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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

#441

Post by xenadu02 »

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.

This is well-known now. Epstein cultivated powerful connections deliberately to insulate himself from scrutiny. It seems likely that he deliberately put politicians and famous people into compromising positions to ensure their cooperation (throwing lavish parties at his mansion, supplying the drugs and the underage girls).

MIT banned Epstein from donating after his Sex Offender conviction. Ito did an end-run around that ban (in addition to taking Epstein’s money personally which is a separate level of unethical).

Xeni spilled the beans on this (Epstein bypassing the ban, Ito’s involvement) to the NYT, which then buried the story likely due to Epstein’s political connections. Many papers and media outlets killed Epstein stories.

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

#442

Post by ineedasername »

tptacek wrote: post #174
defen wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using his position for his own personal enrichment is also, at the very least, ethically shady as hell, right?

I'm an Epstein Absolutist and feel Ito should have resigned way before Ronan Farrow's article was published, so yes, I think this is all very shady. I don't generally think people have a moral right to hold on to prominent directorships like the MIT Media Lab --- when you take that job†, I think you also undertake an ethical obligation to leave that post as soon as it becomes reasonable to say that your continued pre…

What's an Epstein Absolutist?

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

#443

Post by ikeboy »

freyr wrote: post #439
ikeboy wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm assuming so based on the tweet where she shares it and effectively says the NYT had the same info and didn't print it.

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

#444

Post by ineedasername »

nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #177
coldtea wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sorry, I don't get it. Somebody having assistants who look like models and are from Eastern Europe is suspicious of trafficking women? How? Why? In that it's extremely common. In the gritty real world, people know of such guys and what they do. Many have personality men such gentlemen and their entourages (of course most not at the level of Epstein, but frequent some circles in Eastern Europe, Russia, Paris, London…

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. I wouldn't consider it overly weird if rich guys have young girl-friends. Maybe it is just because Hollywood has groomed me to expect it, I don't know.

There are degrees to this. The burning their passport thing is certainly in the black side, but there are plenty or dark shades of gray before you get there.

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

#445

Post by ineedasername »

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?

Sure, "convince". Lots of predators convince kids into the abuse through pretty normal persuasive techniques, and the same to keep them quiete. It's not all knife to the throat kind of stuff. In fact, the vast majority of abuse is that soft sell long term grooming "convince" approach.

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

#446

Post by googlryas »

bigmit37 wrote: post #354
AndrewBissell wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is amazing . Epstein could have confessed to personally trafficking children from the former Yugoslavia (an actual thing that Blackwater was involved in, btw), and if he showed up 5 years later with a couple of barely legal Eastern Europeans in tow, there'd be commenters ready to insist you never can tell for sure !

My thoughts exactly. My jawing is dropping at the lengths people are going to defend this situation.

What do you think the motivations are behind someone defending a dead pedophile?

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

#447

Post by ineedasername »

nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #199
CydeWeys wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Would somebody who is trafficking women really take them everywhere he goes?" The simple answer to this question is: Yes. He did. And it was precisely the people who didn't take it at face value that allowed him to get away with it for so long.

I haven't looked into his case. What was his method - what did he do, so that the girls couldn't call for help? I think classically they are made to be illegal (no passport, have perhaps committed crime of prostitution, so they think they can not go to the police). Is that also what Epstein did?

You seem to think that if people aren't under lock and key, they aren't being coerced. Which rather misses the wider spectrum of coercion. It could, for example, simply be a guilt trip about how poor their family is, how the extra money he was giving them would help. They wouldn't want to make their family starve, would they? Or not. There's no end to the possibilities.

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

#448

Post by floodyberry- »

khazhou wrote: post #60
liability wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I know a few Eastern European models" Do you?

HN users are a varied bunch. There is no reason to not believe him.

you can say that again, he definitely stands out from all the other white dudes on here who think they know everything

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

#449

Post by ineedasername »

nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #299
CydeWeys wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, why would he? It seems incredulous, and yet he did. That's why he's been forced out of his position.

I have no issues with him being forced out of his position. I have an issue, in this sub sub thread, with people mandating that I should have considered that head of Media Lab would openly meet a convicted sex trafficker.

Fair enough, I guess, and if you'd just said that you'd have been better off. What you said instead showed a complete lack of understanding for how sexual abuse is inflicted on people. By implication that anyone not held directly against their will couldn't be a victim. That power dynamics play a huge part, along with shame, guilt, and sometimes necessity.
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