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Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
401–410 of 551 posts
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I was not nearly clear or explicit enough in my comment, apologies for that. In sections 25 and 26 (page 14), the whistleblower report talks about the origins of the project. Dr. Donovan acquired the entire archive of the Facebook Files, and reached out to Dr. Latanya Sweeney, who she calls her "most trusted colleague":
> I chose to work with Dr. Sweeney because she was the shoulder I leaned on when I needed to decode the politics of HKS. I regard Dr. Sweeney to be brilliant at computer science, the foremost authority on privacy in technology, and had a vision to build the FB Archive on the base of a data sharing platform that she had designed previously.
Donovan's vision was to build "a searchable archive of these documents for the public interest" and hold training workshops for other researchers. So Dr. Sweeney's lab built it, as was the plan; and held training workshops, which was a little hurtful to Donovan as she was not invited into that process.
After the fact, Sweeney summed up her view of their respective contributions in a private email to Donovan:
> The technological IP (design, architecture, and implementation) in FBarchive belongs to the Lab [i.e. Sweeney] alone. No one can claim IP over the original content of course, but the Lab also has IP in the redaction strategy used. Your team contributed the citation reference used to identify each image and document, and of course, you were part of the original concept. This is the kind of details that we will document on the history page.
And implies, like it's not even worth asserting directly, that TASC's contributions are historical, not current. A couple of responses later, Donovan says:
> TASC made many contributions including getting the documents and categorizing them, as well as promoting the archive in public forums, and having my team write testimonies and 1pagers, reviewing abstracts and holding office hours with students and so many meetings.
Dr. Donovan's complaints with the project as delivered seem to mostly NOT be that she wanted it to be different than it was, but rather, that the history page contains blatant lies that minimize Dr. Donovan and TASC's contributions. And also that it is incredibly unjust that she brought this highly valuable asset to the table, and without cause was not only shut out, but basically fired, and her historical contributions scrubbed. (Section 42.)
(To be clear, this is a sad and frustrating tale and if I was Donovan I'd be pissed too.)
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#403I’m inspired to propose a new term alongside Big Tobacco, Big Energy, Big Pharma, and Big Tech: Big Social.
There is 'Big Tech' already available. Plus America has raised interest rates, which means market capture/empire defense is getting more and more expensive, so expect all of them to become small soon.
Big Tech as a term doesn’t feel like it encompasses the specifically social influence of some of the social media companies (Meta could almost be called Big Social just by itself, but that’s a different conversation).
The reason it made sense to me is that when the article said “Big Tech” it didn’t feel right.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I think sidelining the lead researcher and giving the project to another group is accurately described at "gutting a team". No, they didn't end the project, but the series of events described seems to be insinuating that she could have led the project if she was willing to have her work funded by Facebook, listen to one of their former people, etc. So if that was their goal, and they just got someone else to do the w…
That's not quite what I imagine when I hear the term "gutting a team." Gutting a team is when then very significantly reduce its size and priority. Simply switching leadership of a project isn't gutting a team, it's normal university politics and infighting.
If they are forcing funding by Facebook/Meta, then that does seem like a conflict of interest, but is a quite a different headline.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's true of a lot of things. You really can't allow a system to police itself. Once you allow that, you've essentially given them carte blanche to run a fiefdom.
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem." -Douglas Adams. Insularity is both the strength and weakness of academia. Unfortunately, I feel we are sliding toward the worst of both worlds: an administrative "ruling class" that is insulated from consequences, but also allowed to constrain and control the educators/researchers.
You were quite close to a 1917 style red revolution on US soil. Only the reds wore maga baseball caps that time and most of them were right wingers. Fortunately Trump backed down by the time the FBI tactical teams arrived. I don't think anyone is insulated by consequences, but I have yet to see a former US president go to prison.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#406was the title changed to say that the person is a propagandist? seems like this is trying to discredit them
Not at all. Propaganda as in disinformation, as in that is the title of the Washington Post article.
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#407Earlier 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.
> Before society, might literally meant right.
"Before society"? How many times have you seen someone argue that a particular action was morally wrong for no other reason than that it was illegal?
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It is reasonable for people hearing that slogan to assume the worst. Hard disagree. I do not think it reasonable to assume that an American college student chanting "from the river to the sea" is advocating for Jewish genocide. I think a more reasonable interpretation would be one of anti-Israeli excess in their response to the attacks of October 7. To quote from source [3] above: "'The phrase ‘Palestine will be fre…
You can hard disagree, but there are polls showing pretty wide spread support for specifically Hamas among students especially at elite UCs. The goals of Hamas are articulated pretty clearly so as comforting as it is to pretend they don't mean it in the bad way a very decent percentage literally do mean it. If you honestly believe they don't mean it do a fun experiment stand with say flag of Israel on UC Berkley or U…
You went from
>There are polls showing support specifically for Hamas not for Palestinian liberation cause among students.
to
>there are polls showing pretty wide spread support for specifically Hamas among students especially at elite UCs.
Cite some evidence. I have found one poll that addresses the question of Hamas support among college students, and it does not support your claims at all. Furthermore, it was an online survey, which typically suffer from pretty poor methodology and selection bias, so I think the poll itself[1] should be ignored, despite the fact that it undermines your argument. The relevant question and response (n=609):
>How much do you sympathize with… >Israeli civilians: A lot (49%) A little (23%) Not sure (16%) Not Much (9%) Not at all (4%) >Palestinian civilians: A lot (65%) A little (17%) Not sure (13%) Not Much (3%) Not at all (2%) >Israeli government: A lot (9%) A little (17%) Not sure (27%) Not Much (22%) Not at all (24%) >Hamas: A lot (9%) A little (13%) Not sure (36%) Not Much (13%) Not at all (29%)
This does not show "wide spread support" for Hamas. It shows less support for Hamas than for the Israeli government. The overwhelming majority are against Hamas, by a roughly 3-to-1 margin. It's hard to even claim that this is a representative sample, due to its online nature.
What evidence do you bring?
[1] https://www.intelligent.com/1-in-5-college-students-sympathi...
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree with this sentiment: At some point our governing body, which exists to shape society according to our collective wishes, needs to step in and hold the hands of these companies and make them behave in accordance with American values There is a list of things the government should to. "Shape society" is not one of them. At the end of the day, companies can and will decide what's profitable for them to do. If…
> There is a list of things the government should to. "Shape society" is not one of them. All actions of government shape society. Tax break for charitable contributions? Laws permitting or forbidding certain medical procedures? Drawing lines for voting districts? A completely laissez-faire attitude leads to landlords not renting apartments to people explicitly because of their skin color and blatant, explicit discri…
All government action is, by definition, an act of violence-backed force.
I think that should be minimized.
I don't share your cynical view that people only behave with kindness because they are forced to at gunpoint. I also try to remember that every war ever conducted in human history was the explicit act of organized government action, ostensibly as an expression of the will of the people.
Anyway this isn't the right thread or forum for this kind of discussion. I hope you are right; my viewpoint is definitely not about to take over the world :)
Re: Ousted propaganda scholar accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta
#410This isn’t unusual in academia btw. It’s an open secret that economics departments are bought the same way— a generous donation to the department in exchange for the donor hand-picking the department chair.
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