De Gruyter venture to combat ‘fake news'

Scholarly publisher De Gruyter and a number of university presses, including the Columbia, Princeton and Harvard UPs, are involved in a joint initiative to offer free content on topical issues such as immigration, ethics, climate change and Islamic studies.

The “Rights, Action and Social Responsibility” initiative will make books and journal articles across nine fields of study in the sciences, social sciences and humanities freely available until the end of the year, on degruyter.com. The areas are Constitutional History, Dissent, Truth & Ethics, Environmental Studies, Gender Studies, Geopolitics, Human Rights, Immigration & Urbanism and Islamic Studies.

“Broadening access to these areas of scholarship enables more people, including non-academics, to address these issues in an informed manner; it helps to combat false news sources, to reflect on the nature of truth and ethics, and to understand the struggles of all members of society,” the publisher said.

Steve Fallon, director of De Gruyter’s publishing partner programme, noted: “Public debates surrounding immigration policy, climate change, international relations, and constitutional and human rights are currently at the forefront of the national discourse, especially, but not only, in the United States. Together, De Gruyter and its partners are keen to support a thoughtful and informed debate on these sensitive and serious issues.”

The free content includes more than 500 books and selected journal articles.