Devon Greyson

Meta halted internal research suggesting social media harm, court filing alleges Meta is alleged to have halted internal research suggesting social media harm, according to court documents.

Meta halted internal research that purportedly showed (young) people who stopped using Facebook became less depressed and anxious, according to an unredacted legal filing released on Friday. www.cnbc.com/2025/11/23/m...

X Just Accidentally Exposed A Vast Covert Influence Network Targeting Americans How a new X feature led to the most sweeping public exposure of covert foreign activity on a major platform since 2016.

X rolled out a new feature that accidentally exposed a massive covert foreign influence operation — more than one, actually — that is currently live on the platform. It’s a huge story and I wrote about it — and what it means for America — here:

open.substack.com/pub/weaponiz...

This is what a genuine threat to academic freedom looks like

evergreen

If we ignore Canada’s mental health crisis, AI companies will exploit… Canada’s mental-health system increasingly pushes people toward AI “alternatives.”

If we ignore Canada’s mental health crisis, AI companies will exploit it canadahealthwatch.ca/2025/11/22/i... @spichaksimon.bsky.social

"War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength"

Screenshot of the cover of the Final Report of the National Pharmacare Committee of Experts 2025 from this link: https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/hc-sc/documents/services/publications/health-system-services/health-system-services-report-national-pharmacare-committee-experts/report-national-pharmacare-committee-experts.pdf

Lots to like in this #pharmacare report (it's feisty!) tho I still worry its approach to WHO #EssentialMedicines lets fall through the cracks the many drugs on the WHO EML💊📜, from #albendazole to #tuberculosis drugs, that aren't actually sold in Canada despite being the recognized standard of care.

Closing Central Madrid To Cars Resulted In 9.5% Boost To Retail Spending, Finds Bank Analysis City of Madrid significantly boosted the takings of its shops and restaurants last Christmas by banning cars from the CBD, finds an analysis by Spain's second largest bank.

Keep this in mind when people claim cars mean business — closing Central #Madrid to cars over holidays resulted in a 9.5% boost in retail spending on its main shopping street: STUDY.

There was also a 71% drop in air pollution.

Via @carltonreid.com in @forbes.com. #citymakingmath #citiesforpeople

(Or even if not quite =, good enough that the loss in learning is outweighed by the greater # served. For ex, it’s only 60% as good but we can teach 3x as many so it’s a net gain in terms of instructor time. A very quant way to think about it, but larger classes are driven by economic pressures.)

Yes, are you aware of anyone using online interactive modules successfully for graduate level qualitative methods training? (Maybe Master’s level, since it seems unlikely at PhD level.) I’d love to hear from instructors who feel they’ve been able to give equivalent instruction in large groups.

Heading to Montréal for CBRC Summit! If you are too, I’d love to connect about queering pandemic preparedness, gender health misinformation, public health surveillance ethics, and related topics.

#QualitativeHealthResearch #QualitativeMethods
Talk to me abt course size for grad level qualitative methods.

I have always believed small is important for these courses. But, am I out of date?

Are people offering semester-long, effective, graduate-level quali methods courses w 50-100 students?

“Marketed for kids 3-12, Kumma gave step-by-step instructions on a common “knot for beginners” who want to tie up their partner. Another time, the AI explored the idea of introducing spanking into a sexually-charged teacher-student dynamic, which is obviously ghoulishly inappropriate for young kids”

But at least that whole process happened in relatively appropriate locales! No beds to be seen! (Low bar, but…)

Oof, that’s so rough.

I had one in the midwestern USA where everything/everywhere was sooooo fragranced. Including/worst of all the personal vehicle someone was driving me from place to place in. My allergic self was…not at my best. 😵‍💫

I had at least one (as a job candidate) somewhere around 2016/2017.

😮Whoa. I was not expecting that. I have questions.

#Canada #MediaStudies folks: Was there ever any sort of assessment of the impact of the famed Canadian House Hippo? (Thinking about the original, but the 2019 redux and associated campaigns also interesting.) I see wide cultural impact, but the intended media literacy impacts...?

Watching disabled people around the world mourn Alice is a reminder of the good aspect of the internet. 30 years ago, few people outside of SF would ever have known Alice existed. I never would have met her. The internet connected us all. Let’s honor Alice’s memory by using that power and community.

Here in Canada, where sometimes we conceptualize the info ecosystem as a structural determinant of health (& misinfo exposure, like racism exposure, a social DoH), I have a part of some proposals to work with community groups on community specific interventions that seem promising. (🤞for funding!)

I am a fan of structural interventions for higher impacts, generally. But the ecosystem/infrastructure aspect really *requires* that level of intervention (e.g., gov’t regulation, investment in public media platforms) whereas misinfo exposure can be acted on at multi levels.

Ah, the thread hadn’t fully unfolded when I posted this—clearly you have already seen it.

As an info scientist in pop & public health, I think misinfo exposure & the info ecosystem/comms & info infrastructure are related but different measures.

Misinformation, trust, and health: The case for information environment as a major independent social determinant of health We argue for the inclusion of information environment as a major independent element in social determinants of health (SDoH) models. During the early …

Interesting to compare w www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

So sad to hear that Alice Wong has died. Her work has informed my understanding of disability and disability advocacy for as long as I can remember, and we just listened to her on this episode of Radiolab a few weeks ago: www.wnycstudios.org/story/voice/

If gen "AI" is so GREAT whyyyyy do you need to force it on people so strongly? It's such a pain to have to type -AI or scroll through garbage at the top of every search, delete inaccurate auto-insertions in my emails, etc. If it were helping me I would opt in. Let me opt out.

Right, for letters it would be the referee's IP but for cover letters, research statement, teaching statement, etc.—those all would be applicant IP.

HR needs to let you disable/opt out of that terrible software!

#Qualitative #ResearchEthics question!
With online interviews in particular, participants are now able to easily record and create "AI" transcripts of their own interviews.

Have you encountered this? Do you have policies or protocols about it?

No, Microsoft, I don't want you to generate a creepy hyperreal image of disabling useless-to-me genAI, I want to know how to do it, just like I asked.