dr. Joan Donovan, a former Harvard disinformation researcher, claims in a brand new revelation that the college’s cozy relationship with former college students Mark Zuckerberg and his spouse Priscilla Chan led to her termination.
Donovan is taken into account one of many world’s main consultants on social media disinformation. In 2021, she testified earlier than the Home and Senate subcommittees on disinformation and social media.
In a whistleblower’s assertion launched Monday, Donovan claims her research of media manipulation campaigns have been restricted after a $500 million donation from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to fund a middle for synthetic intelligence in 2021.
“From that day ahead, the college handled me in another way to the purpose the place I misplaced my job,” Donovan advised The Logic.
The discharge was despatched on Donovan’s behalf by Whistleblower Support final week to Harvard and US Training Secretary Miguel Cardona.
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The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is a philanthropic group run by Zuckerberg and Chan.
Donovan claims she was terminated in 2022 after Harvard shut down her analysis. She has labored on the college since 2018 and has led a analysis undertaking on expertise and social change for the Shorenstein Middle at Harvard College’s John F. Kennedy Faculty of Authorities.
The disclosure requires an investigation on the Kennedy Faculty and “all acceptable corrective motion.”
Harvard, in the meantime, has denied Donovan’s allegations and maintains that she was not fired.
“Allegations of unfair therapy and donor interference are false. The narrative is filled with inaccuracies and baseless innuendos, notably the suggestion that Harvard Kennedy Faculty allowed Fb to dictate its method to analysis,” Harvard spokesman James Francis Smith stated in a press release to CNN.
“In accordance with the longstanding coverage of sustaining tutorial requirements, all analysis initiatives on the Harvard Kennedy Faculty needs to be led by college members. Joan Donovan was employed as a workers member (not a college member) to handle the media manipulation undertaking. When he was the unique college chief. After the undertaking left Harvard, the Faculty spent a while making an attempt to determine one other college member who had the time and curiosity to steer the undertaking. After that effort failed, the undertaking was given greater than a 12 months to close down. Joan Donovan was not fired , and most members of the analysis staff determined to remain on the Faculty of their new roles,” he stated.
Entrepreneur reached out to Meta for remark.
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The disclosure stated Chan Zuckerberg’s donation got here shortly after the “Fb Papers” whistleblower criticism from former Fb worker Frances Haugen.
Harvard revealed the papers with the assistance of Donovan, who archived the paperwork for public analysis.
Since Donovan’s departure from Harvard, she introduced in August that she’s going to be a part of Boston College’s Faculty of Communication as an assistant professor.