What happened here was a massive donation was made. At some random point, someone in a position of power at Harvard noticed that a team was pissing on Mark's leg, and so put an end to it. Mark probably couldn't care less about the research, yet the optics about Harvard's treatment of him were at stake.
Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
341–350 of 551 posts
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> it's one of the best points of view on "conspiracies" I've ever heard. It's actually how I often think of conspiracy. Not a bunch of men sitting in a room plotting together but a bunch of independent actors with convergent incentives. Also my litmus test for real bona fide conspiracy (Watergate or Contra Affair) vs crackpottery is if it can be boiled down to "wizards did it." It's always interesting that conspiraci…
Conspiracies of the original kind do happen. Like the plot to kill Ceasar.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know, donating money to Harvard is weird. They've got a $50 billion endowment. They have enough money to do anything they want. What good would donations do in the first place? And yet, Harvard receives something like $500 million per year in donations. Why?
You can always spend more money, especially at an academic institution, where the money spent is not directly tied to a concrete, specific product. The staff can always go to one more conference a year, or take one more sabbatical, or buy newer computers more frequently, hire more people (whether they are needed or not; takes some weight off seniors’ backs), organize more events, spend more with communication, outrea…
I don't think most of the options you listed are really going to put a dent in that figure.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#344Colleges and universities are like little countries, rarely answer to anyone and focused on their own insular practices.
They're more like hedge funds that do some light educating on the side. Especially ones as rich as Harvard.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#345Her 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…
Going out and getting Washington Post, New York Times articles about your issues through "Whistleblower Aid" - it brings to mind Barack Obama's great line:
When some activists at that meeting said they felt that their voices were not being heard, Mr. Obama replied, "You are sitting in the Oval Office, talking to the president of the United States."
I don't work in PR, the issues I am politically active over are very local. This researcher paints a big target on her back, in an issue as amply documented as an academic firing, it isn't surprising that things are not cut and dried.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
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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 legit…
A shocking number of students openly support Hamas and like to chant "from the river to the sea ..." and that just at the surface level. If you look at say UCLA things are far more grim than posting "tone deaf" msgs.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
You mean to say that no one is running the world, not even behind the scenes, or even behind behind the scenes? You are leaving us without anyone to blame! Daring I must say.
funny, but another thing I think people miss is that there are opportunists for every outcome
think your controversial head of state is being controlled by their buddies from university that run some private equity funds
well so would the other head of state if they won the election! different buddies
its more like if you dont also have a plan for outsized influence, then thats the biggest outlier and inefficient way of navigating the system we have
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#348Maybe as an aside, but why should this research be done at university level? Is it expensive or require their resources? Obviously institutions are at risk of capture by special interests. We can call them non profit but doesn't stop the economics and human nature. Same is true for politicians so oversight could make things even worse as it would be even more centralized and easier to capture . So we should look for…
> Is it expensive or require their resources?
You have a major knowledge gap here. Other than for literal lab start up funds for brand-new professors universities typically don't grant much money, if any at all, to their professors for research. The professors are expected to seek outside funds, of which a good chunk then goes to the university for the university's costs.
This may not be the same at Harvard, I genuinely don't know. But it's typical at most research universities.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#349> [Harvard] also denies that she was fired, saying she “was offered the chance to continue as a part-time adjunct lecturer, and she chose not to do so.”
I have not read her filing, or followed her specific research, so I have no opinion about the possible merits or conspiracy theories regarding winding down her project. But, that statement by Harvard is suspicious. You take someone who is high profile, doing their own research, and offer them basically an insulting part time job (sorry to my adjunct lecturer friends, you know what I mean) and say "well, we didn't fire her, it was her choice." It would be like having a Director level position at a company, and being told your department was shutting down, but you could stay on as a part time contractor if you want. You just soft-fired her and tried to give yourself cover.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#350Harvard'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...
You know, donating money to Harvard is weird. They've got a $50 billion endowment. They have enough money to do anything they want. What good would donations do in the first place? And yet, Harvard receives something like $500 million per year in donations. Why?
A lot of donation and endowment money is legally tied up, due to the original terms of each endowment, for specific purposes. So even though Harvard has $50 billion, it can't just spend that $50 billion on anything it wants.
This is both why people keep donating to Harvard, and how Harvard keeps marketing a 'need' for more donations. Along with, of course, either naming rights, or as an incentive to accept their child into the school (previous research has shown the ability and/or willingness of families to donate does add to the likelihood of admission).