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Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

nytimes.com

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Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#431

Post by m0zg »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #417
m0zg wrote: post #398

Contrarian view: as long as the person in question was not compromised by e.g. flights to the pedo island (like Bubba Clinton, who took dozens of flights, dismissing USSS on a number of them for some reason, hmm), and as long as the integrity of the lab was not affected by Epstein's involvement, I see nothing wrong with taking his money. He's despicable, sure, but if he's not buying influence, I'm OK with him support…

"The departure of Mr. Ito from the media lab came after he spent days trying to make amends. At Wednesday’s meeting, which was organized by professors at the program, he reiterated his apology. He described for the first time the amount of money he had received from Mr. Epstein, and said he had twice traveled to Mr. Epstein’s island home in the Caribbean to seek donations."

Well, he deserves what he got then. No sympathy. I was not familiar with the details of his involvement.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#432

Post by ikeboy »

freyr wrote: post #402
pryce wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Xeni Jardin's claim below is true, Joi Ito needs to resign from more than just MIT: "I told the @nytimes everything. So did whistleblowers I was in touch with inside @MIT and @Edge. They printed none of the most damning truths. @joi is on the board of the NYT. THANK GOD FOR @RonanFarrow" EDIT: NYTimes is now indicating that Ito has resigned from NYT Co board, effective immediately [2]. [1] https://twitter.com/xeni…

What is Xeni Jardin claiming? That she brought the story to the NYT but they buried it because Ito was on the board? Why didn't she take it elsewhere? Edit: I was looking for a bit more context than a random tweet. Had to search through a bunch of tweets to find it, but apparently Xeni tweeted about Joi Ito's connection to Epstein weeks ago.

She did take it elsewhere. Compare the NYMAG story and the NYT one.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#433

Post by [deleted] »

ikeboy wrote: post #432
freyr wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Xeni Jardin claiming? That she brought the story to the NYT but they buried it because Ito was on the board? Why didn't she take it elsewhere? Edit: I was looking for a bit more context than a random tweet. Had to search through a bunch of tweets to find it, but apparently Xeni tweeted about Joi Ito's connection to Epstein weeks ago.

She did take it elsewhere. Compare the NYMAG story and the NYT one.

[deleted]

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#434

Post by googlryas »

ryacko wrote: post #339
googlryas wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - sorry. I had one logged in on my laptop and one on my phone which I switched to. I initially created this secondary account to talk to some other poster about hiring advice at my company without linking it to other autobiographic details I've possibly posted on my other account in the past, but have since unfortunately muddled the two in a big OPSEC fail(don't worry - I'm not in cybersecurity).

Your not behind ryanlol too, are you? Strange arguments from people with weak hamming distances to my first name.

No - I only have two accounts that I post under, basically one with an autosaved password on my computer, and one on my phone. And I don't see what is so strange about my arguments. I'm not arguing that Epstein was a good guy or that his assistants necessarily weren't trafficked. I'm saying no one knows - and so far, not one of them has come forward, so regardless there is no real way to know. I would be saying the same thing if people were arguing that all the children who went to a church were raped by a pedophile priest who clearly raped, say, at least 10 children. I don't see my points as logically too difficult - merely that the subject is a clear baddie, and that means if someone says he has 19 fingers and another person responds that he probably has 10, that person will be accused of defending the baddie.

And really, this isn't a point I particularly care about. But message boards let you focus on parts of a conversation and address them independently of the rest. This isn't something I'd try to defend to the death, or would even feel the need to rebut in actual conversation. But as long as threaded messages exist, I don't see a problem with talking about these details.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#435

Post by hodgesrm »

joewee wrote: post #412
freyr wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ito reminds me of Epstein in that I have no idea how either got their money. Wikipedia must be skipping over some important details, but it describes him as a two-time college dropout, a nightclub manager in Japan, (EDIT: nevermind, mystery solved! His MIT bio says he was the founder of Japan's Digital Garage and CEO of its first ISP [1]), then he's the president of MIT Media Lab, visiting Harvard Law School professo…

Aside from this MIT issue, Joi is a very impressive person who earned his money honestly against great odds. Joi was treated as an outsider in Japan and still managed to become successful. I’ve known him personally and found his story to be inspirational. Not defending any of the behavior at MIT but it would be sad if this is how he’s remembered.

I have only read about him but he seems very talented. He represents the think-outside-the-box attitude that characterizes some of the best Media Lab work and he's very good at raising money, which is critical for the person in his position.

That said maintaining the connection with Epstein in spite of repeated warnings was unconscionable. Joi Ito needs to step down and think hard about what he's doing. Not every rule is meant to be broken.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#436

Post by dang »

crispyambulance wrote: post #41

> I don't get it. This is one of those things where somebody noticed that things just didn't seem right and the proper response to that is to raise concern and ask questions. Sorry, but a 60-something "finance" guy with an entourage of teen models doesn't add up. Sure some of these people have trophy wives half their age, and it raises eyebrows, but this is far beyond that and totally unacceptable once somebody looks…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20906116.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#438

Post by dang »

rayuela wrote: post #298

There are definitely participants in these discussions with a very specific agenda. Some accounts, like nf8nnfufuu, are going really far out of their way to defend Epstein. Just search for how many responses they've written throughout this thread to see what I mean.

This breaks the site guidelines, which ask you not to insinuate abuse without evidence, and to assume good faith.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20907187 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#439

Post by freyr »

ikeboy wrote: post #432
freyr wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Xeni Jardin claiming? That she brought the story to the NYT but they buried it because Ito was on the board? Why didn't she take it elsewhere? Edit: I was looking for a bit more context than a random tweet. Had to search through a bunch of tweets to find it, but apparently Xeni tweeted about Joi Ito's connection to Epstein weeks ago.

She did take it elsewhere. Compare the NYMAG story and the NYT one.

She was involved in the NYMAG story? They don't quote or credit her.

Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

#440

Post by CydeWeys »

nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #214
coldtea wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having young girl-friends is not the same as sex trafficking, though, or is it? I thought sex trafficking would be luring girls out of their country with false promises, then burning their passports so that they can't flee Well, that pretty much sums up what Epstein did. You don't even need to burn passports, you can psychologically manipulate, threaten, beat up, hook on drugs, pass to friends, parade your powerful…

"psychologically manipulate" - isn't that just a loaded way of saying "convince"? Did he actually do all those other things, beatings, threatening? Or is it such a stereotype that it is just assumed that it must have been this way?

Why are you going out on such limbs and repeatedly defending Epstein and his child sexual abuse in this thread?

I'm struggling to understand your motivations. This should be a clear and obvious case of someone who was really fucked up, did fucked up things, and deserves nobody in polite society defending him.

And yet here we are having this discussion, somehow.

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