Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties
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Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties
#2Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties
#3Good. Here’s a particularly damning passage from Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker article [1]:
> According to Swenson, Ito had informed Cohen that Epstein “never goes into any room without his two female ‘assistants,’ ” whom he wanted to bring to the meeting at the Media Lab. Swenson objected to this, too, and it was decided that the assistants would be allowed to accompany Epstein but would wait outside the meeting room.
> On the day of the visit, Swenson’s distress deepened at the sight of the young women. “They were models. Eastern European, definitely,” she told me. Among the lab’s staff, she said, “all of us women made it a point to be super nice to them. We literally had a conversation about how, on the off chance that they’re not there by choice, we could maybe help them.”
Ito worked with someone whom his staff suspected of continuing to traffic women — right there in their own office.
He also enriched himself from this relationship. From this NYT article:
> Mr. Ito acknowledged this past week taking $525,000 of Mr. Epstein’s money for the lab, as well as $1.2 million for his personal investment funds.
Truly despicable.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-univer...
Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties
#4This seemed inevitable after the New Yorker article yesterday detailing how Ito and his team hid Epstein's involvement from the university, which had disqualified Epstein as a donor.
Taking money from a dirty source is one thing; hiding it from the university because they've blacklisted that person in particular is about as unforgivable a crime as you'll find in academia
Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties
#5Jesus. Who lets a guy get away with that for so freaking long?
Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties
#6This is just one of sooo many.. the others truly need to be held responsible as well.
Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties
#7[deleted]
Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties
#8Someone who was asked by Ito to be on the MIT Disobedience Award jury wrote a long tweet thread yesterday calling out Reid Hoffman for his defense of Ito: https://twitter.com/anandwrites/status/1169952673988300800
Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties
#9https://twitter.com/Joi/status/770625716
Text of linked tweet:
> reminder to self: don't invest with or take money from assholes
@ 4:20 PM · Mar 12, 2008
Re: Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties
#10I'm not sure if this is self-aware or not, but Ito's fund is called:"Neoteny", meaning "the retention of child-like attributes through adulthood". Apparently, Epstein's funds / projects were named with innuendos. (edited)
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/neoteny#section-over...