Not all retracted papers are fake news – but then, which ones are?

The authors of a 2017 paper about why fake news spreads so fast have asked for it to be retracted because they've discovered a flaw in their analysis. This is commendable because it signals that scientists are embracing retractions as a legitimate part of the scientific process (which includes discovery, debate and publishing).

Such an attitude is important because without it, it is impossible to de-sensationalise retractions, and return them from the domain of embarrassment to that of matter-of-fact. And in so doing, we give researchers the room they need to admit mistakes without being derided for it, and let them know that mistakes are par for the course.

However, two insensitive responses by influential people to the authors' call for retraction signals that they might've had it better to sweep such mistakes under the rug and move on. One of them is Ivan Oransky, one of the two people behind Retraction Watch, the very popular blog that's been changing how the world thinks about retractions. Its headline for the January 9 post about the fake news paper went like this:

The authors are doing a good thing and don't deserve to have their paper called 'fake news'. Publishing a paper with an honest mistake is just that; on the other hand, 'fake news' involves an actor planting information in the public domain knowing to be false, and with which she intends to confuse/manipulate its consumers. In short, it's malicious. The authors don't have malice – quite the opposite, in fact, going by their suggestion that the paper be retracted.

The other person who bit into this narrative is Corey S. Powell, a contributing editor at Discover and Aeon: