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Beza Merid

@beza.bsky.social
267 followers 389 following 5 posts

Assistant professor at ASU SFIS. Director, Digital Health and Racial Justice Lab. Digital Health Equity | Innovation Policy

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Reposted by Beza Merid
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 14/03/2026
“The dragnet now reaches far beyond the crack-era stereotype, ensnaring women across racial and class lines. But the underlying premise remains the same: Alleged risk to a fetus can be used to justify state scrutiny of the person carrying it.”
themarshallproject.org
How Hospitals Helped Erode Reproductive Rights
Criminal prosecutions sparked by hospital drug testing helped advance the legal concept that the fetus had interests the state could protect.
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Reposted by Beza Merid
ProPublica @propublica.org · 14/03/2026
NEW: They Didn’t Want to Have C-Sections. A Judge Would Decide How They Gave Birth. Two Florida women had to attend virtual court hearings while in labor to argue for their right to choose their own medical care. By @amyyurkanin.bsky.social
propublica.org
They Didn’t Want to Have C-Sections. A Judge Would Decide How They Gave Birth.
Two Florida women had to attend virtual court hearings while in labor to argue for their right to choose their own medical care. As their state pushes to expand some types of medical freedom, it has a...
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
On this year’s long covid awareness day, I want more people to read and think about what the late Shafiqah Hudson said before it killed her. Because she was right, as usual, and also early, as usual. Perhaps too early for a lot of people to listen.
Fiqah is@sassycrass.bsky.social
@sassycrass
I'm so frightened and angry. I'm continuing to take notes because I want somebody to sue if I die. I was already fighting big shit.
1:33 AM • 5/22/23 From Earth • 847 ViewsFiqah is@sassycrass.bsky.social
@sassycrass
I'm going to say, again, that when long COVID effects kill me - sooner than later - I need y'all to recognize and say LOUDLY what it was.
Long COVID is keeping my blood pressure at 230/128, in spite of taking an elaborate cocktail of meds.
Long COVID is shredding my kidneys.
5:04 PM • 9/18/23 From Earth • 50K ViewsFiqah is@sassycrass.bsky.social
@sassycrass
I'm not going to be alone. And this won't be considered a massive crime against humanity until we're all gone.
Just tell them I fought and tried.
5:05 PM • 9/18/23 From Earth • 12K Views
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 08/03/2026
“Opportunity”
techcrunch.com
Owner of ICE detention facility sees big opportunity in AI man camps | TechCrunch
AI data center developers are increasingly relying on a style of camp popularized as housing for men working in remote oil fields.
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Deborah McDowell @dem8z.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
“What are we pretending not to know today?” —Toni Cade Bambara
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Bad Medical Takes @badmedicaltakes.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
Twitter user eoghan:

How dare poor people get free medical advice

<quote tweet from Twitter user Polymarket: BREAKING: New York bill would ban AI from answering questions related to medicine, law, dentistry, nursing, psychology, social work, engineering, & more.>

Twitter user YBrogard79094:
JUST MAKE HEALTHCARE ACCESSIBLE

Twitter user eoghan:

AI is literally free healthcare. Being a communist must be exhausting
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Brent Crude @mrbrentcrude.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Homelessness is a policy choice
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Dr. Jonathan N. Stea @jonathanstea.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
The head of the US health care system: “I'm not scared of a germ. I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.”
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Ok - Now what @ok-now-what.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
The thing is "take it seriously" often means "accept that we're creating Skynet," rather than grappling with real, concrete, well-established concerns around bias, deskilling, unemployment (not the same as "replacement"), and ecology.
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Courtney E. Thompson @cethompson.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
75% of my students are future health professionals. Do you really want a physician or nurse or pharm. who has no critical reading/thinking skills, who cannot communicate worth a damn or knows enough to ask questions/problem-solve when something feels off? Would you put your life in the hands of AI?
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Ben Ewen-Campen @benforward3.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Facebook plans to put facial recognition in its glasses and they think we’re too stupid to fight back. Their internal memo: “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.”
nytimes.com
Meta Plans to Add Facial Recognition Technology to Its Smart Glasses
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Pam Herd @pamherd.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
While this is better than the current CDC process, this is not a good outcome. The AMA can’t match the capacity and impact of the federal government. Measles is already out of control. Playing with fire.
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George Pearkes @peark.es · 10/02/2026
good thread documenting what's going on here but I think it's important to emphasize this is 100% on the judges. If every DoJ attorney headed into federal court knew that this sort of behavior would result in immediate sanctions or recommendations for disbarment from a federal judge, it would end.
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Louise Seamster @louiseseamster.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
even if you think you “have nothing to hide”, you have a lot to lose from these practices. They work just as effectively from their INaccuracy—people would be remiss to think they’re just about sorting risk or about knowledge. they are about producing categories of people, like “enemy of the state."
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Louise Seamster @louiseseamster.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
The false positives + overly-generic categorizations like “domestic terrorism,” already have significant precedent in phenomena like the 9-11 travel bans and “gang member” databases, both of which included babies. Communities of color have long experience with these practices and *warned everyone…*
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Louise Seamster @louiseseamster.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
There is huge risk to our privacy in terms of the data we *did* produce, the use of our faces, tracking, etc. AND we also need to draw on these important insights to understand how the risks include the dangers of *misrecognition* weaponized against people.
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Louise Seamster @louiseseamster.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Black surveillance scholars including @hypervisible.blacksky.app and @wewatchwatchers.bsky.social have long warned of the dangers of simultaneous hypervisibility AND invisibility, long known to the Black community. Being always seen and watched, but as a “type,” not recognized as a person.
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Louise Seamster @louiseseamster.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
I am trying and failing to find the article from 2 months ago that adds one more terrifying layer: about the successful altering of a facial recognition database such that the photos no longer “read” as someone’s face to a computer, although they look unchanged to a person.
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MPR News @mprnews.org · 03/02/2026
A manager for the Immigrant Defense Network told MPR News that back in November, 2,500 people were trained as constitutional observers. Now, the total is nearly 30,000 trained observers in 77 of Minnesota's 87 counties.
mprnews.org
Nearly 30,000 Minnesotans trained as constitutional observers
The Immigrant Defense Network works with more than 100 organizations to help train constitutional observers. At the end of November, there were 2,500 trained observers. That number has soared as more ...
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Paul F. Tompkins @pftompkins.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
What makes Gavin Newsom such a skilled politician is that he stands up to Trump’s bullying with piping hot memes AND is able to agree with Trump about policy www.sacbee.com
sacbee.com
Gov. Gavin Newsom: ‘I disagree’ with calls to abolish ICE
The 2028 presidential contender came out against calls to dismantle ICE after an agent fatally shot a Minneapolis woman.
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FREEBROOKLYN❌👑 @freebklyn.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Free Liam, and his father.
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Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Not going to lie, just very much filled with dread on reporting on Medicaid cuts this year :( Needless suffering sucks.
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), run by Oz and his boss, RFK Jr., will no longer require physicians to report vaccination rates. Instead, they plan to start having doctors report if they’ve discussed “alternative” vaccine schedules.
cidrap.umn.edu
CMS to stop requiring states to report childhood vaccination levels
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 05/01/2026
Keeping the social safety net as small and as punitive as possible helps to ensure that there will always be a steady stream of people for employers like Bezos to exploit--people in such a precarious position that have no choice but to take whatever underpaid, overworked job they can get.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 04/01/2026
No. No. No. Punitive processes make narrowly targeted programs *less* efficient and *more* costly. Because more scrutiny requires more bureaucracy. Punitive processes also make it *less* likely that people will get aid for which they qualify. Because of the roadblocks and stigma scrutiny creates.
Washington Post Opinions
@postopinions.bsky.social I
"The purpose of entitlements is not to spend as
much as possible," the Editorial Board writes.
"It is to make sure the truly vulnerable get the
help they need without becoming dependent on
government handouts. Scrutinizing food stamp
rolls is a small step in that direction."
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The Verge @theverge.com · 01/12/2025
Zillow property listings no longer show risk of fires, floods, and storms
buff.ly
Zillow property listings no longer show risk of fires, floods, and storms
The change follows complaints that climate risk scores were making properties less desirable.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 01/12/2025
Fact-checking one of the single most effective convincing-sounding lie generation machines = trying to sweep the ocean back into the sea (or capture emissions after they're released) We don't solve this without regulating, attacking and delegitimising the slop firehose
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Louise Seamster @louiseseamster.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
wait THAT is the concern? “damn the calipers worked so well before people got the ability to alter their face shape!"
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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 10/11/2025
How about we shut down the government for this very popular and specific goal and then, hear me out, we hold out for like a month and a half and then, ok this part is important, after a watershed election where we ran the table, ONLY THEN, fold and don't get the one thing we said we wanted.
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Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 09/11/2025
DOGE and others in the administration want to build a giant database of records by haphazardly combining info the government collected for one purpose, like paying taxes, and use it for another purpose, like targeting immigrants. We can't let this happen. takebackctrl.org/get-a-warrant
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David Kaib @davidkaib.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
The biggest challenge is convincing people that things could be different and that their actions matter.
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 09/10/2025
Letitia James criminally charged in Trump’s latest effort to punish rivals
theguardian.com
Letitia James criminally charged in Trump’s latest effort to punish rivals
Prosecutor who sought charges was installed amid Trump frustrations with pace of investigations against rivals * US politics live – latest updates A federal grand jury indicted Letitia James, the New York attorney general, for bank fraud on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Lindsey Halligan, the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, personally presented the case to the grand jury on Thursday, the person said. US attorneys do not typically present to a grand jury. Continue reading...
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Sarah Gollust @sarahgollust.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
Just published in @amjpublichealth.bsky.social: a collective analysis of the power ecosystem that jeopardizes public health and produces inequity, titled “Why Building Power is Key to Protecting Academic Public Health and Advancing Health Equity”
We are angered and disheartened by the lack of progress our fields have made over the last 20 years and dismayed by the dismantling of health equity efforts happening in real time. In response, we are determined to reimagine academic public health and drive social change. We believe public health scholars need to share and build power with communities facing inequities now more than ever.
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awkword @awkword.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
Cops used 83,000 cameras to track a single abortion patient — on her abuser’s tip.
jessica.substack.com
Cops Used 83K Cameras to Track an Abortion Patient—on Her Abuser’s Tip
Turns out the cop was also an abuser
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Solomon @solomonrmissouri.com · 07/10/2025
🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿
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Shefali Luthra @shefali.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
“My biggest fear is going to the hospital." Pregnant immigrants are terrified ICE will show up outside the doctors' office or at the hospital. So they're skipping the care necessary to ensure a healthy birth. Some experience dangerous complications as a result. 19thnews.org/2025/10/preg...
19thnews.org
ICE fears put pregnant immigrants and their babies at risk
Fear of deportation is deterring people without permanent legal status from critical care. Doctors are worried for their health — and the health of their pregnancies.
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Matthew Guariglia @mguariglia.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
🚨🚨 Both the police and Flock's defense for why Texas police searched the entire country for License Plate Reader data to find woman who had self-administered an abortion was because she was a missing person and family was concerned with her health. Now documents reveal they wanted to charge her.
404media.co
Police Said They Surveilled Woman Who Had an Abortion for Her 'Safety.' Court Records Show They Considered Charging Her With a Crime
Court records show that the narrative Flock and a Texas Sheriff's Office has told the public isn't the whole story, and that police were conducting a 'death investigation' into the abortion.
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
The FAA is delaying flights at Newark and Denver airports because they haven’t got enough air traffic control. Burbank has zero ATC from 4.30-10pm. Lots of controllers who aren’t being paid during the government shutdown are calling in sick.
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Charles Ornstein @charlesornstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
Three weeks after a leading scientist at the National Institutes of Health filed a whistle-blower complaint against the Trump administration, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy fired her. @nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Kennedy Fires N.I.H. Scientist Who Filed Whistle-Blower Complaint
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NPR @npr.org · 05/10/2025
North Carolina and Idaho have cut their Medicaid programs to bridge budget gaps, raising fears that providers will stop taking patients and that hospitals will close even before the brunt of a new federal tax-and-budget law takes effect.
n.pr
States are cutting Medicaid provider payments long before Trump cuts hit
North Carolina and Idaho have cut their Medicaid programs to bridge budget gaps, raising fears that providers will stop taking patients and that hospitals will close even before the brunt of a new federal tax-and-budget law takes effect.
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Beza Merid @beza.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
“Researchers have already reported that these so-called silicon samples produce humanlike responses in some surveys and experiments—and some even hope they could simulate the responses of minorities or other groups who are often underrepresented in studies.”
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 03/10/2025
Ring founder: “I’m focused on: How can I get the highest density of camera coverage in a neighborhood matched with AI to make neighborhoods safer?…It’s not just hard crime.” Just put this guy and the Flock guy on a deserted island together so they can surveill each other until the end times.
cnbc.com
Ring founder 'backs the blue,' says AI is helping Amazon-owned doorbell unit fight crime
Ring founder Jamie Siminoff returned to the company he founded in April to lead the business, which is part of Amazon's devices division.
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Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
How is AI changing the nature of scams? @lanalanalana.bsky.social & @alicetiara.bsky.social spoke to @alixdunn.com on @themaybe.org to explain how AI automates & scales the work already being done in massive, exploitative “cybercrime compounds” around the world. www.themaybe.org/podcast/gotc...
themaybe.org
The Maybe
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 03/10/2025
saw this at heathrow airport. i can't see it appealing to anyone but fraudsters and scammers
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Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Ridiculously, Medicare Telehealth coverage keeps are getting tied to continuing resolutions. Bills could be passed separately. But political bureaucracy. This means Medicare Telehealth waivers are kaput as of today. My latest for @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
Another shutdown casualty: Medicare telehealth coverage
It's got bipartisan support—and millions of Americans need it. But Congress keeps failing to lock in funding for Medicare telehealth services.
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Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 02/10/2025
Flock is preparing to roll out a new feature: Its gunshot detection devices will begin listening for voices in “distress”
eff.org
Flock’s Gunshot Detection Microphones Will Start Listening for Human Voices
Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of automated license plate readers spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product ...
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DISCO Network @disconetwork.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
Join us on Thursday, OCTOBER 16th at 4:00 - 5:30 PM ET over Zoom for a conversation about How to Survive Techno-Hellscapes 🔥💻🌐 This panel will feature four phenomenal disability culture workers, activists, writers, and scholars in conversation with DISCO's own @remiyergeau.bsky.social
Flier for "How to Survive Techno-Hellscapes: On Crip Wisdom and Critique" event at the University of Michigan with details, four speakers, and a QR code for registration. The background is a deep red close-up of wires and plugs, and there is a graphic of a charred hallway.
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Stephen O’Shea @architectgp.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
This is spot on. Our capitulation to the ‘inevitability’ of AI couldn’t come at a worse time.
Screenshot of a paragraph of this essay.
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