Yan Limeng was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hong Kong and fled to the United States in April this year. In an interview with The Washington Post, she admitted that online science sites are vulnerable to abuse, but she denied that her story is a case study on this issue.
Yan Limeng said that, on the contrary, she is a dissident, trying to warn the world of what she says is China's role in manufacturing the coronavirus. She used Zenodo because she was worried that the Chinese government would hinder the publication of her work, and Zenodo could immediately release information without restrictions. She believes that academic criticism of her will prove to be wrong.
However, when scientists argue — and sometimes refute — each other's wrong claims, non-scientists also scan preprint servers for data that might support the conspiracy theories favored by Bannon and Guo Wengui.
Yan Limeng said that after fleeing Hong Kong, she deeply doubted that the Hong Kong government might prevent her work from being published. Yan Limeng said that when she checked the bioRxiv website 48 hours after submitting the application, the website appeared to be offline. She was worried that the worst would happen, so she took out the newspaper and uploaded it to Zenodo.
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