The Review: Joan Donovan and the misinformation conundrum

A dispute over a controversial scholar points to a deeper question. ADVERTISEMENT [The Review Logo]( You can also [read this newsletter on the web](. Or, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, [unsubscribe](. Earlier this month, Nature released a [special issue]( on “misinformation.” Its introductory editorial emphasizes the role of social media in spreading misinformation and counsels more government regulation of platforms like Facebook and X. The January 6 riots at the Capitol are presented as an exemplary consequence of misinformation unleashed. After Twitter “deplatformed 70,000 users deemed to be trafficking in misinformation,” the editors write, research showed “a huge drop in the sharing of misinformation.” Preventing similar riots in the future will presumably require just such mass deplatformings. Scroll down past the editorial’s footnotes and you’ll come across eight “related articles” recommended by Nature. One of them, a 2020 paper titled “[Social-media companies must flatten the curve of misinformation]( is by Joan Donovan, whose name you might recognize from our pages. The Chronicle’s Stephanie M. Lee recently [went deep]( on a long-running controversy involving Donovan and her former employer, the Harvard Kennedy School. When her position with the Kennedy School was eliminated, Donovan accused her former employer of having been corrupted by Meta, the company that owns Facebook. Donovan suspects that her own principled criticisms of tech companies — and her refusal to tailor her research findings to their interests — provoked Meta to pressure the Kennedy School to let her go. “How Facebook/Meta have operated in this case,” Donovan’s lawyers say, “is no different to how foreign-intelligence services or organized criminal enterprises operate.” Donovan sees a smoking gun in an exchange she had on Zoom in 2021 with Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s former head of communications and public policy, after a talk she’d given. According to Donovan, Schrage “angrily” berated her and “monopolized the discussion.” The mood, she says, was “tense, awkward, and embarrassing for everyone involved.” Lee reviewed a recording of the meeting and came to a quite different conclusion. Although Schrage does express skepticism of some of Donovan’s remarks, and does press her on her definition of “misinformation,” he speaks only once, and briefly. And despite Donovan’s repeated insistence that the dean of the Kennedy School was pressured by Meta to dismiss her, no corroborating evidence has emerged. Is there a chance, Lee asked Donovan, that she herself — the prominent misinformation researcher — had been spreading misinformation? Donovan can only conclude that Harvard and Meta selected Lee to report the story for The Chronicle. SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. SPONSOR CONTENT | University of Bath [Predicting Tomorrow's Health with Today's Wastewater]( Like Nature’s editorial introducing their recent special issue on misinformation, Donovan’s 2020 paper calls for increased regulation of the internet: “Researchers and policymakers can — and must — make sure social-media companies identify, implement and evaluate ways to curtail the spread of dangerous misinformation.” Others have agreed. In Falsehoods Fly: Why Misinformation Spreads and How to Stop It, published earlier this year by Columbia University Press, Paul Thagard urges that social-media companies “be lobbied to encourage them to limit the transmission of conspiracy theories more strictly.” In a review of Thagard’s book forthcoming in The Journal of Value Inquiry, the Cambridge and University of South Florida philosopher Eric Winsberg observes that some of Thagard’s suggestions for regulation go “far beyond what ... U.S. courts regard as regulable speech.” But Winsberg’s critique isn’t just a legal one. He suspects that “‘misinformation’ accusations are a dangerous and illiberal propaganda tactic — nothing but a raw exercise of power” meant to inappropriately constrain the boundaries of acceptable debate. And while the spread of misinformation can impair the public’s capacity to form true beliefs about contested issues, so too can the overzealous censorship of supposed misinformation — which, Winsberg points out, sometimes turns out not to be misinformation at all. Read Stephanie M. Lee’s “[The Distortions of Joan Donovan]( and Eric Winsberg’s [review]( of Falsehoods Fly. ADVERTISEMENT UPCOMING PROGRAM [The Chronicle's Library and Institutional Success Program | July 2024] The Chronicle is partnering with Ithaka S+R to host a brand new [professional development program for librarians]( in July. This innovative two-week program will help library leaders understand the many roles they might take on, boost the success of the campus library, and better align with their institution’s goals. Learn more about our seminars and workshops, and [register today]( The Latest THE REVIEW | OPINION [A Climate of Fear Comes for Scholarship]( By Andrew Koppelman [STORY IMAGE]( Intimidation at Columbia and Harvard is an ominous sign of things to come. ADVERTISEMENT [A Climate of Fear Comes for Scholarship]( THE REVIEW | ESSAY [The Impossible College Presidency]( By Brian Rosenberg [STORY IMAGE]( Leaders face unreasonable demands and intolerable critics. THE REVIEW | ESSAY [Middle East Scholars Are Under Pressure]( By Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami [STORY IMAGE]( Tensions on campus are real and intense. 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