated in a video hosted on their channel that I mentioned explosive-car attacks on the institute (which I have never done). 4/n
Meanwhile, close collaborators of the former director have been displaying problematic behaviour online that have even made it to Times Higher Education. 5/n https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/french-professor-free-harass-hydroxychloroquine-critics-online
Since all of this has happened, other critics have been threatened with or received lawsuits for their rebuttals while France Soir, a formerly prestigious newspaper in France but now controlled by Xavier Azalbert and publishing questionnable content, has produced articles... 6/n
that called us a "harassing-sphere" and even included a call to harm against scientists. I explained it all here
8/n
https://twitter.com/lonnibesancon/status/1435884196388552706?s=20&t=MaiAXC1YegpHZEOwYMnrCA
There has been numerous issues with the communication on the YouTube channel of @IHU_Marseille has I highlighted here. 9/n https://twitter.com/lonnibesancon/status/1578371417304797184?s=20&t=MaiAXC1YegpHZEOwYMnrCA
This communication and the video made mentioning my name have caused me unwanted attention from HCQ supporters who even tagged my employer on social media with false accusations 10/n
I guess every academic whistleblower knows of the perils of this work (and I wrote about this here: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001572) but I could not stand idle while all of this was happening and I thought it best to sue the former director for the content mentioned above. 11/n
The video is still online (from 31:30 ish) and has caused me unwanted stress and worries about my personal and professional life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1892&v=QJrAIq4KNVs&feature=youtu.be
12/n
Other drifts in communication of the institute and its former director have happened, at the expense of @MicrobiomDigest and @AlexSamTG for instance.
See here.
13/n
https://twitter.com/MicrobiomDigest/status/1313503911458865153?s=20&t=rxfz9n___x4M5vKr-LKTXA
The main rationale behind my desire to sue has been to stop such drifts and the impact they can have on people's careers and lives (mine included). And I am very well aware that researchers from minorities have it way worse than I do and probably face way more challenges
14/n
in such cases. The former director of IHU Marseille is now under investigation for this case. Strangely enough, he has known about this for a while, and despite his clear communication on the lawsuits he started, hasn't communicated much about this. 15/n
I hope to be able to continue my academic sleuthing work with fewer struggles in the future and to continue collaborating with the many amazing people I have met during this "adventure". 16/16