Prominent Disinformation Scholar Accuses Harvard of Silencing Speech and Dismantling Research Team Amid Facebook Files Investigation

In a shocking whistleblower disclosure, Joan Donovan, a renowned disinformation scholar, has accused Harvard University of stifling her speech and dismantling her research team during a deep dive into a trove of Facebook files she considers the most important documents in internet history. These allegations come as a $500 million donation from a foundation run by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan coincided with actions that impacted Donovan's work.

Donovan is calling for investigations into "inappropriate influence" by Harvard's general counsel, the Massachusetts attorney general's office, and the U.S. Department of Education. Whistleblower Aid, a legal nonprofit supporting Donovan, labeled the alleged behavior by Harvard's Kennedy School and its dean as a "shocking betrayal" of academic integrity. CEO Libby Liu stated that whether Harvard acted at Facebook's direction or took their own initiative, the outcome remains the same: corporate interests undermining research and academic freedom to the detriment of the public.

In response to the accusations, the Kennedy School denied the allegations of unfair treatment and donor interference. Spokesman James F. Smith stated that the narrative is filled with inaccuracies and baseless insinuations, particularly the suggestion that Harvard allowed Facebook to dictate its approach to research.

According to the whistleblower disclosure, Donovan claims that Dean Douglas Elmendorf subjected her team to "death by a thousand cuts" after she began making plans to create a research clearinghouse for the so-called Facebook Files in October 2021. These files, gathered by former employee Frances Haugen, aim to highlight public harms caused by the social media giant. Following these disclosures, Zuckerberg changed Facebook's name to Meta. While Facebook publicly downplayed the significance of Haugen's revelations, Donovan and other independent researchers viewed the documents as confirmation of Facebook's design contributing to the radicalization of people, the fomentation of racial animosity, the encouragement of ethnic cleansing, and the damage to teen mental health.

Donovan expressed her belief that the Facebook Files were the most important documents in internet history. She stated that their role as academics is to tell the truth, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes them. Unfortunately, Donovan claims she lost her job at Harvard due to her commitment to truth.

Donovan alleged that Elmendorf limited her ability to hire, start projects, fundraise, hold conferences with more than 30 attendees, and launch a podcast to raise her public profile. As a result, she halted media interviews and resorted to publishing opinion pieces.

Donovan, who is now an assistant professor at Boston University, was hired by Harvard in 2018 to lead the Technology and Social Change Research Project. In May 2020, she was promoted to research director of the Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center. While the Kennedy School denies that Donovan was fired, stating that she was a staff member and not a faculty member, Donovan claims that she was not aware of any search for someone to take over as the head of the research project she founded and for which she raised $12 million.

The Kennedy School stated that it did not receive any portion of the Chan-Zuckerberg gift, confirming that the donation went to Harvard University for unrelated work. However, Harvard did release an archive of the Facebook Files, albeit on a considerably smaller scale and with less openness than Donovan had envisioned. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, was consulted on redactions to the roughly 20,000 images in the archive. The Kennedy School team managing the archive made about 160 redactions out of the more than 800 requested by the company. These redactions primarily involved removing the names of low-level Meta employees or outside individuals for privacy reasons. The Kennedy School's Public Interest Tech Lab provided researchers with early access to the archive in May 2023 before making it more widely available in October.

The allegations made by Joan Donovan against Harvard University and the Kennedy School have raised significant concerns about the influence of corporate interests on academic freedom and research integrity. These allegations, coupled with the ongoing debates surrounding the role and impact of social media platforms like Facebook, highlight the need for transparency and accountability in the realm of technology and its effects on society.