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Not sure why I decided to spend so much time on this on a Monday morning but I've read to page 35, and the picture is much more muddled. It looks like the FB A

by jcheng 3y ago

Not sure why I decided to spend so much time on this on a Monday morning but I've read to page 35, and the picture is much more muddled. It looks like the FB Archive project gains momentum and launches but Dr. Donovan and the TASC get sidelined along the way (which understandably is very upsetting, you can feel the pain on every page). It does seem clear that the Dean doesn't approve of Dr. Donovan/TASC and he eventually shuts the group down, but if he allows the Facebook project to move forward under other groups that are also within the Kennedy school, then the title of this post is pretty misleading. (Oh, maybe why the actual article title says "initial team" instead of just "team".) BTW, not a particular fan of Meta, no feelings about Harvard/Kennedy school, never heard of any of these people before except Frances Haugen and Dr. Latanya Sweeney.

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
> Dr. Donovan and the TASC get sidelined along the way this is described dismissively and in the passive voice, but it's an active action, and quite damning. who sidelined them, and why? it seems the answers are: the school, because the researchers upset facebook, who was giving the school money > if he allows the Facebook project to move forward under other groups that are also within the Kennedy school, then the title of this post is pretty misleading this is misleading: if the research is allowed to continue, it should continue under the researchers who did the research, unless there's a good reason otherwise
- klyrs 3y ago
  "The school" is not a person with motive. Dr. Donovan's report strongly implicates the Dean, who maintains a personal friendship with Sheryl Sandberg, as the driver behind these actions. The remaining actors appear to be interest in saving their own necks.
macksd 3y ago
I think sidelining the lead researcher and giving the project to another group is accurately described at "gutting a team". No, they didn't end the project, but the series of events described seems to be insinuating that she could have led the project if she was willing to have her work funded by Facebook, listen to one of their former people, etc. So if that was their goal, and they just got someone else to do the work, is that any better?
- cporios 3y ago
  Noting that the project and all its documents are publicly accessible to anyone at https://fbarchive.org/ https://fbarchive.org/.
  - mjhay 3y ago
    But further work from the same leadership has been discontinued...
    - stillwithit 3y ago
      [flagged]
- cbsmith 3y ago
  Fair, but it raises the question of the motives behind it. It would seem they didn't necessarily have a problem with the research, but rather with the lead researcher. There's complicated issues of academic freedom to parse here, but in principle, if you aren't happy with the work someone is doing, it's not entirely unreasonable that you'd let them go and have someone else pick up the work.
  - cortesoft 3y ago
    > It would seem they didn't necessarily have a problem with the research, but rather with the lead researcher This is the entire crux of the issue; do they have a problem with the lead researcher because she isn't good at her job or because she is finding things that their large donor doesn't like?
    - cbsmith 3y ago
      Exactly. It's easy to presume one interpretation, but it's far from clear.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
Beldin 3y ago
> but if he allows the Facebook project to move forward under other groups that are also within the Kennedy school, Move forward in the direction the dean and Facebook want, or in the direction the original team wanted to explore? Because it doesn't seem - at all - that the two are equivalent. And it is not misleading to call out replacing a non-bribe-able PI with a susceptible or even already bribed one.
- jcheng 3y ago
  I was not nearly clear or explicit enough in my comment, apologies for that. In sections 25 and 26 (page 14), the whistleblower report talks about the origins of the project. Dr. Donovan acquired the entire archive of the Facebook Files, and reached out to Dr. Latanya Sweeney, who she calls her "most trusted colleague": > I chose to work with Dr. Sweeney because she was the shoulder I leaned on when I needed to decode the politics of HKS. I regard Dr. Sweeney to be brilliant at computer science, the foremost authority on privacy in technology, and had a vision to build the FB Archive on the base of a data sharing platform that she had designed previously. Donovan's vision was to build "a searchable archive of these documents for the public interest" and hold training workshops for other researchers. So Dr. Sweeney's lab built it, as was the plan; and held training workshops, which was a little hurtful to Donovan as she was not invited into that process. After the fact, Sweeney summed up her view of their respective contributions in a private email to Donovan: > The technological IP (design, architecture, and implementation) in FBarchive belongs to the Lab [i.e. Sweeney] alone. No one can claim IP over the original content of course, but the Lab also has IP in the redaction strategy used. Your team contributed the citation reference used to identify each image and document, and of course, you were part of the original concept. This is the kind of details that we will document on the history page. And implies, like it's not even worth asserting directly, that TASC's contributions are historical, not current. A couple of responses later, Donovan says: > TASC made many contributions including getting the documents and categorizing them, as well as promoting the archive in public forums, and having my team write testimonies and 1pagers, reviewing abstracts and holding office hours with students and so many meetings. Dr. Donovan's complaints with the project as delivered seem to mostly NOT be that she wanted it to be different than it was, but rather, that the history page contains blatant lies that minimize Dr. Donovan and TASC's contributions. And also that it is incredibly unjust that she brought this highly valuable asset to the table, and without cause was not only shut out, but basically fired, and her historical contributions scrubbed. (Section 42.) (To be clear, this is a sad and frustrating tale and if I was Donovan I'd be pissed too.)
doctorpangloss 3y ago
Going out and getting Washington Post, New York Times articles about your issues through "Whistleblower Aid" - it brings to mind Barack Obama's great line: When some activists at that meeting said they felt that their voices were not being heard, Mr. Obama replied, "You are sitting in the Oval Office, talking to the president of the United States." https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/us/obama-says-movements-like-black-lives-matter-cant-just-keep-on-yelling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/us/obama-says-movements-l... I don't work in PR, the issues I am politically active over are very local. This researcher paints a big target on her back, in an issue as amply documented as an academic firing, it isn't surprising that things are not cut and dried.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- didibus 3y ago
  To be honest, there's a difference between having your issues entertained, versus taken seriously. The former is often done as political theater.
juujian 3y ago
The picture becomes much more clear later on. The Dean sidelined and reallocated the very generous funding which donors provided specifically for her, while also lying to the donors about this. And then winds down her research even though there is obviously demand for and interest in it. All while stringing her along. She should have been able to take her funding elsewhere if the dean didn't want her around, there is ample precedent for that. The degree of manipulation is unprecedented and amounts to the dean stealing her funding from her/her donors.

by jcheng 3y ago

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago

> Dr. Donovan and the TASC get sidelined along the way this is described dismissively and in the passive voice, but it's an active action, and quite damning. who sidelined them, and why? it seems the answers are: the school, because the researchers upset facebook, who was giving the school money > if he allows the Facebook project to move forward under other groups that are also within the Kennedy school, then the title of this post is pretty misleading this is misleading: if the research is allowed to continue, it should continue under the researchers who did the research, unless there's a good reason otherwise

klyrs 3y ago
"The school" is not a person with motive. Dr. Donovan's report strongly implicates the Dean, who maintains a personal friendship with Sheryl Sandberg, as the driver behind these actions. The remaining actors appear to be interest in saving their own necks.

macksd 3y ago

I think sidelining the lead researcher and giving the project to another group is accurately described at "gutting a team". No, they didn't end the project, but the series of events described seems to be insinuating that she could have led the project if she was willing to have her work funded by Facebook, listen to one of their former people, etc. So if that was their goal, and they just got someone else to do the work, is that any better?

cporios 3y ago
Noting that the project and all its documents are publicly accessible to anyone at https://fbarchive.org/ https://fbarchive.org/.
- mjhay 3y ago
  But further work from the same leadership has been discontinued...
  - stillwithit 3y ago
    [flagged]
cbsmith 3y ago
Fair, but it raises the question of the motives behind it. It would seem they didn't necessarily have a problem with the research, but rather with the lead researcher. There's complicated issues of academic freedom to parse here, but in principle, if you aren't happy with the work someone is doing, it's not entirely unreasonable that you'd let them go and have someone else pick up the work.
- cortesoft 3y ago
  > It would seem they didn't necessarily have a problem with the research, but rather with the lead researcher This is the entire crux of the issue; do they have a problem with the lead researcher because she isn't good at her job or because she is finding things that their large donor doesn't like?
  - cbsmith 3y ago
    Exactly. It's easy to presume one interpretation, but it's far from clear.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago

Beldin 3y ago

> but if he allows the Facebook project to move forward under other groups that are also within the Kennedy school, Move forward in the direction the dean and Facebook want, or in the direction the original team wanted to explore? Because it doesn't seem - at all - that the two are equivalent. And it is not misleading to call out replacing a non-bribe-able PI with a susceptible or even already bribed one.

jcheng 3y ago
I was not nearly clear or explicit enough in my comment, apologies for that. In sections 25 and 26 (page 14), the whistleblower report talks about the origins of the project. Dr. Donovan acquired the entire archive of the Facebook Files, and reached out to Dr. Latanya Sweeney, who she calls her "most trusted colleague": > I chose to work with Dr. Sweeney because she was the shoulder I leaned on when I needed to decode the politics of HKS. I regard Dr. Sweeney to be brilliant at computer science, the foremost authority on privacy in technology, and had a vision to build the FB Archive on the base of a data sharing platform that she had designed previously. Donovan's vision was to build "a searchable archive of these documents for the public interest" and hold training workshops for other researchers. So Dr. Sweeney's lab built it, as was the plan; and held training workshops, which was a little hurtful to Donovan as she was not invited into that process. After the fact, Sweeney summed up her view of their respective contributions in a private email to Donovan: > The technological IP (design, architecture, and implementation) in FBarchive belongs to the Lab [i.e. Sweeney] alone. No one can claim IP over the original content of course, but the Lab also has IP in the redaction strategy used. Your team contributed the citation reference used to identify each image and document, and of course, you were part of the original concept. This is the kind of details that we will document on the history page. And implies, like it's not even worth asserting directly, that TASC's contributions are historical, not current. A couple of responses later, Donovan says: > TASC made many contributions including getting the documents and categorizing them, as well as promoting the archive in public forums, and having my team write testimonies and 1pagers, reviewing abstracts and holding office hours with students and so many meetings. Dr. Donovan's complaints with the project as delivered seem to mostly NOT be that she wanted it to be different than it was, but rather, that the history page contains blatant lies that minimize Dr. Donovan and TASC's contributions. And also that it is incredibly unjust that she brought this highly valuable asset to the table, and without cause was not only shut out, but basically fired, and her historical contributions scrubbed. (Section 42.) (To be clear, this is a sad and frustrating tale and if I was Donovan I'd be pissed too.)

doctorpangloss 3y ago

Going out and getting Washington Post, New York Times articles about your issues through "Whistleblower Aid" - it brings to mind Barack Obama's great line: When some activists at that meeting said they felt that their voices were not being heard, Mr. Obama replied, "You are sitting in the Oval Office, talking to the president of the United States." https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/us/obama-says-movements-like-black-lives-matter-cant-just-keep-on-yelling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/us/obama-says-movements-l... I don't work in PR, the issues I am politically active over are very local. This researcher paints a big target on her back, in an issue as amply documented as an academic firing, it isn't surprising that things are not cut and dried.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
didibus 3y ago
To be honest, there's a difference between having your issues entertained, versus taken seriously. The former is often done as political theater.

juujian 3y ago

The picture becomes much more clear later on. The Dean sidelined and reallocated the very generous funding which donors provided specifically for her, while also lying to the donors about this. And then winds down her research even though there is obviously demand for and interest in it. All while stringing her along. She should have been able to take her funding elsewhere if the dean didn't want her around, there is ample precedent for that. The degree of manipulation is unprecedented and amounts to the dean stealing her funding from her/her donors.