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Anna Beers

@beeeeeers.bsky.social

610 followers 530 following 50 posts

Postdoc @citap.bsky.social, on the job market, studying social media, influencers, far-right politics, conspiracy science, disinformation, and monetization. six e's. https://annabeers.github.io/professional/

annabeers.github.io

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Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · May 19

Hey all, here's a post at @ssrc.org about how anti-trans talking points are getting wrapped into Google's AI search results.

AI search not only cites anti-trans disinfo, but sanitizes it, making practices like conversion therapy sound legitimate and safe.

Anti-Transgender Disinformation in the Age of Algorithmic Search Summaries

Recently Google introduced a feature in its search engine that algorithmically creates summaries of one's search results. Though it could be viewed as a useful tool, researcher Anna Beers argues this ...

just-tech.ssrc.org

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Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · Sep 5

Also, if you're unfamiliar with the disinformation campaign suggesting that the rate at which trans people detransition is very high, you can read this article by @juliaserano.bsky.social!

Naturally, not cited in any search summary I've seen yet...

juliaserano.medium.com/spotting-ant...

Spotting Anti-Trans Media Bias on Detransition

While most people who transition are happy with the outcome, a small percentage (likely in the 1 to 3 percent range; detailed below) may…

juliaserano.medium.com

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Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · Sep 5

In this case, it probably picks up (false) claims that detransition research is flawed from sources associated with anti-transgender disinformation campaigns, also cited in the search summary.

Perhaps it then searches for abstract "limitations," even when they're not related to the topic. 🤷‍♀️

Two our sources cited in the summary. One is attributed to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, an anti-transgender disinformation group referred to as a hate group by the SPLC. The other cites an article in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, which publishes many articles from anti-trans researchers. That article is authored by a member of SEGM.

The Detransition Rate Is Unknown |
Archives of Sexual Behavior
Jun 12, 2023- These claims also make
their way into the press: "the rate of regre ...
SN SpringerLink

Detransition: a Real and Growing
Phenomenon - SEGM
May 30, 2021 - Another study earlier this
year also attempted to examine ...
SEGM

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Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · Sep 5

Something that keeps popping up in my research on search+LLMs is how they mix-and-match quotes from completely unrelated papers.

Here's a response on detransition that pulls a limitations section from an unrelated paper on childhood traumatic experiences to claim that current research has flaws.

A Google "AI Overview" in response to a query about detransition rates. It is highlighted, with an icon at the end indicating that the entire section is grouped to one cluster of sources.

Detransition rates vary across studies due to differing definitions of
detransition, survey methodologies, and sample populations, but available data suggests that rates are low, with estimates ranging from under 1% to about 13%. Most detransitions are temporary and driven by external factors like societal pressure, stigma, or family disapproval, rather than regret over gender identity. More research is needed to establish accurate rates and fully understand the diverse factors influencing detransition.

Three example sources that the previous screenshot is sourced to. They include:

Transgender detransition is a taboo topic, but data shows it's on the .
Jun 20, 2023- Transgender detransitionis a taboo topic, but data shows it's on th ... BI Big Think

A retrospective analysis of the gender trajectories
of youth who have ... Nov 22, 2023- Another cohort study of 1,089 youth who medically transitioned in the United Kingdom shows that ...
Taylor & Francis Online

Epidemiology of Traumatic Experiences in
Childhood - PMC
Therefore, some of these challenges to obtaining accurate
prevalence and incident rates may interact with factors ...
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Quote from the paper on childhood traumatic experiences. The last sentence is highlighted, meaning it was directly cited by the LLM response.

These characteristics also may differentially affect responses by members of sub-populations. For example, males may be more concerned than females about revealing incidents of sexual assault, particularly assaults by male offenders, because of concerns about even greater perceived stigmatization. Girls from certain cultural or ethnic groups that value virginity more than others may be less likely to disclose sexual abuse. Children from geographic regions where severe physical punishment is the norm may be less likely to report physical abuse because they do not view it as out of the ordinary. Therefore, some of these challenges to obtaining accurate prevalence and incident rates may interact with factors such as gender, ethnicity, and regional cultures, resulting in differential undercounts for some subgroups. Further research is needed to better understand these relationships.

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Reposted by Anna Beers

Paris Marx @parismarx.com · Aug 9

remember there’s always a lucrative position for the seeming critic of the tech industry who doesn’t actually challenge its power and foundational ideas.

the prodigal tech bro is one example. there’s a whole industry of academics and journalists who serve in this role too.

The Prodigal Techbro

Prodigal tech bro stories skip straight from the past, when they were part of something that—surprise!—turned out to be bad, to the present, where they are now a moral authority on how to do good…

conversationalist.org

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Reposted by Anna Beers

Helen Rosner @hels.bsky.social · Aug 2

Increasingly I think a major function of “masculinity” IS its crisis — a vehicle for the dominant & dominating group to justify focusing their social attentions primarily on themselves

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Reposted by Anna Beers

Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · Jul 29

One fascinating thing about the most self-serious newspaper in America with its staff of the winning journalistic meritocrats is that it routinely, institutionally publishes completely made-up bullshit speculation about pure abstractions, based on zero reporting, written as if it were plain facts

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Reposted by Anna Beers

ProPublica @propublica.org · Jul 26

ProPublica spoke to about 150 people who had lived in homeless encampments when cities cleared them out in “sweeps.”

We distributed notecards so people could tell us about the toll in their own words.

➡️ This is what they wrote: projects.propublica.org/impact-of-ho...

Handwritten notecard. Prompt at the top asks: What object was most devastating for you to lose, and how have you been coping? Answer below: Dentures. Were thrown away and coping isn't somthing I can do. It’s made me feel ugly, unworthy, can’t go get a job with no teeth. So how can get off the streets until another pair can be made?

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Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · Jul 9

anyway i can't (can) believe these apps got away with providing us an interface to rate the traits of other human beings on a mass scale

The app rating category for "Friendliness." It has 24 thumbs up and 0 thumbs down.

Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · Jul 9

Have learned loads from Jaylexia's work on gendered racial capitalism, and think about it a lot in my own work on far-right media. Similar to how gig work platforms profit from satisfying white users' racialized emotions, far-right media platforms profit from these emotions in white readers.

Racing Towards Global Racial Capitalism: Investigating the Impact of Racial and Gender Inequality on the Platform Economy - ProQuest

Explore millions of resources from scholarly journals, books, newspapers, videos and more, on the ProQuest Platform.

www.proquest.com

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Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · Jul 9

died reading this

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Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · Jul 9

Just finished this awesome essay from @citap.bsky.social postdoc Jaylexia Clark on @ssrc.org.

On "racialized emotions" in gig work like Uber and DoorDash, and how these apps surveil and punish Black gig workers' personal and emotional expression.

Screenshot of headline.

Just Tech, under Articles and then Essay category.
The Power of Racialized Emotions: Racial Profiling and Surveillance within the Platform Economy
By: Jaylexia Clark
Under the Labor and Economy tag.

A screenshot of a Gig app. Thumbs up and thumbs down counters are provided for four categories of gig worker performance: Communication, Followed Delivery Instructions, Order Handling, and Friendliness

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Reposted by Anna Beers

Katelyn Boo-urns @katelynburns.com · Jul 4

the parent of a trans kid in missouri begged the new york times not to use an audio clip in The Protocol podcast of a verbal confrontation with professional transphobe Jamie Reed out of fear of safety for her kid and NYT management refused her request.

jon ben-menachem @jbenmenachem.com · Jul 3

Always curious to see who gets to be an anonymous source!

While Mr. Mamdani was not a target of the hack, the information about him was included in a database of millions of student applications to Columbia going back decades. The data was shared with The Times by an intermediary who goes by the name Crémieux on Substack and X and who is an academic and an opponent of affirmative action. The Times agreed to withhold his real name.

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Reposted by Anna Beers

Eli Valley @elivalley.bsky.social · Jul 4

I don't think NYT should know peace until they divulge the full chain of decision making that led to the laundering of Nazi propaganda against a leading anti-fascist politician the same day fascism was codified in Congress.

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Reposted by Anna Beers

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · Jun 30

Really excited to draw attention to this dissertation by Melinda McClure Haughey (@melm.cc‬). Melinda's research explored collaborative infrastructure for supporting the "sensemaking" work of journalists working on high-stakes, fast-paced & often data-driven beats. www.melm.cc/research/dis...

Melinda's Dissertation: Truth-Seeking as Collaborative Work

In moments of uncertainty, journalists help the public make sense. This research shows how that work depends on expert networks and systems that too often fail when they need to move fast and what it ...

www.melm.cc

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Reposted by Anna Beers

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Jun 25

New paper hot off the press www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We analysed over 40,000 computer vision papers from CVPR (the longest standing CV conf) & associated patents tracing pathways from research to application. We found that 90% of papers & 86% of downstream patents power surveillance

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Computer-vision research powers surveillance technology - Nature

An analysis of research papers and citing patents indicates the extensive ties between computer-vision research and surveillance.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Anna Beers

Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · Jun 19

How the New York Times Bet Against Transgender Rights and Won

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · Jun 19

This framing is beneath contempt. The Christian right and MAGA launched an unprecedented assault on the civil rights of a tiny minority and successfully weaponized the pseudoliberal establishment - led by the NYT - to provide it with a medical controversy pretext that doesn’t actually exist.

NYT headline: How the Transgender Rights Movement Bet on the Supreme Court and Lost
Here's the inside story of the case that could set the movement back a generation.

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Reposted by Anna Beers

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · Jun 18

it's so cool there's a direct line from Jesse Singal to Justice Thomas's brainworms

Steven Mazie @stevenmazie.bsky.social · Jun 18

Justice Thomas, concurring, casts doubt on medical standards: "Recent revelations suggest that WPATH, long considered a standard bearer in treating pediatric gender dysphoria... bases its guidance on insufficient evidence and allows politics to influence its medical conclusions."

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Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · Jun 13

Have been loving the #ica25 Bluesky feed.

bsky.app/profile/did:...

Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · Jun 13

I'm at #ica25! Doing a high-density session on Saturday morning about how Google launders anti-trans orgs via their AI summaries.

HMU if you want to chat about trans/media things, or just going to war with the far-right in general.

Details for my session.
SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 2025
InfoSys: Misinformation Chairs(s): Yotam Ophir (University at Buffalo) 9:00 AM - 10:15 AM; Aspen Ballroom (Grand 2)

Generative Laundering: The Integration and Obfuscation of an Anti-LGBTQ+ Pseudoscientific Disinformation Campaign In Generative AI Search Results Anna Beers

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Evil Orc Heart @evanurquhart.bsky.social · Jun 4

The health of trans young people has already been negatively impacted by all this. NYT stories have been repeatedly cited in lawsuits. They underpin laws banning treatments for gender dysphoria by creating an excuse for lawmakers and judges to ignore the opinions of major medical organizations.

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Reposted by Anna Beers

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · May 30

The number of times a week now I have to correct the wild shit people are saying about Harvard, which apparently is a magical perfect land full of unicorns and honey, not a giant financial entity that was until a few days ago holding photos of enslaved people against the will of their descendants

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Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · May 22

If you go on Google Trends right now, and look at the "Rising" related queries for any low-volume search, you'll probably find kids looking up their homework questions.

..and why not, because Google will answer them lol.

A list of 5 "related queries" in the "Rising" category from a unknown search in Google Trends. The first option has a text box expanding its content, and reads: "in an experiment, a researcher showed children a video of a person interacting with a doll. half of the children watched a video of a person behaving violently toward a doll, and the other half saw a video of a person playing nicely with a doll. the researcher also looked at whether the gender and age of the child made a difference in how they interacted with the doll. in this study, the dependent variable was"

The search from the previous image, with an AI answer. It reads, with several icons for linked sources:

In this experiment, the dependent variable was how the children interacted with the doll after watching the video. This is because the researcher was measuring a change or effect (the children's doll interaction) that was potentially influenced by the independent variables (the video content and the child's gender and age).
Here's why:

Dependent variables: are what researchers measure to see if they are affected by the independent variable.

In this study, the researcher is trying to see if the video content (violent vs. non-violent) and the child's characteristics (gender, age) would lead to differences in how the child interacted with the doll.
The children's actions with the doll are what the researcher is measuring, so this is the dependent variable.

Reposted by Anna Beers

justine zhang @tisjune.bsky.social · May 20

something i've been thinking about is how lots of AI commentary, especially as it pertains to measuring "capabilities", borrows from a sort of neoliberal skills discourse, where skills are commensurable and measurable insofar as they have market value

ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · May 20

the "AI is 5x less accurate at summarizing" paper falls into the same pitfall of comparing human performance to technical systems that i find really irksome. maybe i should write a post about this, but i don't see the value in giving engineers an easy metric to optimize for. it's a losing argument.

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Anna Beers @beeeeeers.bsky.social · May 19

And finally, can't share the @splcenter.org report enough on anti-trans pseudoscience groups. Most of the groups mentioned here are most well-documented there.

Dynamics within the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network | Southern Poverty Law Center

Anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience emerged from a movement to provide scientific justification for the political priorities of conservative Christians.

www.splcenter.org

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