Is this a surprise? All of these universities are known to bow down to the biggest wallets, so why on earth would anyone expect that they wouldn't can any investigations to someone who donated $500 million? I'm shocked that anyone else is shocked.
Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
301–310 of 551 posts
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's nurture, not nature.
im not sure completely. There is probably inherent traits related to leadership/followership , and a cognitive bias to assume integrity of leaders seems plausible. Before society, might literally meant right.
> traits related to leadership/followership , and a cognitive bias to assume integrity of leaders seems plausible
Also learned behavior.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, which is why I'm asking.
The current economic system where (in the US) bribes are “speech” and corporations are people unavoidably leads to things like this project getting neutered. “The invisible hand” Adam Smith refers to are the unintended consequences from merchants’ want to keep their capital: increasing the domestic capital stock and enhancing military power for the state, i.e. protectionism etc. More broadly and lately it refers to a…
Bribery exists in every economic system, even before economic systems existed, and is not uniquely connected to the free market. Nor are they connected to "unintended societal consequences", since bribes very clearly have a specific goal. So it doesn't make any sense.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#304Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#305Her actual whistleblower declaration contains a lot of the evidence some may be looking for: https://live-whistleblower-aid.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/up... To sum up the first few pages after skimming it, Facebook tried to bribe her (well "fund" her research), she refused. Later she had a meeting with the former head of comms at Facebook, who was now on the Dean's council, where he became incredibly angry with her r…
Not sure why I decided to spend so much time on this on a Monday morning but I've read to page 35, and the picture is much more muddled. It looks like the FB Archive project gains momentum and launches but Dr. Donovan and the TASC get sidelined along the way (which understandably is very upsetting, you can feel the pain on every page). It does seem clear that the Dean doesn't approve of Dr. Donovan/TASC and he eventu…
> but if he allows the Facebook project to move forward under other groups that are also within the Kennedy school,
Move forward in the direction the dean and Facebook want, or in the direction the original team wanted to explore?
Because it doesn't seem - at all - that the two are equivalent. And it is not misleading to call out replacing a non-bribe-able PI with a susceptible or even already bribed one.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why should this research be done at university level? I think this questions is backwards. This seems very much in line with other research already done at universities. > So we should look for smaller individuals and groups to conduct research. Smaller individual and groups can be much more easily sued. It's much easier to spin a story about suing some rogue partisan non-profit than it is for suing academic resear…
You didn't answer my question. Why should it be done at universities? I get that stuff like it is already done there, but why? Short selling has a long history. Obv people don't like them but don't know any successful lawsuits. Prob a lot easier and cheaper to capture a uni than sue some short seller.
> You didn't answer my question. Why should it be done at universities?
Let me try again. One of the reasons research is supposed to be done at universities is specifically to remove financial incentives. Tenure is meant to insulate academia from having to worry about financial incentives and what is popular so they can focus on what is true.
> Prob a lot easier and cheaper to capture a uni than sue some short seller.
Meta doesn't have to sue a short seller. All Meta has to do is point to the now extremely clear conflict of interest. Having such a strong conflict of interest makes it easy to cause doubt about the validity of the research. And that's good enough. Compare two following two headlines:
1. Prestigious research group at Harvard shows wrongdoing on Meta's part.
2. Opportunistic short sellers put out yet another hit piece against Meta for their own financial gain.
It's like going to get your nutritional advice from the small sample size and suspect studies put out by supplement companies. Obviously they won't publish findings that go against their financial interests, or even run the experiments in the first place.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#307Harvard's top management seems to be caving in to donors a lot lately.[1][2] Those were over the Israel/Palestine war. Now it's over Facebook. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/06/business/harvard-antisemitism... [2] https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/02/business/law-firms-antisemiti...
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Opposition to the sand-glassing of Gaza by Israel is not encouragement of harassment. Nor am I aware of any substantial number of students encouraging the harassment of Jewish students. A shocking number of student groups claimed something akin to "Israel brought [this attack] upon itself," which, while somewhere between tone deaf and despicable is also not encouraging harassment.
On the other hand, you do have legitimate harassment of the people who made these statements. [1]
[1] https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2023/11/19/doxxing-truck-targ...
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't need a formal conspiracy when you have an elite with converging interests.
There's a joke from a comedian I forget if it is L̶o̶u̶i̶s̶ ̶C̶K̶ George Carlin o̶r̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶. But basically is along the lines that you don't have explicitly collude when you all come from the same backgrounds. The interests are aligned already. It's pointing out that representatives need to actually be from representative populations of people. But he did it in a funny way, this comment really isn't. Edit: thanks lo…
Yes I basically took verbatim what George Carlin said because it's one of the best points of view on "conspiracies" I've ever heard.
I don't understand how did you get the impression that I was trying to be funny? It's a fairly serious description of the reality we live in.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically, she stopped at a Masters, after this same university forced her to restart her phd thesis 3 TIMES, due to changing staff. She worked on it one semester, then they changed her major professor. Worked on the 2nd one another semester, and they again changed her major professor. Considered a 3rd time and she just threw her hands up and said, fuck it, which I don't blame, at all. She's still a full-time facult…
3 times is crazy. 3 times in one year is absolute insanity. I'd simply apply to a new university if I had a shred of interest left after that.
They killed any feelings of finishing it.
They are thorough in crushing dreams.
The best part about all of it? She got to PAY for the semesters that the school itself trashed.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#310Colleges and universities are like little countries, rarely answer to anyone and focused on their own insular practices.
A lot of people are looking for an all controlling force in the country or world instead, I see a lot of demigods that rule their domain, curating complete autonomy as long as they stay within the confines they finessed
the world these days is becoming more and more medieval: many different actors, all competing with one another, at different levels of power.
Imo, it's a good thing: regular ppl will be more suspicious about power overall and not make as many bad safety/convenience trades.