Joan Donovan: "All of us disinformation researchers in the United States have lost our jobs due to pressure."

BarcelonaHarvard's most experienced researchers warned her: be careful, you're treading on slippery ground. But Joan Donovan continued leading a university investigation that sought to delve deeper into the secrets revealed by Facebook following a major document leak. Finally, after the Zuckerbergs gave €500 million to the American institution, her superiors informed her that the project was over. ARA interviewed this academic, who visited Barcelona as part of CIDOB talks on the erosion of democracies.

When did you realize you wouldn't be able to keep your job at Harvard?

— There were many forebodings, because I don't do conventional research: I study scary things, like the use of political violence. So, I was always accompanied by a certain degree of discomfort stemming from doing this at Harvard, and specifically at the Harvard Kennedy School. Ultimately, this university functions as a brand and a bank, and this happens above academic excellence. Researching the power of tech companies and how they impact democracy meant I was constantly just a phone call away from a donor, a benefactor, or an alumnus before I would start running into trouble, as other researchers had also been fired or forced to abandon their research.

But everything came to a head when he received the 22,000 Facebook documents from whistleblower Frances Haugen and decided to publish them in their entirety so everyone could dive in.

— They were the most important documents about the history of the internet we'd ever see. They clearly showed that Facebook knew they were marketing to children. That they knew some of their algorithms were radicalizing people. Or that they knew about the existence of organizations on their platform that incited hatred and violence. When the university discovered my plans, they revoked my hiring permit, even though I had millions of dollars in the bank waiting to be allocated. In fact, they wanted me to get rid of some people. There was no very clear logic to what was happening, and they left me in limbo for weeks, months, without resolving the administrative issues.

And one day came when the fatal news fell.

— It was late 2022. My superiors informed me that they would halt the project. They wanted me to keep it to myself, and if I entered the workforce, to keep it to myself. This suppression of my discourse pushed me to become a whistleblower myself.

Did you have trouble finding a new job?

— I would have had them if I had stayed silent. How could I look for a job without explaining that I was looking for one because of what I was finding? So I explained it to people at various universities who had hiring skills. From there, news of my case leaked: first in the Boston University campus newspaper, and then in the Washington Post He picked it up and amplified it. I was lucky, because this generated a flood of calls and meeting requests from several universities.

Harvard says she was not fired but offered a position as a lecturer, and denies any connection between the Zuckerbergs' $500 million donation and the cancellation of her search.

— I had a contract until December 2024. I guess we could argue about the precise meaning of the word farewell, but they terminated the contract more than a year early, so for any working-class person, this means you're fired. And about the donation... They'll never admit any connection. That's how their business works. [Her eyes water and her speech trails off.]

We can address this later if you need to calm down.

— No, no. Sorry, I get emotional when I remember it. The dean of my school was Sheryl Sandberg's graduate mentor. And, four days before he kicked me out, the magazine People He photographed her at her wedding. I didn't know they'd had such a close relationship. In any case, the biggest disappointment was that I had so many employees. If it had been just me, I would have resigned on the spot, but there were several people there I cared about, and I didn't want them to lose their jobs: that's why I stayed so long.

The picture painted by his story is sinister.

— All of us disinformation researchers in the United States have lost our jobs or funding due to pressure. In some cases, pressure from the government or Congress. In other cases, pressure from technology companies if the results of our research didn't fit with their corporate interests. And then, their press agents have targeted us. There are entire laboratories at Stanford that have had to close, for example. Disinformation research has been systematically disabled by large companies, hand in hand with the government, especially since Musk bought X. Let's remember all those emails he sent to the government, completely out of context, to pretend that my colleagues were agents of the deep state. And they are only geeksIt's a terrifying time. No one wants to investigate disinformation anymore. And some have dropped out of college altogether.

What were the Zuckerbergs really buying when they gave $500 million to Harvard?

— Well, Harvard also invested $500 million in Meta, around the same time. One might wonder what the quid pro quoIf I hadn't researched Meta, my problems at Harvard wouldn't have started, because up until that point, I'd been brought in to speak to donors and at high-level meetings as an example of the best Harvard has to offer. In fact, even after they announced they were closing the program, they had me go up on stage to raise money in front of a bunch of international donors. And I thought, "This is ridiculous. They're asking me to talk about how fantastic it is to do research at Harvard and how much academic freedom I have, while they're pushing me to leave." I had a lot of cognitive dissonance.

Harvard has recently stood up to some of Trump's demands, sparking intense pressure on the university. Do you think they're getting a taste of their own medicine?

— What Harvard says publicly rarely matches what actually happens. Harvard cares about its reputation, but I have no doubt that it will soon become clear that the university has agreed to several of the demands. They have already accepted, for example, the absence of offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion. All of this goes beyond the highest level of university administration. It's worth remembering that Harvard is a corporation, and education is merely its product.

Given what has happened to you, how should social media be regulated?

— We must ask ourselves what social media is, in essence. And keep in mind that, regardless of their name, they are our advertising systems. What they make money with is advertising. It's their product. Users are on the platform only for free advertising: you post a picture of your child's birthday party and you don't consider it advertising, but it's exactly the same mechanism by which advertisers reach people. And that exchange is driven by algorithms based on the amount of money you pay. So, if we regulated them for what they really are, there should be much more authorization. Knowing who their customers are. And verifying identities.

Those who defend anonymity say it guarantees freedom of expression.

— This argument always strikes me as an excuse, because if Facebook wants to know who you are... it will. Regulation should protect people from the malicious use of their data by these corporations. If networks comply with certain checks and balances, they will be safer sites overall.

It doesn't look like we're going there. Let's do this interview the day after Vice President JD Vance openly acknowledged that they would control TikTok's algorithm.

— Yes, they're a bit foolish when they don't understand what the algorithm means to young people. They don't want certain content forced down their throats. They want good recommendations and the ability to train the algorithm to give them what they want. The moment they believe the algorithm is controlled by the government, a significant portion of people will disengage. But some people, of course, won't notice and will think, "How strange, I'm suddenly receiving so much political content...!"

And then there's the problem of harassment and hate.

— Social media is like a McDonald's at 2 a.m.: you can do almost anything without getting kicked out. You can walk in drunk, say all kinds of stupid things... The manager only leaves when you really start to bother people. It's not a free space, it's a corporate space. In the same way that public parks aren't free spaces. People romanticize this idea of the internet as a public square, and I say to them, "You don't go to a square very often, do you?" They don't realize that squares are spaces where there is surveillance and police patrol.

?Have social networks been a breeding ground for the neo-authoritarian politicians who are proliferating everywhere?

— We only have about ten years of this history to analyze, but it is true that there are not many politicians who are digital first And yet, we do see that far-right figures who made a name for themselves through online support have tended to enter politics. And some perform well in the polls but aren't elected, even though their fans are very unashamed and make more of a name for themselves than they represent numerically.

They are especially noticeable through harassment campaigns.

— The leader points the way, the pack does the rest. We've seen it just now with Jimmy Kimmel. Nobody wants to be the winner of that sinister lottery. I started the protests against Tesla in the United States. I was fed up and had time, so I thought I'd go and protest outside their headquarters one Saturday. Then my friend Alex Winter, a documentary filmmaker and celebrity, heard about it and told me he'd do the same thing in his city, and posted it online. Within a few hours, there were tons of people saying they'd do the same thing outside Tesla dealerships in their cities. In Boston, there must have been about 50 of us on the first day, and that February 15th seemed like a success to me. But the following week there were already 300 of us, and the following week, 800.

It is the friendly face of networks, when they allow you to organize and share interests.

— That was winning momentum Because Musk was doing more and more reprehensible things. The protests didn't go beyond holding signs and walking around public spaces. But someone might have thought we were terrorists, just as Musk described us in his messages. They claimed we were founded by George Soros... Look, this isn't the first time I've found myself in the middle of a conspiracy theory claiming I'm a millionaire or some other nonsense, when the truth is I live a very spartan existence as an academic. Following the words of Musk, who has a gigantic audience, and those of his acolytes, I received everything for weeks: death threats, calls from people who hired me to demand my dismissal... Luckily, my boss understands the situation, and because of that Harvard thing, I have a public profile. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have any kind of protection.

If you were in a room alone with Mark Zuckerberg, what would you ask him?

— Take a step back. Create a company that isn't a reflection of your beliefs and ego. Empower people who care about fair communication systems to get more involved. Maybe I'd also ask him to remove politicians from his platform so ordinary people can feel more relaxed without their annoyance. I'd say: Mark, enjoy your billions of dollars, but stop growing this machine, which, unfortunately, has become so large and unwieldy and is facilitating hate speech and harassment.

It is a bold request, this one to expel politicians.

— The ultimate damage that social media does when politicians take over is that it stifles free speech. I don't want to share a platform with JD Vance or Joe Biden. I mean, give me a helping hand of the state when I want it. But the idea that the state should always be active, always communicating... This has brought us to this point where the United States government is literally trolling the population. I find it disgusting and horrible. We've lost dignity and legitimacy on the global stage. And all to consolidate power with internet memes. What nonsense.