How reliable is this research? Tool flags papers discussed on PubPeer

Nature – Browser plug-in alerts users when studies — or their references — have been posted on a site known for raising integrity concerns. “A free online tool released earlier this month alerts researchers when a paper cites studies that are mentioned on the website PubPeer, a forum scientists often use to raise integrity concerns surrounding published papers. Studies are usually flagged on PubPeer when readers have suspicions, for example about image manipulation, plagiarism, data fabrication or artificial intelligence (AI)-generated text. PubPeer already offers its own browser plug-in that alerts users when a study that they are reading has been posted on the site. The new tool, a plug-in released on 13 April by RedacTek, based in Oakland, California, goes further — it searches through reference lists for papers that have been flagged. The software pulls information from many sources, including PubPeer’s database; data from the digital-infrastructure organization Crossref, which assigns digital object identifiers to articles; and OpenAlex, a free index of hundreds of millions of scientific documents.”