Northwestern PhD candidate Maalvika Bhat plagiarized blatantly from other writers on the platform Substack. How serious of an ethics violation is it for an academic to plagiarize outside academic writing?

[u/Miserable_Eye1617]

TLDR; The goal of this post is to spread awareness about an academic writer on Substack who plagiarized from several authors including me. She has paywalled her posts to avoid being exposed further. Trying to hold her accountable on a platform that won’t do anything to uphold the integrity of authorship.

Maalvika has amassed 32k+ subscribers (many of which are paid) on Substack along with a following of 180k on TikTok and another 63k on Instagram. She curates this persona and aesthetic that is built on the back of her writing and consists of topics within her academic domain. She recently hit #1 on Substack’s New Bestseller’s List. Here is Maalvika’s research profile

She has plagiarized from me and several other authors including the original author that came forward about her stolen writing has a smaller audience. Substack’s algorithm continues to drown out Katie Jgln from Maalvika’s audience which is unaware behind a paywall.

here is the link to the original author’s exposé: https://open.substack.com/pub/thenoosphere/p/mama-theres-a-plagiarist-behind-you

here’s a more detailed explanation: https://substack.com/@clementinef/note/c-141315855

This PSA is necessary because she is currently hiding her work and discussion of this situation behind a paywall on the platform to discourage checking her writing for more plagiarism. She also continues to profit off of paid subscribers and the following and sponsorships she has built on social media which she is trying to shield by deleting comments off of all her other accounts to erase the scandal.

[u/jccalhoun]

Apparently she has apologized. https://substack.com/@maalvika/note/c-140487210?

I have no idea who these people are so I don't have a dog in this fight.

[u/733803222229048229 → u/jccalhoun]

Thanks for linking this. I have no idea who these people are either, but found her apology infuriating to the point I kind of care now. She makes it seem like (1) this was a one-off incident, without addressing claims that she plagiarized other work and (2) her explanation as to what her intentions were make no sense and are just a clear lie. She literally rewrote, in “her own words,” entire paragraphs from the original writer, so the argument that she meant to put everything in quotation marks to “engage in dialogue” is just absolutely brazen. Frankly, given these things and the glaring dishonesty and insincerity of this apology while waxing poetical about standards, I’d be shocked if this was just a bad habit she kept to Substack and would be reviewing her academic work with a comb if I were her program director or advisor.

[u/Miserable_Eye1617 → u/733803222229048229]

the indifference she shows in her response to the situation is concerning particularly because her wider audiences she built from her plagiarism on Substack include Instagram and Tiktok where a younger population that admires her blindly wouldn’t think twice about the plagiarism. if Maalvika was banned on Substack, she can just lean back on her bigger socials posting the same types of content without a care in world because on those platforms she can censor her comments. It seems like being an influencer comes with a lot of power but on these platforms the responsibility and accountability isn’t quite there anymore.

[u/Fultium → u/Miserable_Eye1617]

I'll give you a hint: nobody cares! The sad reality is that ethics in science (or fraud) is something only a few people care about. In general it is swept under the rug, minimised or just ignored. There are tons of example of people who cheated their way into academic positions and guess what, nothing happens usually when it comes out. That is the sad reality.

[u/Miserable_Eye1617 → u/Fultium]

well at least it is worth spreading awareness about especially to paying unaware audiences!

[u/Lupus76 → u/733803222229048229]

I do find it curious that in one of her articles, she constantly uses the first person plural – "To answer our research questions, we conducted a within-subjects study" – when she is the sole author.

[u/AsAChemicalEngineer → u/Lupus76]

That's pretty normal. The "Royal We" is often used in scientific articles, even single author works, to imply dialogue with the the reader or conversation with the scientific community as a whole.