While planning another interview request for our blog, we found an article by Marina Weisband about anti-Semitic propaganda. This led to the creation of this page and the actions we outline here.

When reading the article about anti-Semitic propaganda, we realized that last year, we published a video essay which criticized digital capitalism. As we often do, we used our octopus mascot to advertise this video. Retrospectively, this was problematic because the juxtaposition of anti-capitalist sentiments with octopus imagery is used to spread hate against the Jewish people (Weisband, 2017). This was not our intention.

We want to strongly emphasize that we at the Journal are firmly against any form of hate or hate speech against any religious, ethnic, or cultural group.

Upon realizing this unintentional use of imagery, we immediately changed the advertisement for our article and systematically checked all our publications to ensure no further inadvertent associations existed. While we are naturally deeply upset to see this animal used in such a hateful way, we are also thankful that this information has come to our attention so that, in the future, we can be more thoughtful in the way we use our mascot.

One of our primary missions at the CogSci Journal is to promote education, and this includes educating ourselves. We do what we do not just to teach, but to learn as well.

We encourage our readers to reach out and inform us about anything that they think we as a journal should be aware of. Inclusivity and fairness are extremely important to us, and we are always looking to improve upon how we promote and embody these values. We are against any and all forms of hate speech. If you feel that we can do something better in this regard, then we urge you to contact us.

Moving forward, we will ensure that all content we create will align with our mission of promoting knowledge and understanding without inadvertently causing harm or offense. If we are made aware of any other instances of potentially harmful media on our website or social media, then we will swiftly correct the issue and keep you informed. We apologize for any distress caused and appreciate your understanding as we continue to learn and improve.

Transparency Reports

Our Transparency Reports list the sensitive topics we dealt with in our work. It also explains how we dealt with each issue and why. Below you find the list of all our Transparency Reports. We expect to publish one report per year.

• Transparency Report June 2024