Scandal in Academia: “daSB” Insult Appears in IEEE Transactions on Multimedia Paper, Investigation Underway
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A publication in the prestigious IEEE Transactions on Multimedia (T-MM) has sparked controversy after the discovery of a vulgar insult embedded within its text. The article, titled “MPCT: Multiscale Point Cloud Transformer With a Residual Network,” published in 2024, inexplicably contains the phrase:… small number for numerical stability. liujiamingshi-daSB Then, we use farthest point …
The inserted phrase "liujiamingshi-daSB" directly translates from Chinese pinyin to "Liu Jiaming is a big idiot," a severe personal insult. Remarkably, Liu Jiaming is listed as the second author of the paper. The presence of this slur within a formal academic context has led to widespread speculation about possible motivations and responsibility.
Author Background and Journal Reputation
- First Author: Yue Wu, Deputy Director, Key Laboratory of Cooperative Intelligent Systems, Xidian University.
- Second Author: Liu Jiaming, completed his Master's degree at Xidian University in June 2024, currently pursuing a Ph.D. at another leading university in China.
IEEE Transactions on Multimedia is recognized as a leading journal in multimedia technology, boasting:
- Impact Factor (JIF): 8.4
- 5-Year Impact Factor: 8.0
- Ranking: Top 5% (Q1) in Telecommunications according to Web of Science
- Google Scholar Rank: #2 in Multimedia category (h5-index = 101)
Speculation on Incident Origin
Speculation on how the slur bypassed editorial review includes:
- Sabotage: Authorship disputes leading to intentional sabotage.
- Self-publicity: Deliberate insertion to attract widespread attention.
- Practical Joke: Inserted by colleagues without authors’ knowledge.
These scenarios expose vulnerabilities in current editorial workflows, particularly multilingual profanity filtering.
Editorial Response and Investigation
The journal’s editorial team confirmed awareness of the issue, actively investigating under IEEE's publication ethics guidelines. Possible outcomes include issuing corrections or retraction of the paper.
Broader Academic Context
This incident isn't isolated; previous cases involve explicit protests against citation coercion or predatory publishing practices, indicating a broader tension within academia, driven by:
- Declining research funding rates.
- Increasing publication pressures.
- Citation coercion.
- Stressful university policies such as "up-or-out" evaluations.
These systemic pressures may contribute to frustration-driven misconduct.
The outcome of the T-MM investigation remains pending. Nevertheless, this incident highlights the urgent need for strengthened quality assurance measures in academic publishing.
Have you encountered similar hidden messages or problematic insertions in peer-reviewed papers? Share your experiences and insights below.
