Devon Greyson
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greyson.bsky.social
Devon Greyson
@greyson.bsky.social

Academic & writer. 🇨🇦Applied Public Health Chair. I study health information practices & interventions, often pertaining to vaccination and/or gender. I also bicycle & drink coffee a lot, and write fiction a little. Recovering classical bassist. .. more

Public Health 36%
Medicine 17%
Pinned
2025 update because I'm not seeking to hire anyone or sponsor any new students right now. Possible exceptions for people who are *really* allied with my funded work (e.g., on mpox vax, vax misinfo) and/or have access to external funding (e.g., fellowship, home nation). Lab is at capacity for now.
Prospective students: Here's what you need to know if you think you might want to work with me (a thread):

1. I'm not looking to recruit new students at the moment. (There could be some exceptions, especially for research-oriented Master's students in my school or interdisciplinary studies.)

What research tasks do you find ChatGPT to be useful for?
I honestly don’t get the value of this company. They hoover up energy and water. Their product constantly gets things wrong and, in extreme cases, coaches people into suicide.

And it’s all built on what seems to be malicious and vast intellectual property theft.

What does OpenAI offer the world?
“authors & publishers who filed a lawsuit against the Sam Altman-led firm have secured access to internal Slack messages… discussing the mass deletion of a pirated books dataset… A NY district court ordered OpenAI to hand over the communications regarding data deletion”
futurism.com/artificial-i...
OpenAI in Danger After Authors Suing It Gain Access to Its Internal Slack Messages
Authors and publishers, who are suing OpenAI, secured access to internal Slack messages and emails discussing the deletion of pirated books.
futurism.com

Haha, yes and also this on the same commercial break: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml6S...
80s Commercial | Crazy Eddie | 1985 | 1986 | 1987
YouTube video by STEVE HEROLD
www.youtube.com

I hope the news media interviews other poultry farmers about this, not just the ones that are involved with this business.
Call me controversial, but technology that leads vulnerable people into crisis and even holds their hand as they die by suicide should not be endorsed by schools and universities, we should not be giving discounted subscriptions to this monstrous tech to young people AT ALL
The boyfriend of a friend of my son's has spent several weeks in a psych ward due to Chat GPT induced psychosis. He isn't suicidal but AI encouraged him down a toxic and paranoid wormhole until he became completely delusional. Evil stuff.
1.This is not the only known example we know of ChatGPT cheering on a vulnerable young person to die by suicide, this time it is a recent Texas A&M grad
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
The boyfriend of a friend of my son's has spent several weeks in a psych ward due to Chat GPT induced psychosis. He isn't suicidal but AI encouraged him down a toxic and paranoid wormhole until he became completely delusional. Evil stuff.
1.This is not the only known example we know of ChatGPT cheering on a vulnerable young person to die by suicide, this time it is a recent Texas A&M grad
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...

Phrenology 2.0
One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands
The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
newyorkermag.visitlink.me
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women

🧵

Vancouverites: Remember this in October.
Vancouver's proposed 2026 budget has been released.

It proposes a property tax freeze, a 10% increase to the Police Services budget, a 6% increase to Fire/Rescue Services, and lots of other cuts, including Arts & Culture, Planning & Sustainability, and much more.

Full report here.
council.vancouver.ca
A new paper suggests a photo can tell a recruiter much about an applicant’s personality
Should facial analysis help determine whom companies hire?
A new paper suggests a photo can tell a recruiter much about an applicant’s personality
econ.st

This is abuser gaslighting language: When I grab you it’s self defence. When you try to defend yourself, even without touching me, it’s assault.

In the home or in the streets, it’s still abuser reasoning.
Loevy plays a video of a woman's arrest. Hewson says the woman was "assaultive" because she kicked a can of tear gas that had been deployed.

Loevy: "When you tear gas somebody … and they try to kick the tear gas canister away from them, that's assaulting?"

Hewson: "Yes."

Facebook Pinto
Meta earns $3.5 billion every six months from showing Faceboon and Instagram users 15 billion “higher legal risk” scam ad impressions a day, internal documents state.

That haul vastly exceeds how much the company expects regulators
To fine it for running scam ads.

www.reuters.com/investigatio...
www.reuters.com
Meta earns $3.5 billion every six months from showing Faceboon and Instagram users 15 billion “higher legal risk” scam ad impressions a day, internal documents state.

That haul vastly exceeds how much the company expects regulators
To fine it for running scam ads.

www.reuters.com/investigatio...
www.reuters.com
Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion, according to our analysis, which found the sepsis rate for women hospitalized as they miscarried in the 2nd trimester shot up by more than 50%.

(Published February)
Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared.
ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.
www.propublica.org
For @msnbc.com I wrote about how Tuesday's election gives Democrats the blueprint for overcoming Republican anti-trans attacks and how thus should settle all the talk about throwing trans people under the bus.

www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...
Opinion | Democrats’ election wins showed they don't need to hide their support for trans rights
Republicans repeated Trump's anti-trans strategy from 2024 and lost big. This should be instructive for Democrats.
www.msnbc.com
Loevy plays a video of a woman's arrest. Hewson says the woman was "assaultive" because she kicked a can of tear gas that had been deployed.

Loevy: "When you tear gas somebody … and they try to kick the tear gas canister away from them, that's assaulting?"

Hewson: "Yes."

Reposted by Devon Greyson

Vancouver's proposed 2026 budget has been released.

It proposes a property tax freeze, a 10% increase to the Police Services budget, a 6% increase to Fire/Rescue Services, and lots of other cuts, including Arts & Culture, Planning & Sustainability, and much more.

Full report here.
council.vancouver.ca

Reposted by Devon Greyson

If you have Tinder on your phone, keep an eye on the rollout of this feature and consider the implications carefully before enabling it. "Tinder to use AI to get to know users, tap into their Camera Roll photos" techcrunch.com/2025/11/05/t...
Tinder to use AI to get to know users, tap into their Camera Roll photos | TechCrunch
Tinder is testing a feature called Chemistry that will get to know users through questions and, with permission, will access Camera Roll photos on their phones to learn more about their interests and ...
techcrunch.com

Who could have forseen this? 🙄

But seriously, this seems an instructive allegory about qualitative/experiential vs quantitative/measurement data overall. Both have strengths & weaknesses. Neither can replace the other in full.
“People are getting more and more obsessed with [devices] and losing track of listening to their bodies.”
The big data game of wearable fitness tech | The Observer
Do we really need a device to dictate our lifestyles?
observer.co.uk
“People are getting more and more obsessed with [devices] and losing track of listening to their bodies.”
The big data game of wearable fitness tech | The Observer
Do we really need a device to dictate our lifestyles?
observer.co.uk

Shameful. No affluent nation should force people to go hungry. Or to wait all day to see if they can get food.
Here in Atlanta yesterday, more than 2,000 people waited in their cars—one woman for 14 hours—for a box of food. The giveaway ended early; there wasn't enough to go around.

Multiply this scene by countless others across the country, and you get a sense of how crushing the desperation is right now.
Here in Atlanta yesterday, more than 2,000 people waited in their cars—one woman for 14 hours—for a box of food. The giveaway ended early; there wasn't enough to go around.

Multiply this scene by countless others across the country, and you get a sense of how crushing the desperation is right now.
Obama: They never miss a chance to scapegoat minorities and D.E.I. For every problem under the sun. You got a flat tire? D.E.I.. Wife mad at you? D.E.I..

I’m no political scientist, but forced privatization by way of government dysfunction was not a path I had previously thought much about.
“this mass deprivation, which we insist is bad and not our fault, is a great opportunity for us to talk about our plans for long-term mass deprivation”
Brooke Rollins: "I guess the silver lining in all of this is that we're having a national conversation on our SNAP program. This has shined a light on a program that especially under the last administration has just become so bloated."

Reposted by Devon Greyson

“this mass deprivation, which we insist is bad and not our fault, is a great opportunity for us to talk about our plans for long-term mass deprivation”
Brooke Rollins: "I guess the silver lining in all of this is that we're having a national conversation on our SNAP program. This has shined a light on a program that especially under the last administration has just become so bloated."

Yay; just got my BC C19 & flu vaccination invitation! Booked appointment online w/in 3 min of receiving the text.💉💉

I think this system is working better & better; hopefully we can eventually add other vaccines too (b/c I am due for Td soon & would love to bundle them all). Convenience matters!

Another plea to save me from genAI invading my apps: In MS Word online, HOW ON EARTH can I disable Copilot? I don't want it. I don't want my students to use it. I googled but the responses I have found don't work for me. Halp?
If you are a Canadian scientist 🧪 alarmed by the unfair targeting of academics working on research related to EDI in the US ➡️

Turn your attention to our own House of Commons' Standing Committee on Science and Research and consider signing this open letter:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Open Letter to Protect Tri-Council EDI Data
Why do we need urgent action to protect our data? The mandate of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research is to review and report on topics relating to science and research in ...
docs.google.com