Whistleblower allegation: Harvard muzzled disinfo team after RM2.33bil Mark Zuckerberg donation

Donovan, then-research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, speaks remotely during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, on Capitol Hill, April 27, 2021, in Washington. The prominent disinformation scholar who left Harvard University in August 2023 has accused the school of muzzling her speech and stifling – then dismantling – her research team as it launched a deep dive in late 2021 into a trove of Facebook files she considers the most important documents in Internet history. — AP

A prominent disinformation scholar who left Harvard University in August has accused the school of muzzling her speech and stifling – then dismantling – her research team as it launched a deep dive in late 2021 into a trove of Facebook files she considers the most important documents in Internet history.

The actions impacting Joan Donovan’s work coincided with a US$500mil (RM2.33bil) donation to Harvard by a foundation run by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. In a whistleblower disclosure made public Monday, Donovan seeks investigations into “inappropriate influence” from Harvard’s general counsel, the Massachusetts attorney general’s office and the US Department of Education.