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AI Governance, Ethics, Sociology of Health, Black Public Health. Fumu Kand PhD

Earth
Joined May 2021
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ScientificallySocial retweeted
Like many academics, my inbox is inundated with emails from prospective applicants who want to join our lab. Almost all of these emails have a summary of one of our papers, a very confident sounding proposal for future research, and highly professional tone. I’m receiving about ten such emails, seven days a week. Same monotonous style of writing, devoid of a human touch. No human can respond to them at any rate. If I was getting a single such email even once in 3 months two years ago, I would have made a lot of effort to get them on board. I now only do a cursory read and archive them. If you are ‘genuinely’ interested in our work, please read a paper (not necessarily ours) and share what you learnt, imperfect but uniquely yours. You will get a guaranteed response, may be delayed, but surely.
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As far as I am aware, the fact that Ghana has freedom of press does not mean the press has freedom from feedback. You seem to be offended at the notion that you can be publicly called out for what has been put out using your face and your voice. Have you forgotten that this is called "social media", which is an entirely different ball game from the old unidirectional media? You think this is traditional media where information flows in only one direction? In any case, regardless of your disingenuous explanations that nobody asked for, the basic facts are that: 1. The US government offered your African country a dangerous and shockingly disrespectful "partnership" that stated among other things, that your FDA has no authority to examine or certify whatever medicines would be brought into your country under this "partnership", and that your country has to submit its citizens' health data including biological samples to the US; 2. Your government (thankfully) rejected this slave contract immediately and told the US government to kick rocks, as it should; 3. DW then commissioned you to do the piece in question examining "the other side" of your government's decision to reject a slave contract, as if where there is a simple life and death issue concerning 33 million Africans, the 'death' side is somehow worth examining - as if DW would platform "the other side" if Ghana told the German government to submit medical data of German citizens to Ghana and stand down its BfArM so that Ghana can import whatever medicine it likes into Germany without any scrutiny; 4. You, as a gormless and guileless African journalist who can barely think beyond next month's payment cycle accepted this assignment (or possibly even pitched it yourself because you know what the commissioning editor wants), and proceeded to do the report, which was essentially a series of stupid and unnecessary questions that basically amounted to "Ghana's government claims that Ghanaians deserve to breathe air, but may the American grim reaper who thinks otherwise actually have a point?" It is precisely this kind of uncritical, tap-dancing, low-self-esteem buffoonery that The Spearhead exists to tackle in African public spaces. Sometimes the problem with a story is not even what it said - it is that the story exists at all. The US government is openly acting like a pirate around the world, stealing Venezuelan oil, bombing Iranian schoolgirls and bullying Nigeria into signing weighted mineral extraction deals - when has DW ever commissioned you to tell "the other side" of those stories? DW is a German state media appendage. Germany itself is a US vassal country. You are not so geopolitically unexposed that you don't know this. So there is no way that if asked directly or nudged subtly, you would not have known that this report in question was US foreign policy propaganda slop aimed at an undermining an African audience's trust in the perfectly correct and valid decision taken by their government. You. Shouldn't. Have. Done. It. You knew exactly what you were doing when you allowed your face and your voice to be used as yet another black face of racist European/American imperial propaganda. There have been so many before you like this, and you won't be the last. So kindly dead this nonsense about "I admired your work and I support what you do" - no you absolutely do not. We are not on the same side, we do not stand for the same things, and I do not like you. I have also worked in international media, and once I realised that my voice was being used to push hostile foreign policy intended to exploit me and my people, I got off the bus and I walked! I understood that the interests of 1.5 billion people are infinitely more important than the few euros and dollars I was making from Jeunes Afrique and CNN. Maybe learn to see the world the same way then I will respect you more as a journalist and as a man. Finally, I stand by everything The Spearhead has published under my leadership and I wholeheartedly invite you to proceed with your legal threat.
David and the entire @Spearhead_Af team, I’d appreciate it if you made your viewers fully aware of the entire story and what its content says instead of chopping bits and pieces to spin a narrative about anti-Africa. I’ve followed your work, but if this is all it takes, you’d have to come again. The report you referenced is a two-part series on the health deal. First was Ghana’s rejection of the deal in its entirety. Subsequently, after President Mahama spoke to the deal, the embassy in Accra addressed a news conference where questions were asked, drawing the responses which are part of the news story. The report, which is reproduced for your audience, even captures President Mahama’s comments. This was a major news item in the country on September 28, where other major local news outlets reported on the same. Was that anti-Africa propaganda by most leading media houses in Accra? At no point in this news feature do I state my opinion on the subject. Your attempts to draw inferences and meaning where there was none are but a poor piece of journalism. I have followed your work and support what you do. I must say I have been left both surprised and disappointed that this is all it takes to put out a story. I’d ask that this poor piece of work be promptly deleted and an apology rendered for the nuisance you have constituted. A failure of which will leave me with no choice but to explore all avenues for redress, including legal remedy.
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ScientificallySocial retweeted
Ya’ll. I opened a harm reduction center and justice and healing hub(resource center). And I’m thinking of snatching up another storefront and employing folks recently incarcerated or in recovery. I just don’t know what business model would be self sustaining for it. Im stuck.
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ScientificallySocial retweeted
At @Spearhead_Af we do not shy away from calling out fellow African journalists for being imperial water carriers acting against the sovereign interests of their own countries. Step forward Ghanaian DW journalist Eric Egbeta.
Ghanaian Reporter Parrots Western Propaganda About His Own Country, The Spearhead Reacts This April, Ghana rejected a ridiculous “health deal” offered to it by the US under the so-called “America First Global Health Strategy”. This deal would have seen Ghana hand its sensitive health data, medical records, and national pathogen profiles on a plate to Africa’s single greatest geopolitical enemy. So the Ghanaian government did what any sensible African government would have done. In this report for The Spearhead, @barrahart reacts to a @dwnews report on Ghana’s decision, hosted by a Ghanaian “journalist” who clearly doesn’t know where his African interests lie.
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ScientificallySocial retweeted
She won the challenge
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This is the canary in the coal mine, y'all. The AI math doesn't math. Microsoft is offering buyouts for nearly a quarter of it's workforce. AI adoption for businesses is a 24-month journey in a perfect scenario. They aren't seeing adoption fast enough to offset their CapEx spending... and they aren't alone. Add Anthropic's measly revenue numbers (compared to their CapEx), and hopefully you get the point. These aren't buyouts because Microsoft found efficiencies with AI, they are buyouts because they (the AI industry) spend trillions (collectively) building the best tools the world has ever seen, and no one knows how to use them. digitalmeld.io/blog/who-is-p…
BREAKING: Microsoft, $MSFT, is offering buyouts to 60,000 workers as part of the company’s efforts to cut costs amid AI adoption, per Bloomberg. Personnel on select teams in the US, Canada, India, and the UK at a vice president level and below will be eligible. This reflects ~27% of Microsoft's total workforce.
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Not sure if people grasp where we are. Trump has psychologically primed his ideological stakeholders well enough that anything he says can be justified. If he signals for the necessity of violence, the conditions are already in place. Genocide scholars will recognize this.
The president of the United States told Nicki Minaj to stand up so everyone could see her ass…and she did it 🫩🫩🫩
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Man this country is absolutely wild 😤. Whole different level of iatrogenic harm.
JUST IN: California rehab operators accused of supplying illegal drugs to recovering addicts to keep them hooked & collect over $210 million from insurers.
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For those that don't know.... This is part of the #DestinationCrenshaw project.
If you’re in LA, you can go check out my son’s mural right off of Crenshaw and Vernon, it’s pretty big you can’t miss it.
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1976 #BlackStudies syllabus from a class my mother took as a pre-med student at City College, CUNY. Nice to see her notes. She passed away last year. Happy to know she read. #EricWilliams Capitalism and Slavery 🇹🇹 #Maroon societies. The Caribbean and Brazil in conversation.
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I think there should be more artistic collaboration across the board with SA, they have a very great appreciation for good music.
More South African and African American rap collabs please. Only spitters tho. No fugazy ish.
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More South African and African American rap collabs please. Only spitters tho. No fugazy ish.
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Against capitalist atomization
En France, des livreurs Uber Eats s’organisent pour refuser collectivement les courses les moins rémunérées, en utilisant plusieurs téléphones. Une stratégie qui pousse l’algorithme à augmenter les tarifs jusqu’à atteindre 15 € ou plus par livraison. 😳
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ScientificallySocial retweeted
En France, des livreurs Uber Eats s’organisent pour refuser collectivement les courses les moins rémunérées, en utilisant plusieurs téléphones. Une stratégie qui pousse l’algorithme à augmenter les tarifs jusqu’à atteindre 15 € ou plus par livraison. 😳
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Social contexts become embodied, yet the social context & processes that shape us often need to be illuminated before we can even begin to *articulate* how they're shaping us. Even then, apathy, disbelief & inaction often endure. This is always a crazy thought to me.
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It's quite odd that Anthropic can consistently threaten people's jobs, livelihoods, and humanity without people actively seeking to destroy the company. Either this is bullshit marketing, or the many Americans have surrendered to "inescapable" technological determinism.
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ScientificallySocial retweeted
I am a bit biased, but like I would buy this book. Available for preorder from @VersoBooks
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The GRU hacked into Jared Kushner's iPhone. Dutch military intelligence (MIVD) then recruited a GRU spy who gave them access to the hacked phone. What MIVD discovered was that Kushner had access to two bank accounts --one Azerbaijani, the other Israeli --where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati ruler Mohammed bin Zayed deposited money. It sounds like a slightly far-fetched episode of "Slow Horses," but it's real. And it proves just how eye-poppingly corrupt this administration was and continues to be as its "special envoy" decides the fate of tens of millions in Europe in the Middle East. Simply incredible reporting by Matthew Cole, drawn from his new book on Kushner. vanityfair.com/story/jared-k…
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ScientificallySocial retweeted
Statement from Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas: “I will not be intimidated. I will not be bullied. And I will not back down.”
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas is charged with drug trafficking and money laundering, the Justice Department says.
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