Anonymous ID: fac35f Feb. 3, 2023, 8:10 p.m. No.18281503   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1513 >>1525 >>1575 >>1595 >>1690 >>1846 >>1944 >>2050 >>2090

>>18281449

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11710991/Harvard-shuts-misinformation-program-releases-director-skeptical-Hunter-Biden-laptop.html

 

Harvard shuts down 'misinformation' program and releases director skeptical of Hunter Biden laptop

 

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11710991/Harvard-shuts-misinformation-program-releases-director-skeptical-Hunter-Biden-laptop.html

February 3, 2023

Harvard shuts down 'misinformation' research program and cuts ties with director who was skeptical of Hunter Biden laptop story (but claims it was for 'bureaucratic reasons')

 

Harvard University has shuttered its 'misinformation' research program while severing ties with the project's controversial director

 

Dr Joan Donavan has consistently championed Democrats through her role as a 'misinformation' expert

 

She has publicly challenged the Hunter Biden laptop story, with the president's son recently accused of intimidation in the aftermath of the controversy

 

By Will Potter For Dailymail.Com

 

Published: 14:45 EST, 3 February 2023 | Updated: 18:07 EST, 3 February 2023

Anonymous ID: fac35f Feb. 3, 2023, 8:11 p.m. No.18281513   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1518

>>18281503

 

Harvard has scrapped its 'misinformation' research program and severed its ties with the project's controversial director, who used her position to cast doubt over the Hunter Biden laptop story.

 

The project's leader Dr Joan Donavan is a so-called expert in the dangers of social media misinformation, and has publicly challenged the Hunter Biden laptop story during her time at the university.

 

She led the project since its inception in 2019 with the aim to 'help newsroom leaders fight misinformation and media manipulation'.

 

Donavan used her role to cast doubt over the media's coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which saw the president's son's missing laptop appear in a Delaware repair shop containing a treasure trove of illicit images and damaging emails from his work at Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

 

The story was notably suppressed by several major media corporations ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

 

Dr Joan Donavan has consistently championed Democrats through her role as a 'misinformation' expert

 

Donavan frequently cast doubt over the veracity of the Hunter Biden laptop story, previously branding it a 'straw man' in an April 2022 tweet

 

Hunter Biden has been accused of intimidation amid the backlash to a story about him leaving a laptop containing damaging emails in a Delaware repair shop

 

The director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy announced the institution was cutting ties with Donovan in an email obtained by Semafor.

 

The email stated that the Technology and Social Change Project, which studied disinformation online, was being shuttered for what the outlet referred to as 'bureaucratic reasons.'

 

'The Kennedy School's standing policy is that all research projects must be led by a full faculty member,' said the email.

 

'While there can be limited exceptions, those can't continue indefinitely without a faculty member as the principal project leader and academic head.

Anonymous ID: fac35f Feb. 3, 2023, 8:12 p.m. No.18281518   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1522 >>1538 >>1575 >>1690 >>1846 >>1944 >>2050 >>2090

>>18281513

 

According to her Harvard staff page, Donavan supposedly 'leads the field in examining internet and technology studies, online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns.'

 

Alongside her focus on the Hunter Biden laptop story, she has also analyzed topics including white nationalism and social change activism online.

 

Donavan has become a loyal servant of Democrat causes during her time at Harvard but has now seen her ties to the university severed

 

The 'misinformation' specialist has also made repeated visits to the White House

 

Donavan utilized her position within the Harvard project to cast doubt over the Hunter Biden laptop story's veracity after it was first published by the New York Post on the eve of the 2020 presidential election.

 

Despite the story being stood up in the years following its original publication, Donavan remained defiant in her public skepticism.

 

In a tweet from April 2022, a year and a half after the story first broke, she slated the story as a 'straw man' point for those who oppose President Biden.

 

Alongside a photograph where she is pictured next to Charlie Warzel, a staff writer for The Atlantic, Donavan wrote: 'Me and @cwarzel Looking at the content on the Hunter Biden Laptop, the most popular straw man question at #Disinfo2022.'

 

She also questioned the veracity of the article during a podcast appearance on the day of the 2020 presidential election.

 

Speaking on the Harvard Kennedy School podcast PolicyCast, she said: 'The sourcing of the laptop being dropped off in Delaware at a lonely repairman's shop that's just…

 

'If you can charge $85 for fixing a broken laptop, I want to know you. It's a broken laptop, right?

Anonymous ID: fac35f Feb. 3, 2023, 8:13 p.m. No.18281522   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1529

>>18281518

 

'So, the sourcing of it just stinks of tradecraft. It stinks of a drop.

 

'And many cyber-security professionals are waiting for an opportunity to forensically analyze the contents of this hard drive.'

 

She also claimed that because other stories about Hunter Biden had circulated prior to the bombshell laptop leak, the story was less likely to be true.

 

'What we see as researchers when they're trying to make a story happen time and time again, and it doesn't, then you start to see the intensification and adaptation of tactics,' she said.

 

'So, we pretty much expected more and different styles of attack, including a leak, but was really suspicious of it, is you've got someone with millions of dollars.

 

'He can't afford Geek Squad at Best Buy to come to his house for the laptop that he has evidence of crimes on? I mean, it's really hard to believe.'

 

A series of damaging and illicit photographs and emails have come to light after Hunter Biden accidentally left a laptop in a repair shop which contained a trove of information about his past

 

Dr Joan Donavan has had her ties to Harvard severed after the university shuttered her 'misinformation' research project

 

Hunter Biden has recently been accused of attempting to intimidate the Delaware computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac, who has sued him for defamation.

 

The president's son allegedly attempted to enact revenge on Mac Isaac after he brought the story surrounding his laptop to light.

 

The two first encountered each other in April 2019, when Biden left his laptop at the Delaware computer shop and failed to collect it.

 

Since it was first reported on the eve of the 2020 election, the laptop has been a source of controversy for the Biden administration, with its incriminating photos of a drug-addled Hunter with prostitutes widely circulated.

 

The laptop also contained troves of communications over the wayward businessman's history in Ukraine, raising questions over his father's suspect international deals.

 

Hunter in December hired veteran political lawyer Abbe Lowell, who previously represented Jared Kushner, and began fighting back.

 

Lowell accused Mac Isaac of illicitly accessing the laptop. This led Mac Isaac to sue on January 27, seeking $75,000 in damages in a defamation case.

 

On February 1, Lowell then wrote to the Justice Department and Delaware Attorney General, demanding Mac Isaac and others be prosecuted.

 

On Thursday, Mac Isaac's attorney said he believed Hunter wants to criminally prosecute his client in order to enact revenge.

 

'We finally tracked him down and we were able to serve him last week,' said Brian Della Rocca, speaking to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

 

'And now all of a sudden, we see this.'

 

Della Rocca said the call to bring charges against Mac Isaac was directly linked to Mac Isaac suing Hunter.

 

'He's trying to intimidate. And it's interesting to me that this happened when it did,' Della Rocca told Carlson.

 

Following backlash to his connection with Hunter Biden, Mac Isaac has launched a defamation suit against then-House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff, CNN, Politico and The Daily Beast, seeking damages of 'at least $1 million'.