so much drama, but I was not learning enough about what is actually going on so I did some simple searching. TL;DR if you believe that there is a (quoting Hill

so much drama, but I was not learning enough about what is actually going on so I did some simple searching. TL;DR if you believe that there is a (quoting Hillary Clinton) "vast right-wing conspiracy" that the govt, media, social media, and academia should be coordinated and marshalled to contain, you're on her side. She is the one who figured out that Jan 6th was "in favor of" Trump, see below. But the skullduggery may be of a more pure nefarious nature, she had a non faculty staff position and got fired, but she wants to be treated as an "academic" in the sense of the academic freedom that goes with professorships. Here's her wikipedia page trimmed down to essentials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Donovan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Donovan Donovan's expertise is in examining internet and technology studies, online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns As Director, she published a number of impactful research papers and books. Donovan co-wrote a widely-read study that discovered that a significant number of participants in the January 6 attack on the Capitol were driven by their support for President Trump. In September of the same year, Donovan released a book titled "Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America," which explores the spread of right-wing political conspiracy theories through online media. Donovan earned her PhD in Sociology and Science Studies from UCSD, and was a postdoc at the Institute for Society and Genetics at UCLA where her expertise was social movements, technology, and white supremacist's use of DNA ancestry tests. She later held the role of Research Lead for the Media Manipulation Initiative at Data and Society, and mapped how interest groups, governments, political operatives, corporations, and others use the internet and media to disrupt social institutions. Donovan went on to lead the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard Kennedy School and teach the class Media Manipulation and Disinformation Campaigns. She joined the Boston University College of Communication in September 2023 as a tenure-track assistant professor. Donovan has authored over 35 articles, paper, and books [10] including: How news organizations should cover white supremacist shootings, PBS NewsHour Big Tech Companies Are Struggling With How To Best Police Their Platforms Unlike Us Reader: Social Media Monopolies and Their Alternatives Navigating the Tech Stack: When, Where and How Should we Moderate Content? Toward a Militant Ethnography of Infrastructure: Cybercartographies of Order, Scale, and Scope across the Occupy Movement.