I've published academic research while working at Google. If I got an emergency request to retract a published paper (note that I would have already followed all the necessary steps for publication approval internally), I'd retract it immediately, if there was a legitimate reason (you can see on retractionwatch the sorts of things that lead to retractions). If there wasn't, I'd ask "can we pause the retraction and figure out a better solution based on data", and if the answer was "no", I'd retract it immediately, but follow up with a vigorous protest.

Industrial researchers and non-PIs (IE, research analyst working in a PI's lab) don't have the same freedom and integrity rights as a PI. To me this seems like a reasonable (and probably the only reasonable) policy for industry.

I don't really think it's dystopian- if a paper I wrote reached the point of needing a retraction it means some serious messup occurred or there's a major PR fiasco.

Note that in this case I am not sure if there was a retraction, or an desubmission- the paper hadn't been published yet so it's not really a candidate for retraction. The term for this is 'withdraw submission'

There's no academic freedom expected - that's private R&D work, the research and the paper is done on behalf of the company and wholly owned by it, not the employees who did it, and so your boss naturally has full control on when, how, where and if that research should be published.

It's just as if you'd want to open source some code that you wrote for your job, and suddenly the boss says "hey, don't do that" - there are many reasons why they might want to not publish it, and it's not your code to publish as you want.

Because this isn't academia, despite the trappings. If I'm working for Reynolds Tobacco Research and wish to publish a paper on tobacco causation of cancer, they're doing to stop my publication under their auspices.

> In what dystopian sci-fi novel? That's just mad.

In this world, where there are bills to pay and you can't disadvantage yourself if you want to be ok. Having bills to pay is, I agree, just mad.

Censorship is a double edged sword that way. Over the last few years, many acclaimed journalists have been censored for not falling in line with the woke agenda. Threatening livelihoods is the prime tool of extortion by cancel culturists. (on either side)

To some extent, you have to realize that one day you will fall on the wrong side on the fence and you'll be the victim of your own creation.