Whistleblower allegation: Harvard muzzled disinfo team after $500 million Zuckerberg donation

By FRANK BAJAK
AP Technology Writer

A prominent disinformation scholar is accusing Harvard University in a whistleblower disclosure of muzzling her speech and stifling — then dismantling — her research team as it launched a deep dive into a damning trove of Facebook files. The 2021 actions impacting Joan Donovan’s work coincided with a $500 million donation by a foundation run by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. Made public Monday, the disclosure seeks federal and state investigations into “inappropriate influence” it alleges betrayed academic freedom and public trust. In response, Harvard’s Kennedy School called the allegations of unfair treatment and donor interference false and rejected the disclosure as “full of inaccuracies and baseless insinuations.”