Harvard Shuts Down ‘Disinformation’ Program, Releases Laptop Skeptic Director Hunter Biden
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Harvard has scrapped its “disinformation” research program and cut ties with the controversial head of the project, who used her position to cast doubt on the Hunter Biden laptop story.
The project’s leader, Dr. Joan Donavan, is a self-styled expert on the dangers of misinformation on social media and has publicly challenged the Hunter Biden laptop story during her time in college.
He led the project since its inception in 2019 with the goal of “helping newsroom leaders combat misinformation and media manipulation.”
Donavan used her role to cast doubt on media coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story, in which the president’s son’s missing laptop turned up in a Delaware repair shop containing a trove of illicit images and harmful emails from his work at the 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 defended the Democrats through her role as an expert on “disinformation.”
Donavan frequently cast doubt on the veracity of the Hunter Biden laptop story, previously calling it a ‘straw man’ in an April 2022 tweet.
Hunter Biden has been charged with intimidation amid backlash to a story about him leaving a laptop containing harmful emails at a Delaware repair shop.
The director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy announced that the institution was cutting ties with Donovan in an email obtained by Semafor.
The email said the Technology and Social Change Project, which studies disinformation online, was being shut down for what the news outlet called “bureaucratic reasons.”
“It is the standing policy of the Kennedy School that all research projects must be led by a member in good standing of the faculty,” the email said.
“While there may be limited exceptions, they cannot continue indefinitely without a faculty member as Senior Project Leader and Academic Director.
According to his Harvard staff page, Donavan allegedly “leads the field in examining Internet and technology studies, online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns.”
In addition to his focus on the Hunter Biden laptop story, he has also looked at topics including white nationalism and online social change activism.
Donavan has become a staunch servant of Democratic causes during her time at Harvard, but has now seen her ties to the university severed.
The ‘disinformation’ specialist has also made repeated visits to the White House
Donavan used his position within the Harvard project to cast doubt on the veracity of the Hunter Biden laptop story after it was first published by the New York Post on the eve of the 2020 presidential election.
Despite the story being defended in the years after its original publication, Donavan remained defiant in his public skepticism.
In an April 2022 tweet, a year and a half after the story first broke, he called the story a testing point for those opposed to President Biden.
Alongside a photo of her alongside Charlie Warzel, a staff writer for The Atlantic, Donavan wrote: “Me and @cwarzel looking at content on Hunter Biden laptop, most popular straw man question on #Disinfo2022” .
He 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’s PolicyCast podcast, he said: “The supply of the laptop that was left in Delaware at a lonely repair shop that’s just…
‘If you can charge $85 to fix a broken laptop, I want to meet you. It’s a broken laptop, right?
‘So, the supply stinks of trade. It smells like drop.
“And many cyber security professionals are waiting for the opportunity to forensically analyze the contents of this hard drive.”
He also claimed that because other stories about Hunter Biden had circulated before the laptop bomb leak, the story was less likely to be true.
“What we see as researchers when they’re trying to make a story happen over and over again, and it doesn’t, then you start to see the escalation and adaptation of tactics,” he said.
“So we were expecting more and different styles of attack, including a leak, but we were really suspicious, if you have someone with millions of dollars.”
‘Can’t Geek Squad at Best Buy be allowed to come to your house for the laptop you have criminal evidence on? I mean, it’s really hard to believe.
A series of illicit and damaging photos and emails have surfaced after Hunter Biden accidentally left a laptop at a repair shop that contained a wealth of information about his past.
Dr. Joan Donavan had ties to Harvard cut after the university shut down her research project on “disinformation.”
Hunter Biden has recently been accused of trying to intimidate Delaware computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac, who sued him for defamation.
The president’s son allegedly sought revenge on Mac Isaac after he broke the story surrounding his laptop.
The two first met in April 2019, when Biden left his laptop at the Delaware computer store and was unable to pick it up.
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-addicted Hunter with prostitutes circulating widely.
The laptop also contained a large amount of communications about the rogue businessman’s history in Ukraine, raising questions about his father’s suspicious international dealings.
Hunter hired veteran political lawyer Abbe Lowell, who previously represented Jared Kushner, in December and began fighting back.
Lowell accused Mac Isaac of breaking into 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 Department of Justice and the Delaware Attorney General, demanding that Mac Isaac and others be prosecuted.
On Thursday, Mac Isaac’s attorney said he believes Hunter wants to criminally prosecute his client so he can get revenge.
“We finally located him and were able to treat him last week,” Brian Della Rocca said, speaking with Fox News Anchor Tucker Carlson.
‘And now all of a sudden we see this.’
Della Rocca said the call to file charges against Mac Isaac was directly related to Mac Isaac suing Hunter.
‘He’s trying to intimidate. And it’s interesting to me that this happened when it happened,” Della Rocca told Carlson.
Following the backlash to his connection to Hunter Biden, Mac Isaac filed a defamation lawsuit against then-Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, CNN, Politico and The Daily Beast, seeking damages of “to the minus $1 million.”