Anita Chan

Attitudes to Careers in Public Interest Technology The UCLA Center for Resilience and Digital Justice and the Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN) are conducting this survey to understand how current students and early career profess...

For all grad/undergrad students + early career scholars: UCLA Center for Resilience & Digital Justice has a new survey on awareness of public-interest technology jobs. It's illuminating to even read thru; participants get $20 Digital Gift Card for completing by Jan 31 docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

A new direction for students in an AI world: Prosper, prepare, protect | Brookings This report explores the potential risks generative AI poses to students and outlines what we can do now to minimize them.

For ALL parents/caregivers and educators alike: @brookings.edu new study on AI and learning I asserts an unequivocal NO: "At this point in its trajectory, the risks of utilizing generative AI in children’s education overshadow its benefits." www.brookings.edu/articles/a-n...

“Fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone,” said @mit.edu's Pres. The other 8 campuses have yet to respond: U of AZ, Brown, Dartmouth, UPenn, USC, UT, Vanderbilt, + UVA. Faculty, Alum, speak out!

M.I.T. Rejects a White House Offer for Special Funding Treatment

So proud to be an alum of @mit.edu today. MIT is the 1st of 9 universities Trump tried and FAILED to pressure into a contract. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

DHS’s Immigrant Tracking Tech Lays the Ground for Authoritarian Surveillance Anita Say Chan reveals how new surveillance technologies employed by DHS and ICE to monitor, arrest, and deport immigrants have a long history rooted in eugenics profiling from the 19th and 20th centu...

#EugenicFantasies of a racially cleansed US are driving DHS's + Trump's campaign to illegally deport law-abiding residents. Chinese S/E European Jewish immigrants + dissidents were 1st targeted by eugenic surveillance tech 100 yrs ago, see my piece in #PubicEye politicalresearch.org/2025/10/10/d...

Am excited to join @CHARLES BABBAGE Institute w/ @rachelplotnick.bsky.social for the new CBI Research Fellows cohort! It'll be a privilege to work w/ @justcode.bsky.social & CBI's amazing researchers. Keep your eyes peeled this Spring 2026 for #AICriticalGeographies programming we're planning!

What a pleasure to speak to the hosts of @disruptedscience.bsky.social podcast - their questions on AI's on academic publishing and research, and why our institutions can and SHOULD reframe the core issue to 1 about #publicsafety and service (rather than productivity/efficiency) are beyond timely!

Am excited to keynote #Bsides Bloomington's Cybersecurity Conference this weekend! I'm curious to hear what this community has to share after a talk on #Eugenics in Big Tech. Indy friends, if you are around, come join!

YouTube video by The Internet is Crack #47 The Whole Story: A Discussion with Anita Say Chan

I was the guest on #TheInternetIsCrack latest episode, with hosts @Caroline Risberg and @Seth Camillo. It was a fast conversation, w/ discussion on Francis Galton's 19th C design of a creepy hand-held "beauty" tracker, to OpenAI's aim to monetize child attention.: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQXY...

What an honor to have #PredatoryData included @nature.com's recommended Summer reading list. I'm already of fan of other authors in the list - @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social 's the AI Con, @Grace Howard's The Pregnancy Police - that are great reading in the Fall & Winter too!

We never left.

I wrote about “Predatory Data” by @anitachan.bsky.social in Nature’s summer reading list. Such a great work demonstrating the persistence of eugenics in all its many forms while offering a better way forwards.

Maybe not a fun beach read, but absolutely essential for these times.

So excited to see #JUSTCODE's out, just in time for a new semester of teaching! Three cheers to its authors + editors @justcode.bsky.social & Gerardo Con Diaz for a volume that unpacks how the invisible work of code in algorithmic bias, AI in labor practices and more perpetuate global inequality.

YouTube video by The Mark Thompson Show Eugenics, It’s Thriving in Silicon Valley With Elon & The Tech Bros, Professor Anita Say Chan

I don't usually get to talk to broadcast news personalities about eugenics in big tech, but I was so glad for this interview w/ @The Mark Thompson Show. Thanks @Mark Thompson, @Kim McCallister, and producer @John Daly for the welcome conversation. www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Pv...

@aft.org #OpenAI plan will ram AI into public schools w/o ANY real consent fr parents + teachers. OpenAI's real goal is to DATAFY KIDS, who currently are poorly modeled in the data AI co's scrape. Get ready for a future where our kids get sex ed from AI. No one wants this @rweingarten.bsky.social.

Altman Makes Science Claims OpenAI's CEO says science is up next. Not so fast . . .

OpenAI claims that LLMs will "discover new science" are RIDICULOUS. It also distracts us fr what AI heads KNOW is their ACTUAL concern: ie monetize systems for MUCH more boring queries. & we'll burn up the planet for exchanges on celebrities & sports. Stop #AIHype
www.the-geyser.com/altman-makes...

Pope Leo makes AI’s threat to humanity a signature issue | TechCrunch Pope Leo XIV, the new American pope, is making the threat of AI to humanity a key issue of his legacy.

University heads in the US can take a lesson fr the Pope in being so clear in the commitment to human dignity and protecting future generations, rather than profit as progress, in addressing AI in higher ed: techcrunch.com/2025/06/18/p... #CatholicWorkersMovement #LiberationTheology

The recording of my event w/ @timnitgebru.bsky.social & @xriskology.bsky.social w/ @datasociety.bsky.social is now posted. Emile & I are planning a Fall event on how the conversation on AI, Big Tech, Eugenics & TESCREALism needs to include others beyond tech researchers. Stay tuned! lnkd.in/g9Q_gffq

Thanks @Kent Anderson for the interview in The Geyser. Among the topics we discussed, how surveillance capitalism started with eugenics, how history shows us predatory data is NOT inevitable, & why DOGE's dysfunction sadly doesn't mean the end to techno-eugenics. www.the-geyser.com/interview-an...

Join us momentarily online and in person for a book talk on #eugenicsInBigTech at @ucsandiego.bsky.social's Design Center! If you are looking for ways to resist #PredatoryData, and reimagine solidarity around tech, Zoom in at the link below!
calendar.ucsd.edu/event/predat...

This #MayDay in honor of #workersAgainstAI, I'm traveling to @UTEP to talk on #PredatoryData and #eugenics in #BigTech.
Later this May, I’ll be traveling to another pt of the US West - to UCSD’s Design Lab & UCSC. Thx @Elise Takehana @Nik Usher @gleemie.bsky.social @Zac Zimmer for the invitations!

It was such an honor to get to speak with Bill Ayers on for the @underthetreepod.bsky.social podcast! The episode was just posted and aside from the amazing @Lisa Yun Lee, who introduced us, there are few others I wanted to get to talk #HullHouse data history & #solidaritystrategies with.

Anita Say Chan wears a navy coat and blue and white ikat scarf. She has tortoise-shell glasses and her hair is blowing gently back as she looks directly at the viewer.

NEW EPISODE!
We’re joined by @anitachan.bsky.social, author of Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech
We talk surveillance, algorithmic discrimination, echoes of anti-immigration movements of the 19th century, and alternative data practices of minority actors in pursuit of justice.
bit.ly/42zfRuE

"Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech" Interview with Anita Chan Guest host Meilin Obinata and local activist Reggie Meisler speak with Dr. Anita Say Chan, a professor at the University of Urbana-Champaign who recently published Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech...

I had a blast getting to talk to @ksqdfm.bsky.social's @Moment of TRUTH's @Meilin Obinata and @Reggie Meisler whose Community Radio conversations in #SantaCruz and the #BayArea are more of what the Tech World needs!! ksqd.org/predatory-da...

JOIN me, @xriskology.bsky.social, @timnitgebru.bsky.social & @mwoluchem.bsky.social for @datasociety.bsky.social 's
#PredatoryData event discussion of the 21st C #eugenicsInBigTech and how to resist it. RSVP and join us online tomorrow Thur 4/10 at 1P EasternUS time! datasociety.net/events/resis...

Join us tomorrow! bsky.app/profile/data...

I'm thrilled to be speaking on #EugenicsinBigTech this Thursday 4/3 at 12P at the Nat'l Center for Supercomputing Applications - @ncsaatillinois.bsky.social for its Colloquium series! Join us in person (w/pizza) or or online - more details are here: calendars.illinois.edu/detail/7097?...

Opinion | The Tech Fantasy That Powers A.I. Is Running on Fumes A.I. is just what we need in the post-fact era: less research and more predicting what we want to hear.

“AI may be a mid technology with limited use cases to justify its financial and environmental costs,” @tressiemcphd.bsky.social writes. “But it is a stellar tool for demoralizing workers who can, in the blink of a digital eye, be categorized as waste.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/o...

Rumeysa Ozturk a Tufts PhD student, was disappeared by plainclothes ICE terrorists outside her home - no charges, no warning, no accountability. Her only offense was supporting Palestine via Op-Ed. This is political erasure through state violence. USians, you are living under authoritarian rule! #3E

Federal authorities detain Tufts student in Somerville - The Tufts Daily Federal authorities detained a Tufts graduate student last night outside an off-campus apartment in Somerville. University President Sunil Kumar announced in an email around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday night t...

She is a Teachers College alum and doc student at Tufts on a valid visa. She co-wrote an op ed calling for Tufts to recognize genocide in Gaza. She has been taken by Homeland Security.

WATCH LIVE: NPR, PBS heads answer lawmakers' allegations of bias The CEOs of the largest U.S. public broadcasting networks are appearing before a House subcommittee chaired by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Three cheers to @jeffreygoldberg.bsky.social for reporting the Signal War Plan leak. Today of all days is 1 to SUPPORT #responsibleJournalism, as NPR & PBS are being accused of a “communist agenda” and as the integrity of Goldberg and The Atlantic are under attack. www.npr.org/2025/03/26/n...