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tnfalpha.bsky.social
David Scales
@tnfalpha.bsky.social
5.3K followers 2.8K following 390 posts
Hospitalist, sociologist @WeillCornell studying information environments, contested illness, medical communication

Co-founder, Health for Palestine

he/il/el/هو
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tnfalpha.bsky.social
David Scales @tnfalpha.bsky.social · Jun 17
Community expertise is essential for monitoring potential information harms, but current “social listening” efforts often bring community input late in the process. It’s time to update our tracking approaches to foreground that shift. @cward1e.bsky.social and I offer one approach in a new paper.
Reposted by David Scales
noupside.bsky.social
Just wanna re-up in simple terms that when Biden talked to platforms, Jim Jordan launched years of investigations into everybody involved, said it was tyranny, censorship, etc.

And now they just straight up acknowledge that they talk to platforms too.

www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/3...
DHS playing 'whack-a-mole' shooting down made-up ICE stories
The Department of Homeland Security is stepping up efforts to combat fake news, viral AI videos, and misinformation on ICE and Border Patrol.
www.washingtonexaminer.com
November 20, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Reposted by David Scales
koltai.bsky.social
I haven't had enough time to process this yet but,

I've studied the anti-vax movement for 7 years of my career and I can't believe I'm now at the point where I can't recommend the CDC as a trustworthy source of health information.

This is dangerous, insane, and embarrassing.
November 20, 2025 at 6:10 AM
Reposted by David Scales
volts.wtf
"Things" -- like the repressive dictator sitting next to me having a journalist chopped up with a bone saw -- "happen."
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d
Trump suggests Khashoggi had it coming: "You're mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen. But he knew nothing about it. You don't have to embarrass our guest."
November 18, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by David Scales
joho.bsky.social
Discussed here

sciencebasedmedicine.org/pbem/
November 18, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by David Scales
jamellebouie.net
reminded of eric williams's observation about britain's relationship to its history with slavery. "British historians wrote almost as if Britain had introduced Negro slavery solely for the satisfaction of abolishing it."
joannehammond.bsky.social Joanne Hammond @joannehammond.bsky.social · 4d
holy shit: “Among the 2,000 UK adults surveyed, 85% were unaware that Britain forcibly transported more than 3 million Africans to the Caribbean, 89% did not know that Britain enslaved people in the Caribbean for more than 300 years” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
Caribbean reparations leaders in ‘historic’ first UK visit to press for justice
CRC mission will seek to deepen public understanding of Britain’s colonial legacy and its lasting impact
www.theguardian.com
November 16, 2025 at 11:11 PM
tnfalpha.bsky.social
Compelling and thought provoking piece by Pau Perez Sales "One occupation, Two Realities: Psychosocial Mechanisms that Make Genocidal Acts Possible" The first article in this issue: tidsskrift.dk/torture-jour... @diplomatofnight.com
View of Vol. 35 No. 2-3 (2025): Torture Journal: Journal on Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and Prevention of Torture
tidsskrift.dk
November 14, 2025 at 3:46 PM
tnfalpha.bsky.social
This hits close to home...
mcsweeneys.net McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 7d
"I am a grown woman, and I reserve the right to feel anything, google it for several hours, send Brynn a text that says 'lol help,' and receive the gold standard of compassionate medical advice."
Keep Health Care Between Me, the Internet, and My Friend Who Is a Nurse
Senators, please get OUT of my uterus so my friend Brynn, who is almost finished with nursing school, can get in there STAT. My body doesn’t need t...
buff.ly
November 14, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by David Scales
gregggonsalves.bsky.social
This is designed to tank public health & primary care by excluding public health professions, advanced nursing practice, physical & occupational therapy from loans that can cover the cost of education. This is going to make an existing workforce crisis worse.
aspph.org/department-o...
Department of Education Proposal Excludes Public Health Degrees from “Professional Degree” Definition
Discover the new results and implications of Dept of Ed consensus regarding professional degree programs and public health education.
aspph.org
November 14, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Reposted by David Scales
boghuma.bsky.social
It's that time again.
For the next 24 hours, drop any infectious disease and/or vaccine-related questions below in response to this post, and I will do my best to answer them. Responses are for information only and are NOT medical advice.
#AskAnIDDoc November 2025 edition.
a man is standing in a kitchen drinking from a cup and talking about flu season .
ALT: a man is standing in a kitchen drinking from a cup and talking about flu season .
media.tenor.com
November 13, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by David Scales
juliusgoat.bsky.social
"We looked into the public awareness of this story we're actively suppressing and the data suggests we're suppressing it."
November 14, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Reposted by David Scales
eladiobobadilla.com
Malicious compliance is a tragically underused tool of resistance.
kevinmkruse.bsky.social Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 6d
If you have tenure at Texas A&M and aren't maliciously emailing the president a dozen times every day to ask if you can say this or you can say that, then what's the point in having tenure?
phillewis.bsky.social Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 6d
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M adopts policy requiring professors to get OK from school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.
November 13, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Reposted by David Scales
noupside.bsky.social
New from me: “working the refs” has come for Wikipedia. The same type of attacks alleging anti-conservative bias that right wing politicians have make about social media are coming for the encyclopedia — because of its critical role in shaping AI answer engines.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
The Right-Wing Attack on Wikipedia
The free internet encyclopedia is widely used to train AI. That’s why conservatives are trying to dethrone it.
www.theatlantic.com
November 12, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Reposted by David Scales
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by David Scales
justinhendrix.bsky.social
Propaganda does not rely entirely on unassailable evidence and impeccable logic to discipline its targets. Neither can the response, writes Calum Matheson, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh.
Scholars Must Recognize the Role of Affect and Emotion in Disinformation | TechPolicy.Press
The tactics of digital emotional manipulation are many and varied, but many of the most prominent exploit frustration and rage, writes Calum Matheson.
www.techpolicy.press
November 11, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Reposted by David Scales
qjurecic.bsky.social
Over the last 10 months, the federal government has cracked down on political expression with a persistence and viciousness reminiscent of some of the darkest periods of U.S. history. Welcome to the Third Red Scare.
The First Amendment Won’t Go Quietly
Welcome to the third Red Scare.
www.theatlantic.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by David Scales
chrischirp.bsky.social
we need to protect both the independent, expert creation of evidence and information *and* the communication of it by independent, non-partisan, media organisations.

christinapagel.substack.com/p/informatio...
November 11, 2025 at 10:56 AM
Reposted by David Scales
davidroundmw.bsky.social
The most trusted news source in the US is The Weather Channel. The second most trusted is the BBC.
November 11, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Reposted by David Scales
amymaxmen.bsky.social
🔔 When Trump posted a video of budget director Russell Vought as the grim reaper, public health workers recognized a kernel of truth.

My latest piece @kffhealthnews.org couldn't be more important. Art by the incredible @oonazenda.bsky.social

🧵
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
Wielding Obscure Budget Tools, Trump’s ‘Reaper’ Vought Sows Turmoil in Public Health - KFF Health News
Through shrouded bureaucratic maneuvers, White House budget director Russell Vought and DOGE have quietly upended outbreak response, HIV treatment, and dementia care in communities across America.
kffhealthnews.org
November 7, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Reposted by David Scales
boghuma.bsky.social
A fascinating new Lancet ID paper offers the strongest comparative evidence yet between infection-induced and vaccine-induced immunity against mpox. The study followed people for up to 2 years after infection with monkeypox virus or vaccination with MVA-BN. #IDsky
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Long-term consequences of monkeypox virus infection or modified vaccinia virus Ankara vaccination in Belgium (MPX-COHORT and POQS-FU-PLUS): a 24-month prospective and retrospective cohort study
Individuals previously infected with MPXV show strong and durable immunological memory lasting up to 2 years after infection, in contrast to the less robust and shorter-lived response observed after M...
www.thelancet.com
November 9, 2025 at 1:15 PM
tnfalpha.bsky.social
Simultaneously so cool and weeks worth of nightmare fuel.
Stinking, Spongy, Dark, Huge: A Spider Web Unlike Any Seen Before
www.nytimes.com
November 8, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by David Scales
ryanmarino.bsky.social
Panera’s moderately caffeinated lemonade was loosely associated with 2 deaths before it was taken off market.

This article alone has 4 examples of ChatGPT encouraging young people to commit suicide, and OpenAI’s own public stats estimate over a million users discuss suicide with ChatGPT each week.
November 7, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Reposted by David Scales
rtushnet.bsky.social
"Every six months, Meta earns $3.5 billion from just the portion of scam ads that 'present higher legal risk,' the [Meta] document says, such as those falsely claiming to represent a consumer brand...That figure almost certainly exceeds 'the cost of any regulatory settlement involving scam ads.'”
Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show
Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, and it internally estimates that its platforms show users 15 billion scam ads a day, company documents show.
www.reuters.com
November 6, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by David Scales
agawande.bsky.social
I helped make a film, out this week, called “Rovina’s Choice,” about the deaths this man without conscience or accountability has caused — already 600,000, ⅔ of them children.
November 6, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Reposted by David Scales
walkerbragman.bsky.social
Mamdani’s win is a warning for media:

Better get some leftist contributors or you simply won’t be able to cover/understand what is happening around America.
November 5, 2025 at 11:40 PM
Reposted by David Scales
minibubbly.bsky.social
How a radical experiment to bring a forest into a preschool transformed children’s health
In #Finland, kindergartens are exposing children to more mud, wild plants and moss - and finding changes to their health that show how crucial biodiversity is to wellbeing

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
How a radical experiment to bring a forest into a preschool transformed children’s health
In Finland, kindergartens are exposing children to more mud, wild plants and moss - and finding changes to their health that show how crucial biodiversity is to wellbeing
www.theguardian.com
November 5, 2025 at 5:25 PM