George Pearson, PhD

The role of third-party e-commerce technology in illegal online e-cigarette sales - BMC Public Health BMC Public Health - The online tobacco market currently accounts for 15% of tobacco products with most online e-cigarette stores depending on Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions like Shopify for...

You can actually read the whole paper here. It's open access, so whole thing is available.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Been a wonderful time at #srnt2026 so far. For those looking for a Saturday morning talk on tobacco and tech policy, come find me presenting work on how online e-cigarette stores violating the PACT Act rely on Software as a Service (SaaS) companies.

In Critical Condition – How To Stabilize Researcher Data Access? | TechPolicy.Press Mark Scott and LK Seiling discuss the struggle for researcher access to social media data and an alternative future where transparency is seen as a civic good.

@lkseiling.bsky.social & @markscott.bsky.social plea in @techpolicypress.bsky.social for a new data access regime emerging from a "generation of decentralized platforms that treat data transparency not as a regulatory burden but as a civic and scientific good"

www.techpolicy.press/in-critical-...

Why Platform Data is Essential to Public Health Efforts in Tobacco Control | TechPolicy.Press Social media platforms are a key avenue for tobacco control research, but as George Pearson argues data access barriers hinder efforts to monitor impacts.

Delighted to have been invited to write a piece for @techpolicypress.bsky.social's and KGI's series on the necessity of platform data. In it, I discuss how I and other researchers have used platform data to help research important public health topics.

www.techpolicy.press/why-platform...

Academic hivemind. Am I losing my mind or was there at one point an official dataset FB created of posts by public officials/accounts of public interest?

AI companies: "These tools won't just be used to help students cheat on homework and ruin their education."

Meanwhile, AI ads on Instagram.

"We are in one of the most perilous times for public health. What is also true, we are all in this room, 1600 of this, ready for this fight, we are not going back."

These words by Yolonda Richardson of CTFK at #NCTOH seemed like the best way to start off using BlueSky.