this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
743 points (98.2% liked)

News

23668 readers
3513 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A nationally recognized online disinformation researcher has accused Harvard University of shutting down the project she led to protect its relationship with mega-donor and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The allegations, made by Dr. Joan Donovan, raise questions about the influence the tech giant might have over seemingly independent research. Facebook’s parent company Meta has long sought to defend itself against research that implicates it in harming society: from the proliferation of election disinformation to creating addictive habits in children. Details of the disclosure were first reported by The Washington Post.

Beginning in 2018, Donovan worked for the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and ran its Technology and Social Change Research Project, where she led studies of media manipulation campaigns. But last year Harvard informed Donovan it was shutting the project down, Donovan claims.

all 45 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Wooster@startrek.website 183 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Reminds me of cigarette companies burying research on lung disease.

[–] WashedOver@lemmy.ca 127 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Or the Oil industry hiding and then discrediting their own research into climate change?

[–] supercritical@lemmy.world 79 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Or the oil industry hiring economists to refute other economists conclusions when it comes to damages from oil spills (see Exxon Valdez)

[–] Montagge@kbin.social 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Or the sugar industry convincing everyone that fat was the problem

[–] ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Not to mention hiding the huge amount of slave labour that goes into sugar production.

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago

Or the sugar industry burying studies blaming obesity on sugar (and blaming fatty foods instead)

[–] negativenull@startrek.website 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] interceder270@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

This is a fantastic movie and everyone should see it in our age of grifters and misinformation.

It should be shown in schools, but it's a little risque sometimes.

[–] agitatedpotato@lemmy.world 112 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When the truth makes profit uncomfortable, guess who's gonna overpower who.

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And just like that, I lost a lot of trust on Harvard.

Harvard is where they got caught taking money from the sugar lobby and put out a paper pointing away from sugar as a leading cause of heart disease and towards saturated fat. This changed health policy in America, killing who knows how many.

Harvard has deserved no credibility for longer than we've been alive.

[–] interceder270@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I never really trust institutions that put money above all else.

Not sure why people think colleges are exempt from scummy behavior. They're a business, not a charity lol.

[–] SheDiceToday@eslemmy.es 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Most colleges are non-profits, which means they are supposed to be, ya know, not profit seekers. Harvard, like many others, is not a business.

[–] interceder270@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You're beyond delusional if you think people aren't profiting at harvard.

Harvard, like many others, is not a business.

Okay. Lol.

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I didn't go to college at all after high school because I think universities are a scam.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The US implementation of University Education is prone to scams.

The actual concept of higher education to train people to have certain highly complex expertises necessary for high value added industries is not a scam, as the facts on the ground make clear: it's not by chance that even in the ultra-Capitalist United States companies in advanced areas such as Tech hire lots of university graduates with degrees applicable for those areas, rather than go for the much more abundant and hence cheaper people with just high-school which would yield them bigger profits if the university degrees in those areas did not justify the higher cost of hiring those with such degrees (in fact you'll notice them trying to contain manpower costs by hiring foreigners with such degrees, but not by hiring high-school graduates)

Ultimatelly your own educational choice was good or bad depending on which university degrees were available in the area for which you have a knack (and indeed in certain areas there really is no point in higher education) and how much would it would cost you: many degrees are effectivelly worthless, many more are not worth the cost in work-experience years lost whilst taking that degree and quite a lot are not worth the monetary cost charged by US universities for them, but some are still worth it even at the ridiculously high cost of getting a degree in the US.


In summary, if you meant that all higher education is a scam, that's a ridiculous generaliszation that goes against observable reality, but if you meant that some (maybe even most) university education in the US is a scam, I agree with you.

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I'm in the US, so yes, most universities here are a scam.

[–] rwhitisissle@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Colleges don't have external investors or are technically "owned" in the same way a business is. But they do functionally operate in the same way as profit based institutions. This is because the people who run them understand that industry connections can be immensely profitable. You help fudge some numbers or put out dubious research backing a particular industry and you might find yourself in a position in which you get paid to "consult" for those companies later on.

[–] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

You're right, it's a real estate trust.

Can i have some of what youre smoking? Reality is too real today

[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 73 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Yeah, they're like "sure, we'll happily shit this down for half a billion, just give us time to make it seem legit!"

Dr. Donovan is a fucking legend. You fucked up with this move, Harvard.

And if you want to see more about her, there’s tons of her speeches and interviews online.

[–] RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of course they shut it down, the problem with disinformation is solved!

(/s)

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Problem with information solved!

[–] neptune@dmv.social 13 points 1 year ago

It turns out free speech has been limited on campuses after all!

[–] trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.com -1 points 1 year ago

Facebook should be seized by the government and the entire c-suite placed in gitmo and tortured to death.

[–] Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Seems foolish in the face of AGI around the corner. We will be able to have as many disinformation researchers as we desire, even personal ones.

[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 1 year ago (3 children)

agi is not around the corner. not by a long shot. We have simbly automated bullshit generators

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago

For AGI to be a thing, we first need to have the computer be able to communicate with us.

LLMs are just the first step, an important one at that.

It is like claiming babies learning to talk are bullshit generators, before you know it they surpass you in every way shape and form.

That really has not been my experience with ChatGPT4+. It is getting very good and catches me off guard daily with it level of understanding. Sure it makes mistakes and it laughably off base at times, but so are we all as we learn about a complex world.