"Open-Access Publishers Face Allegations of Self-Citation Abuse"

Two major open-access publishers, MDPI and Frontiers, have been accused of excessive self-citation to inflate their journal impact factors, according to a study on SocArXiv. The study found that these publishers' journals have significantly higher self-citation rates compared to others, raising concerns about citation manipulation. Both publishers deny encouraging such practices and claim to have measures in place to monitor and prevent unethical citation behavior.