Whistleblower allegation: Harvard muzzled disinfo team after donation

Joan Donovan

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 $500 million 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.

The CEO of Whisteblower Aid, a legal non-profit supporting Donovan, called the alleged behaviour by Harvard's Kennedy School and its dean a "shocking betrayal" of academic integrity at the elite school. In response, the Kennedy School rejected the disclosure's allegations of unfair treatment and donor interference.

$500M
Amount Zuckerberg foundation gave Harvard

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