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The “invented persona” behind the GISAID viral sequence database

science.org

11–20 of 52 posts

Re: The “invented persona” behind the GISAID viral sequence database

#11
post #10

I've seen women who do email support roles use an invented persona with a man's name. The one time I asked, the person explained that when they used their own name, they received a fair amount of unwanted attention which went away when they switched to a man's name.

What industry, if you don't mind me asking?

Re: The “invented persona” behind the GISAID viral sequence database

#12
post #11
post #10

I've seen women who do email support roles use an invented persona with a man's name. The one time I asked, the person explained that when they used their own name, they received a fair amount of unwanted attention which went away when they switched to a man's name.

What industry, if you don't mind me asking?

pretty much the same one as GISAID- there are a bunch of people who do email support for genomics databases. Also cloud email support and tech documentation

Re: The “invented persona” behind the GISAID viral sequence database

#13
Bill Gates' team and other global health experts have been pushing for a truly open sequence database for awhile now -- GISAID of course has been freaking out and threatening litigation all over the place for every perceived slight.

Then there was the other scandal of late, Martin Enserink wrote about that one too (https://www.science.org/content/article/dispute-simmers-over...). Basically GISAID claimed they were the first to publish the original Covid genome, when nobody at all remembers it like that and all of the contemperaneous reports credit Eddie Holmes and the courageous Chinese Zhang Yong-Zhen who published that first sequence on Virological days before GISAID/WHO released theirs. GISAID has gone so far as to backdate their original blog posts to establish 'evidence' for the date of publication. They've also threatened litigation for people who claim that the Virological post preceded their publication..

Something is seriously wrong over there.

Re: The “invented persona” behind the GISAID viral sequence database

#14
post #4

Reminds me of the 'ReceptioGate' scandal, where amongst other weird and dodgy behaviour, a medieval manuscript researcher, Carla Rossi, had invented an entire set of staff for her online research institute and was even emailing people from a pseudonym: https://thecritic.co.uk/receptiogate-and-the-absolute-state-... (Previously seen on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34123302 )

Wow, what an amazing turn to the story. The last I heard about it, we were just dealing with a plagiarizing academic and a rude assistant.

Re: The “invented persona” behind the GISAID viral sequence database

#15
post #10

I've seen women who do email support roles use an invented persona with a man's name. The one time I asked, the person explained that when they used their own name, they received a fair amount of unwanted attention which went away when they switched to a man's name.

I remember a conversation with my (now) Ex-wife when we started playing an MMO together regarding her nickname;

They would use a name that was vaguely ambiguous on gender but was far more likely to be considered Male than female, and it was for similar-ish reasons. They would still get some harassers occasionally (usually someone who found out they were female in guild chat... which was thankfully dealt with swiftly by leaders. [0])

[0]- Which, semi-related to the topic, was often instigated by finding out they were my partner!

Re: The “invented persona” behind the GISAID viral sequence database

#16
post #7

It's interesting that a person without any background in biology (Peter Bogner) was able to start a sequence database that has now become critical infrastructure for public health. But it seems like GISAID has outgrown his ability to lead it, and it would be good to transition to more responsible leadership.

It is because the person is evidently a con-man. So it is not as much "interesting" but "illuminating" that supposedly smart people like scientists can be just as easily mislead as the random person responding to an email scam.

Everybody, without exception, can be conned. Smart people are no more resistant to it than anyone else.

Re: The “invented persona” behind the GISAID viral sequence database

#17

Bill Gates' team and other global health experts have been pushing for a truly open sequence database for awhile now -- GISAID of course has been freaking out and threatening litigation all over the place for every perceived slight. Then there was the other scandal of late, Martin Enserink wrote about that one too ( https://www.science.org/content/article/dispute-simmers-over... ). Basically GISAID claimed they were…

I am not familiar with how GISAID works, but there any sort of signature that authenticates data and ensure integrity. If they backdated the post, could they also tempered with sequences data?

Re: The “invented persona” behind the GISAID viral sequence database

#18
post #15
post #10

I've seen women who do email support roles use an invented persona with a man's name. The one time I asked, the person explained that when they used their own name, they received a fair amount of unwanted attention which went away when they switched to a man's name.

I remember a conversation with my (now) Ex-wife when we started playing an MMO together regarding her nickname; They would use a name that was vaguely ambiguous on gender but was far more likely to be considered Male than female, and it was for similar-ish reasons. They would still get some harassers occasionally (usually someone who found out they were female in guild chat... which was thankfully dealt with swiftly…

[flagged]

Re: The “invented persona” behind the GISAID viral sequence database

#20

Bill Gates' team and other global health experts have been pushing for a truly open sequence database for awhile now -- GISAID of course has been freaking out and threatening litigation all over the place for every perceived slight. Then there was the other scandal of late, Martin Enserink wrote about that one too ( https://www.science.org/content/article/dispute-simmers-over... ). Basically GISAID claimed they were…

Gates wants open sequence data for his closed vaccine companies to profit from.
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