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The associations of social media attention, visibility, disinformation and retraction initiators with time to retraction: a Cox regression analysis

Maryam Yaghtin et al.

Online Information Review2026https://doi.org/10.1108/oir-04-2025-0270article
AJG 1ABDC B
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

Purpose This study examines how retraction reasons, retraction initiators, journal visibility, access models and Twitter activity associate with the speed of retracting flawed scientific publications. Design/methodology/approach Using a Cox proportional hazards model, we analyzed 1,179 articles retracted in 2019–2021, including a subset of 98 papers tweeted before retraction. Findings The results reveal that higher journal impact factor and open-access status were associated with faster retractions. However, a significant negative interaction indicated that the effect of high-impact journals diminished for open-access publications. Journal-initiated retractions were slower overall, except in cases of misconduct such as co-authorship deception and plagiarism, where journals acted more quickly. Among retraction reasons, only deception in co-authoring was associated with significantly slower retractions, but this trend reversed when journals led the process. The association of social media attention with retraction speed was statistically robust, albeit modest in magnitude: each additional pre-retraction tweet was associated with a slight reduction in time to retraction. Bootstrap validation confirmed the stability of this finding. Originality/value Public scrutiny, institutional responsibility and publication visibility jointly shape the time to retraction. This study advances altmetrics discourse by positioning social media as a conditional, yet meaningful, participant in the retraction lifecycle. Beyond altmetrics, our findings highlight retractions as part of a broader network of relationships between public accountability, digital ethics and science communication, positioning them as moments of accountability shaped jointly by journals, ethical responsibilities and digital publics.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1108/oir-04-2025-0270

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@article{maryam2026,
  title        = {{The associations of social media attention, visibility, disinformation and retraction initiators with time to retraction: a Cox regression analysis}},
  author       = {Maryam Yaghtin et al.},
  journal      = {Online Information Review},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1108/oir-04-2025-0270},
}

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.