A disinformation researcher, who left Harvard University in August, accused the institution of muzzling her speech and then dismantling her team after she began analyzing data on the social network Facebook.
These actions that impacted Joan Donovan’s work coincided with a $500 million donation to Harvard from a foundation led by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
In a complaint released Monday, Donovan calls for Harvard’s general counsel, the Massachusetts attorney general’s office and the US Department of Education to investigate “inappropriate influence.”
The director of Whisteblower Aid, a nonprofit that supports Donovan, called the alleged behavior of the Harvard Kennedy School and its dean a “shocking betrayal” of the academic integrity of the elite school.
In response, the Kennedy School rejected accusations of unfair treatment and donor interference.
“The narrative is filled with inaccuracies and unfounded insinuations, particularly the suggestion that the Harvard Kennedy School allowed Facebook to dictate its research approach,” said institution spokesman James F. Smith in a statement.
Whistleblower Aid’s statement cites Donovan, who accuses Dean Douglas Elmendorf of subjecting his team to “death by a thousand cuts” after the researcher began making solid plans in October 2021 to investigate the so-called Facebook Files. who were brought together by former employee Frances. Haugen to highlight public harm.
Despite the company’s public stance that Haugen was exaggerating, Donovan and other independent researchers saw the documents as confirmation that Facebook had radicalized people, its algorithms fueled racial animosity, encouraged ethnic cleansing and harmed health. mentality of adolescents.
“I honestly believed that these were the most important documents in the history of the Internet,” Donovan said in an interview Monday.
Donovan said he was prevented from hiring and starting projects when his fundraising stopped, and he was prevented from holding conferences with more than 30 participants or launching a podcast.
The investigator highlighted that her contract was subsequently shortened and that she refused compensation because she felt that she would be an accomplice “if she received a reward for her silence.”
Harvard hired Donovan, now an assistant professor at Boston University, in 2018, where she directed the Technology and Social Change Research Project. In May 2020, she was promoted to director of research at the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center, where she taught classes.
In its statement, the Kennedy School denied that Donovan had been fired, noting that she was a member of the team, not the faculty, and that all research projects at the school must be led by faculty members.
The school “tried for some time to identify another teacher who had the time and interest to lead the project. After this effort was unsuccessful, the project took over a year to close” and most of the team members investigation remained in place, he explained. stressed.
Donovan assured, in turn, that he was not aware of any search for someone to assume leadership of the research project he founded and for which he said he had raised $12 million.
The Kennedy School also noted that Zuckerberg’s donation went to Harvard University for an unrelated artificial intelligence initiative.
Both Chan and Zuckerberg attended Harvard, where Facebook was first launched.
Source: TSF
