(4 Apr 2023) The hijacking of the Hong Kong Journal of Social Sciences started in 2019, when the web domain of the clone journal was created.
This fraudulent journal could continue to publish dozens of papers, charging 300 euros each, while the genuine journal, according to the information on one Chinese website, ceased publishing in 2022, with volume 58 as its final issue. The website of the genuine journal is not available anymore.
If the genuine Hong Kong Journal of Social Sciences has really stopped publishing, this opens a new opportunity for the hijacked journal, because the clone website remains the only one for the title. Evidence from other cases also suggests that hijackers are particularly interested in cloning journals that have stopped publishing. Thus, the hijacked Hong Kong Journal of Social Sciences succeeded in penetrating Scopus with an issue 59, published in 2022. All the new papers were published in English, unlike the genuine journal, which was published in Chinese.
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