Harvard Accused of Bowing to Meta By Ousted Disinformation Scholar in Whistleblower Complaint (cjr.org) 148
The Washington Post reports:
A prominent disinformation scholar has accused Harvard University of dismissing her to curry favor with Facebook and its current and former executives in violation of her right to free speech.
Joan Donovan claimed in a filing with the Education Department and the Massachusetts attorney general that her superiors soured on her as Harvard was getting a record $500 million pledge from Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg's charitable arm. As research director of Harvard Kennedy School projects delving into mis- and disinformation on social media platforms, Donovan had raised millions in grants, testified before Congress and been a frequent commentator on television, often faulting internet companies for profiting from the spread of divisive falsehoods. Last year, the school's dean told her that he was winding down her main project and that she should stop fundraising for it. This year, the school eliminated her position.
As one of the first researchers with access to "the Facebook papers" leaked by Frances Haugen, Donovan was asked to speak at a meeting of the Dean's Council, a group of the university's high-profile donors, remembers The Columbia Journalism Review : Elliot Schrage, then the vice president of communications and global policy for Meta, was also at the meeting. Donovan says that, after she brought up the Haugen leaks, Schrage became agitated and visibly angry, "rocking in his chair and waving his arms and trying to interrupt." During a Q&A session after her talk, Donovan says, Schrage reiterated a number of common Meta talking points, including the fact that disinformation is a fluid concept with no agreed-upon definition and that the company didn't want to be an "arbiter of truth."
According to Donovan, Nancy Gibbs, Donovan's faculty advisor, was supportive after the incident. She says that they discussed how Schrage would likely try to pressure Douglas Elmendorf, the dean of the Kennedy School of Government (where the Shorenstein Center hosting Donovan's project is based) about the idea of creating a public archive of the documents... After Elmendorf called her in for a status meeting, Donovan claims that he told her she was not to raise any more money for her project; that she was forbidden to spend the money that she had raised (a total of twelve million dollars, she says); and that she couldn't hire any new staff. According to Donovan, Elmendorf told her that he wasn't going to allow any expenditure that increased her public profile, and used a number of Meta talking points in his assessment of her work...
Donovan says she tried to move her work to the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard, but that the head of that center told her that they didn't have the "political capital" to bring on someone whom Elmendorf had "targeted"... Donovan told me that she believes the pressure to shut down her project is part of a broader pattern of influence in which Meta and other tech platforms have tried to make research into disinformation as difficult as possible... Donovan said she hopes that by blowing the whistle on Harvard, her case will be the "tip of the spear."
Another interesting detail from the article: [Donovan] alleges that Meta pressured Elmendorf to act, noting that he is friends with Sheryl Sandberg, the company's chief operating officer. (Elmendorf was Sandberg's advisor when she studied at Harvard in the early nineties; he attended Sandberg's wedding in 2022, four days before moving to shut down Donovan's project.)
Joan Donovan claimed in a filing with the Education Department and the Massachusetts attorney general that her superiors soured on her as Harvard was getting a record $500 million pledge from Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg's charitable arm. As research director of Harvard Kennedy School projects delving into mis- and disinformation on social media platforms, Donovan had raised millions in grants, testified before Congress and been a frequent commentator on television, often faulting internet companies for profiting from the spread of divisive falsehoods. Last year, the school's dean told her that he was winding down her main project and that she should stop fundraising for it. This year, the school eliminated her position.
As one of the first researchers with access to "the Facebook papers" leaked by Frances Haugen, Donovan was asked to speak at a meeting of the Dean's Council, a group of the university's high-profile donors, remembers The Columbia Journalism Review : Elliot Schrage, then the vice president of communications and global policy for Meta, was also at the meeting. Donovan says that, after she brought up the Haugen leaks, Schrage became agitated and visibly angry, "rocking in his chair and waving his arms and trying to interrupt." During a Q&A session after her talk, Donovan says, Schrage reiterated a number of common Meta talking points, including the fact that disinformation is a fluid concept with no agreed-upon definition and that the company didn't want to be an "arbiter of truth."
According to Donovan, Nancy Gibbs, Donovan's faculty advisor, was supportive after the incident. She says that they discussed how Schrage would likely try to pressure Douglas Elmendorf, the dean of the Kennedy School of Government (where the Shorenstein Center hosting Donovan's project is based) about the idea of creating a public archive of the documents... After Elmendorf called her in for a status meeting, Donovan claims that he told her she was not to raise any more money for her project; that she was forbidden to spend the money that she had raised (a total of twelve million dollars, she says); and that she couldn't hire any new staff. According to Donovan, Elmendorf told her that he wasn't going to allow any expenditure that increased her public profile, and used a number of Meta talking points in his assessment of her work...
Donovan says she tried to move her work to the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard, but that the head of that center told her that they didn't have the "political capital" to bring on someone whom Elmendorf had "targeted"... Donovan told me that she believes the pressure to shut down her project is part of a broader pattern of influence in which Meta and other tech platforms have tried to make research into disinformation as difficult as possible... Donovan said she hopes that by blowing the whistle on Harvard, her case will be the "tip of the spear."
Another interesting detail from the article: [Donovan] alleges that Meta pressured Elmendorf to act, noting that he is friends with Sheryl Sandberg, the company's chief operating officer. (Elmendorf was Sandberg's advisor when she studied at Harvard in the early nineties; he attended Sandberg's wedding in 2022, four days before moving to shut down Donovan's project.)
"Disinformation Scholar" (Score:1)
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She's a professor at Harvard. They're 90-95% liberal progressives. Take a wild guess. Even if she weren't a "disinformation scholar", the same would hold true.
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One guess on which side of the political spectrum she's on?
I don't know. Is there a side of the political spectrum which favours disinformation? If so I'd guess she's probably on the other side.
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There is a side of the political spectrum today that doesn't engage in disinformation?
The first victim of war is truth, and it's pretty much the same of any political discussion.
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There is a side of the political spectrum today that doesn't engage in disinformation?
Sigh. Boring false equivalence is boring.
Neither side is 100% honest but one leans much more on lies, fabrications and alternative facts than the other. You very well know this.
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The crucian problem is that if you fight fire with fire, so to speak, you open yourself to being accused of the same tactics. The sad thing is that it's not necessary.
Re:"Disinformation Scholar" (Score:4, Insightful)
People on the side of the political spectrum which really love lies will accuse people on the other side of lying as much as they do, no matter what. They're not constrained by the truth. "fighting fire with fire" is just obfuscation.
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People accusing people on the other side of the political spectrum of lies are on both sides of the political spectrum, and whether someone thinks they say the truth mostly depends on what side of the political spectrum they sit on themselves.
That is the problem here.
It's easy to believe in a lie if you want to. Or, in another way, it's terribly hard to convince someone of the truth if believing a lie is what his income (or world view) depends on.
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I'd say the problem is one side lies flagrantly and continuously to a much greater extent than the other.
Then, useful idiots who see both sides are bad in some way like to claim they are somehow the same because they cannot cope with any nuance beyond completely black-and-white puritanical style "good" vs "bad", and so the idea of "bad" and "worse" cannot sink in.
Those people are a worse problem then the blindly partisan fans.
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I'd say the problem is one side lies flagrantly and continuously to a much greater extent than the other.
You'll find that the other side will say exactly the same. True or false doesn't matter in this discussion, please understand that reality doesn't even have observer status anymore in political agendas. What's real simply doesn't matter anymore. At all. For most people reality is whatever they want to believe. Yes, we have arrived at this point. The discussion is over. Whatever you think is real is real for you.
I'm not gonna take sides. As far as I'm concerned, we have to start over. Both sides die in a fir
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I'd say the problem is one side lies flagrantly and continuously to a much greater extent than the other.
Ok. One side (is there really only two sides?) clearly lies more than the other. What does this information give us? Are we supposed to support the least bad side?
How about we stop supporting liars of ANY stripe?
(LOL, the captcha is 'sensible'. Oh my oh my.)
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You should stop supporting liars of any stripe, but you'll get called biased if you do since you'll end up storing much more from one political party than the other.
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And which one is that?
Nothing I can say, no evidence I can present will ever cause you to shift your opinion.
They both seem like bad echo chambers to an outsider.
If you believe they are equal, that's only a position you could take as an insider. It's not an opinion based in reality.
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Ah you're the kind of pervert who wants to force burly bearded men into women's bathrooms.
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A Zuckerberg simp. That's a new level of pathetic.
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If people get paid to suppress the opportunity of others to voice their opinion, this is corruption. Universities should accept grants without knowing their source or at least do their teaching without pandering to their donors. But today everything can be bought, even the integrity of elite universities.
Now consider that would be a Chinese university, pandering to the will of the CCP. O that outrage!
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But today everything can be bought, even the integrity of elite universities.
Yeah, last few days have made that clear. The president of Harvard, last year's recipient of the F.I.R.E. award for worst adherence to free speech of any college in the U.S., hid behind the First Amendment to excuse protect Hamas aligned students threatening genocide against the campus' Jewish population.
The MIT and Penn presidents did exactly the same thing. And which of the three apologized, instead of doubling down? The one that lost $100M in donations.
All it took was one donor.
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Well to be fair, he WROTE that code. It's technically theft because he was being paid to write something else for some other rich students. They got paid in the end, though.
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Kinda hard since politics is the breeding ground of disinformation these days.
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Well, you have to be perceived to be on the right in order to get fired by Harvard. You don't even need to know the specialization.
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It's not about politics, left, or right, it sounds to me like it's about corporations and Meta influence over Harvard.
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I've noticed no difference. Both sides believe what they want.
Oh, the irony (Score:1, Insightful)
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...of a "misinformation scholar" -- that is, a would-be censor -- crying about her right to free speech being violated.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
You are free to spew whatever bullshit you want. Someone else is free to call out that bullshit and set the record straight. That is not censorship since your original bullshit is on full display.
In this case she is being censored since her ability to call out the bullshit on Facebook is being stymied due to a half billion dollar "donation".
Re:Oh, the irony (Score:4, Funny)
That is not censorship since your original bullshit is on full display.
"How dare you quote my bullshit extensively, publish my bullshit with analysis detailing how much bullshit my bullshit is, and then build a media profile so more people become aware of the bullshit I wrote! Amplifying my voice is censorship!"
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"He slandered my character!"
"How?"
"He let me speak!"
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The new definition of free speech, you're free to say whatever you like ... as long as it doesn't interfere with revenue.
How very American.
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that is, a would-be censor
No it's not. It is someone who researches how misinformation and disinformation impacts society and profits. Stop gaslighting.
You know there is such a thing as lying right? (Score:3, Informative)
Older folk got away with that because they were coming off the highs of the New Deal and post WWII reconstruction. This is just a friendly reminder that if you're under 55 you won't be so lucky. Reality is going to come calling.
Vaccines work, climate change is real and It Can Happen Here.
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Wait, wut? How could you talk about Afghanistan withdrawal and NEVER even hint that Biden was in office when it happened?
It doesn't matter one bit what a previous president has said or negotiated with anyone once the new guy is in office.
Your intellectual dishonesty is appalling.
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Wait, wut? How could you talk about Afghanistan withdrawal and NEVER even hint that Biden was in office when it happened?
That wasn't on his pre-programmed list of talking points. He literally can't talk about that.
It doesn't matter one bit what a previous president has said or negotiated with anyone once the new guy is in office.
Ask him about the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, and he'll tell you Trump deliberate caused that, too. And believe it.
Your intellectual dishonesty is appalling.
But hardly surprising.
Half a billion vs One small research project (Score:2)
Researchers at modern universities are terrified of which groups they might annoy. They need their next research proposal to be funded, and this creates tremendous pressure to appease.
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The most ridiculous thing is that Harvard doesn't need any money. If Harvard wanted to actually make a positive impact in higher education, they would act like a foundation and re-grant the massive amounts of money they have no real use for. They could prop up smaller universities and community colleges.
The Ivies primarily function to prop up a pseudo-aristocracy. We may not have knights or barons, but we do have Yale grads and Harvard grads.
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"Disinformation Scholar" sounds to me like a euphemism for a professional censor.
At Harvard, that's certainly possible.
But I suspect it actually means (on paper, anyway) someone who studies disinformation, rather than someone who disseminates it.
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But I suspect it actually means (on paper, anyway) someone who studies disinformation, rather than someone who disseminates it.
Likely. If you just want to disseminate disinformation, a Russian troll farm is way more effective than even a dozen college professors.
Elmendorf (Score:4, Informative)
It is commonly accepted that an article's first mention of a person explains who they are.
This "selective" quote from the WSJ doesn't do that and instead justs starts making references to "Elmendorf".
The original cited WSJ article says:
Ten days after the donors meeting, Kennedy School dean Doug Elmendorf, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, emailed Donovan with pointed questions...
That would be useful to have right up there before talking about him, his decision to "target" her, and why nobody goes up against him.
E
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Thanks, ED!
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No, the first mention of Elmendorf in the /. quote reads:
> ...would likely try to pressure Douglas Elmendorf, the dean of the Kennedy School of Government
Try using Ctrl-F.
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Right to free speech (Score:2)
You have no right to free speech when you represent another party. Your rights end where theirs begins, and they have a right to take $500m from Meta and to not support your speech as a result.
You're not in jail. Your rights to speech haven't bene violated. You just found out that they weren't aligned with the rights of another party.
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You have no right to free speech when you represent another party.
It's far stupider than that. "Right to free speech," in the absence of some explanation to the contrary, refers to the first amendment. Which prohibits the government from censoring free speech. Harvard (despite what they may believe) isn't the government, as as such, can't violate the first amendment.
But one does not expect a Harvard academic to actually know what the hell they're talking about, especially when they're whining about other people's money they aren't allowed to spend.
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It's far stupider than that. "Right to free speech," in the absence of some explanation to the contrary, refers to the first amendment. Which prohibits the government from censoring free speech. Harvard (despite what they may believe) isn't the government, as as such, can't violate the first amendment.
But one does not expect a Harvard academic to actually know what the hell they're talking about, especially when they're whining about other people's money they aren't allowed to spend.
I cannot find any references to the First Amendment in the email sent to Whistleblower Aid by the person in this article. I did find this summary:
She was prevented from meaningfully contributing to the field of study where she has spent her career becoming an expert. On August 24, 2022, Dean Douglas Elmendorf (“Dean Elmendorf”), Dean of the Kennedy School, put Dr. Donovan on a hiring and fundraising freeze. Moreover, Dean Elmendorf told her that she did not have academic freedom or even the legal “rights” to her own research. Finally in January 2023, she was barred from hosting public events and restricted from any activity that would “raise her profile,” and thus her research, from gaining any meaningful reception.
I would imagine this restriction on her activities is what she's contesting, whether her contract with Harvard means can enforce this, and whether whistleblower protections remove this restriction.
Violated her rights how? (Score:3)
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Are you not aware of the constitutional right to receive unlimited funding to attack whatever the current public hateboner is about today?
However I think the public has moved on from Zuck to Elon so I think her funding must now be allocated to someone studying him.
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How exactly was her right to free speech violated? Did Harvard have her arrested for speaking out against the university? Anyone who disagrees with me is violating my right to be correct.
This was in the complaint:
Dean Elmendorf told her that she did not have academic freedom or even the legal “rights” to her own research. Finally in January 2023, she was barred from hosting public events and restricted from any activity that would “raise her profile,” and thus her research, from gaining any meaningful reception.
So it's not a first amendment violation but another restriction that is under contention.
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Where did you read "rights to free speech"? You make assumptions without reading the article.
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My bad, I skipped over that paragraph for some reason. It's a weird claim, it's one thing to claim academic freedom and other thing to speak about free speech rights. I actually suspected the article embellished that and misquoted, so I had to check the complaint, I found the bit that refers to freedom of speech and association:
"In January 2023, Dean Elmendorf told Dr. Donovan that she was not allowed to communicate to donors and supporters her understanding of what was taking place. "
I guess a workplaces c
The system working as intended (Score:2)
Now, where are we with a character assassination campaign against this scholar? How far can we make an example of her to deter others?
Ahh, we can all rest at ease knowing that the system still works as intended.
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What I learned today is that if you're a billionaire, you can buy away unwanted criticism. One way or another.
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Has it also occurred to you that even if she were part of some CIA conspiracy, that she could be ousted by Facebook too? You're pretty naive about the way the world works.
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Another censor in a CIA (Score:1)
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>Like if you get this shot you can hug your grandparents since it won't spread to them
1) No one ever said that. You are arguing with yourself. It was always sold as "flatten the curve", never "get this and you are invincible!" or some other BS that idiots like you always make up and then crow over. It's just stupid shit you made up.Know what DID happen though? Lots of people got shots and some grandparents were spared an early demise.
2)The scientist studied the propagation of lies, and was specifically l
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It was sold as "safe and effective".
What does effective mean to the general public if not "make me immune to Covid and not spread it to other people"?
I perfectly understand vaccines are never 100% and often have side effects but that's not the message delivered to the public.
Re: Ahh yes (Score:2)
What does effective mean to the general public if not "make me immune to Covid and not spread it to other people"?
Only an idiot would understand it like that. Effective means that it has a significant effect, which it does. Significant means it is measured on more than one person, which it was and is.
I don't know about where you live but where I live (Europe), all of this was made very clear, the information was and is openly available and brought to everyone's attention. We nonetheless had (and still have) idiots cherry picking information so that they could make this kind of absurd all-or-nothing argument. It's hard
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It was intentionally sold to the public using common English ad save and effective.
The public has a reasonable expectation that normal words used in normal English in common context do not require a medical degree to understand. I live in the US where we were sold on safe and effective meant if you don't get the shot you'll surely die and if you do it'll all be rainbows. From the limited EU news I saw and my coworkers in UK and Italy you were sold a similar message.
Don't simp for the government and their
Re: Ahh yes (Score:2)
We were not sold a similar message. We were told that the vaccine reduces risk of severe COVID infection (effective) and that the risk and nature of complications are such that we're better off vaccinated than not vaccinated (safe). I live in Austria but also read international news. If you can provide a link to the kind of propaganda you mention, I'm interested in having a look.
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When I type "safe and effective Pfizer" into Google the first cached piece of text says this,
"That strain began spreading at the end of 2019. In December 2020, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine two-dose series was found to be both safe and 91% to 95% effective in preventing COVID-19 infection in people age 18 and older."
But when I click through to the Mayo Clinic link that originally came from that sentence has been edited out of the current page. Weird, huh?
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Except it was neither safe nor effective. Which was the original topic on this sub thread.
Re: Ahh yes (Score:2)
It is safe as the average person is better off with than without it. It is effective as the average person as less chances to have severe COVID with it than without, and also less chances of transmitting it.
So at this point you are either disputing the reality of these facts, or arguing for different definitions of safe and effective. If the former then we live in a different reality and we won't be able to agree. If the latter then you are just arguing in bad faith to score gotcha points, which I have no i
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It was better for elderly and those with comorbidities. It was not better for younger or healthy people.
And it was terrible for children.
It absolutely did not reduce chances of spreading to others or getting Covid. That is a lie we were told.
I am using the definitions of safe and effective we were sold by the government, media and Pfizer at the time.
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Absolutely true, troll! After the government blocked and cancelled anyone who said otherwise to make sure they were the only source of information, gosh, how stupid those Americans are for believing the only source of information they were allowed.
Now explain why my UK and Italian coworkers believed the same.
Or no, just don't bother. You're a troll. Have a nice weekend.
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It was sold as "safe and effective".
What does effective mean to the general public if not "make me immune to Covid and not spread it to other people"?
I perfectly understand vaccines are never 100% and often have side effects but that's not the message delivered to the public.
Here the information about vaccines was extremely clear and when you got one you had to sign a form clearly stating the potential risks and wait for 30 minutes after the vaccine for potential side-effects before leaving.
About effectiveness... this is basically a flu vaccine and flu vaccines are nothing new and tons of people had them before COVID even happened. That they are not 100% effective is common knowledge for most people since they have direct experience with something similar. That the vaccine does
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Sure here we waited 15 minutes. And then sent home with the understanding we were old after that which has since been medically proven false.
That means not safe.
We now also know Pfizer neither prevented infection nor spreading infection. Which is what we were told it would do here. But it didn't.
That means not effective.
Ymmv in your country. Here. They lied through their teeth and still are.
After Covid had mutated so far that the original shot literally did nothing they still pushed booster shots which
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So it's now the government's fault that they rule over a bunch of unlearned idiots who jump to conclusions because they know fuck all and believe the first bullshit peddler they come across?
Come to think of it... yeah...
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Yes, it is. If the only source of information _allowed_ by the government is the government during a scary global medical event that is killing thousands of people every day in almost every country then yes they are 100% responsible for what people think about it.
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You're right, we should have let people believe whatever woo they prefer, who gives a toss if our hospitals break down? At least that lockdown would have continued forever and WFH would have become essentially required because going outside is pretty much a death sentence.
Yeah, I could support that. But then again, I'm an antisocial asshole, I could imagine a lot of people could potentially disagree. Maybe even go out and die, not that I would in any way complain.
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False dichotomy.
The government should have told the truth and allowed scientists and medical professionals who disagreed with the official Narrative to have their say and let the evidence and data determine the truth.
We used to call that Science.
Instead we got lies about hospitals breaking down, cancelled scientists, lies about masks, and lies about safe and effective. Tell me why they kept pushing the original Pfizer shot long after they knew Covid had mutated so much that even if it once was safe and eff
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The truth? Ok, let's try the truth.
At first, there weren't enough masks. So we should have told people "Yeah, those masks, please don't hoard them because we don't have enough and the hospitals really need them to protect the patients there". And people would certainly have gone "well, it could protect me a little, but there are people who are far more endangered if I tried to be selfish, so I'll refrain from hoarding them".
And later, when we had enough of them, we should have told the people "Well, they do
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I bet she isn't bothered in any way by students and soon-to-be-Hamas-terrorists constantly threatening violence against the Jewish students, who are living in a state of fear?
Why would you bet that? I mean other than your obvious attempt at gaslighting of course, why would you bet that?
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Cuz as a "disinformation researcher" (read political speech censor for the left), she is surely ideologically aligned with the extreme left.
Re:Double standard (Score:4, Insightful)
It's curious you leap to that conclusion, what makes you think that is what a "disinformation researcher" is?
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Got another source besides him?
Re: Double standard (Score:2)
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I will accept evidence that has more to back it up than "trust me, because I say so". That's pretty much all I got from you so far. Some goofball saying something is a particular way without any sources that I could possibly verify.
Sorry, but if you want to believe something based on fuck all, try a church. I tried, and it sucks.
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And as the proof for your claim you present a Xitter page, a Blog and a disputed Wikipedia article.
You can't make this up.
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Why would you bet that? I mean other than your obvious attempt at gaslighting of course, why would you bet that?
OK, the guy's a moron and inventing alternative facts to support his "viewpoint". But that ain't gaslighting. That's just good, old fashioned makin' shit up.
How many of her papers have you read (Score:2)
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She's a Harvard academic. That, along, is conclusive proof that she's batshit crazy.
That still does not prove she's wrong or her research is low quality.
Do you have anything substantial against her work beside ad-hominem insinuations?
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But it does prove that it's nonsense, and not worth figuring out if she's right or wrong.
Even assuming her being "batshit crazy" is a fact, it would not prove her work is nonsense, nor what its "worth" is. That's fundamentally why ad-hominem is a fallacious argument and why it's not enough to discredit the character of someone to also discredit the substance of their arguments or positions.
I'll bet you argue with jokes from stand-up comics, too, and yell at the television when you're watching reruns of cop shows from the 70s.
Grown ups have better things to do than give a damn about moonbats.
So to summarize your position, the answer is "No, I don't have anything substantial that I can or want to present against her work, I think she's crazy and that's enough to automatically dismiss anything she
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So you dismiss any and all evidence without looking at it based on your opinion of the people involved?
Thank god you're not a judge.
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Has it ever occurred to you that "disinformation scholar" may not mean "someone who wants to squelch any information they don't agree on" but what it very likely actually means, i.e. someone who tries to find out how disinformation happens and why it can be affective?
Or is that already too threatening if people paid any attention to the man behind the curtain?
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Wanna bet?
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I don't want a bet I want people to prove their accusations.
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I said "I bet."
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In other words, the usual unfounded accusations.
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No, just an educated guess.
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you keep using that word, educated. I don't think it means what you think it means.
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Fine, an unfounded guess.
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Yeah, the last thing America needs is some centers of education where people could learn something. If everyone's as stupid as me, nobody can call me stupid anymore!