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Predatory Publishing 2.0: No Longer Fake — Now AI-Polished and “Legitimized”
Predatory publishing has undergone a dramatic transformation. What once appeared as hastily constructed websites, clumsy English, and journals with barely disguised motives has now evolved into a far more sophisticated threat. In 2025, the academic world is confronting a new phase, Predatory Publishing 2.0, where artificial intelligence, paper-mill networks, and fabricated peer-review pipelines have merged to create fraudulent research that not only looks genuine but often passes through the gates of respected journals.
What makes this new era alarming is not only the polished appearance of these papers but their successful infiltration into trusted databases, institutional repositories, and citation networks. Many researchers cite them unknowingly, allowing misinformation to circulate in legitimate scientific conversations. Predatory publishing, once a fringe problem, has moved directly into mainstream scholarship.
A Perfect Storm: How This New Phase Emerged
Several developments converged to create this shift. The rise of large language models allowed paper mills to generate manuscripts that appear technically sound and professionally written. AI now produces entire scientific narratives, fabricates data, and even constructs reviewer responses. Alongside this technological leap, paper mills expanded into global industries capable of coordinating large-scale deception. Their influence was seen most clearly during the Hindawi retractions of 2022–23, where more than 1,700 papers were withdrawn after widespread peer-review manipulation.
This transformation was driven by:
- The growing use of AI to fabricate or polish entire research articles
- Large commercial paper mills orchestrating coordinated authorship schemes
- Fake reviewer identities entering editorial systems undetected
As these forces combined, traditional editorial safeguards were quickly outpaced. COPE’s 2024 Retraction Guidelines recognized the escalating threat, identifying peer-review fraud and authorship manipulation as critical dangers to global research integrity.
A Growing Impact on Science and Society
The consequences extend far beyond questionable journals. Fraudulent papers now influence research conducted at reputable institutions, distort evidence syntheses, and even infiltrate clinical recommendations. Some fabricated studies in fields such as cancer biology accumulated thousands of citations before being challenged. Legitimate publishers, including MDPI, faced scrutiny in 2023–24 when suspicious patterns appeared in certain guest-edited collections, prompting retractions and stricter screening processes.
Retraction Watch reported that even after fraudulent papers are removed, their citations often remain embedded in the scholarly record. This lingering contamination quietly influences meta-analyses and policy decisions, making the problem extremely difficult to reverse once misinformation begins circulating.
AI: A Tool with Two Faces
Artificial intelligence continues to provide valuable support for language editing, plagiarism checks, and statistical verification. However, the same technology can be exploited to fabricate experimental results, generate synthetic images, or create datasets with no basis in actual research. Fraud that once appeared sloppy now looks coherent, professional, and convincing enough to evade experienced reviewers.
Fighting Back: What the Publishing World Must Do
Publishers worldwide are developing new strategies to counter this wave of sophisticated deception. Editorial offices are strengthening reviewer-identity checks, verifying ORCID iDs, and requiring institutional email addresses for peer reviewers. Demands for raw data, laboratory documentation, and reproducible code are increasing, especially for high-risk submissions.
Efforts gaining momentum across the industry include:
- Expanded use of forensic tools to detect image and text manipulation
- Integrity-training programs for editors and reviewers
- More transparent and timely retraction policies aligned with COPE guidance
These measures reflect a shift from reactive correction to proactive prevention.
The Cost of Inaction
Failure to address Predatory Publishing 2.0 could severely undermine scholarly credibility. Trust in journals would erode, legitimate researchers would compete against fabricated studies, and public policy, particularly in medicine, could be influenced by false evidence. The danger lies not only in the existence of fraudulent papers but in their ability to blend seamlessly into the broader literature.
A single misleading article can confuse, but a system polluted with coordinated fraud threatens the foundation on which scientific truth is built.
The Road Ahead
Predatory Publishing 2.0 represents a turning point for global scholarship. Fraud no longer announces itself with obvious flaws; it arrives polished, indexed, and seemingly peer-reviewed. Protecting research integrity now requires collective action: stronger verification systems, improved detection technologies, transparent correction mechanisms, and responsible use of AI. The goal is not to resist innovation but to ensure that knowledge remains trustworthy in an era where deception has become technologically sophisticated.
Keywords
Predatory Publishing Paper Mills Research Integrity AI-Generated Manuscripts Peer Review Fraud Scholarly Communication Retractions Academic Misconduct
Editor’s Brew delivers fresh updates, community highlights, and editorial insights on behalf of ACSE. These posts represent the “daily blend” of news, initiatives, and collective wisdom from across the scholarly publishing community.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of their affiliated institutions, the Asian Council of Science Editors (ACSE), or the Editor’s Café editorial team.
