{"id":138091,"date":"2023-12-01T00:02:50","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T05:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=138091"},"modified":"2023-11-30T15:10:38","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T20:10:38","slug":"harvard-social-media-lab-will-explore-governance-infrastructure-of-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/harvard-social-media-lab-will-explore-governance-infrastructure-of-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvard \u2018Social Media Lab\u2019 will explore \u2018governance infrastructure\u2019 of Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nonprofit teams with elite universities in attempt to govern social media<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A new social media lab at Harvard University will work on the \u201cgovernance infrastructure\u201d of Big Tech platforms, following a donation from a group called Project Liberty.<\/p>\n

\u201cProject Liberty is committed to analyzing and developing technical, ethical, and governance infrastructure for emerging technologies, including distributed ones,\u201d a news release stated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The group is setting up similar efforts at Stanford University and Georgetown University, as reported<\/a> by The College Fix<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Project Liberty founder Frank McCourt said his initiatives will \u201cbuild a better Internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Project Liberty did not respond to a media inquiry sent in the past month that asked how social media could be ethically managed and whether the group thought right-leaning voices would have a say in this initiative.<\/p>\n

Harvard University\u2019s Susan Hendrickson initially responded and forward the email to one staff member, Rebecca Rinkevich, who has yet to answer questions in the past month about the project. Jessica Weaver with Harvard\u2019s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society said she could not respond due to time constraints with other responsibilities.<\/p>\n

A conservative group that is skeptical of Big Tech power shared its concerns with The Fix<\/em> via email.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issues Harvard seeks to address through this social media lab – ranging from misinformation to content governance – are entirely subjective,\u201d Article III Project stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cFar from a beacon of moderation, Harvard has long been a stronghold of left-wing opinion, and governing social media based on Harvard’s point of view means a significant portion of Americans will be censored online,\u201d the group stated. \u201cInstitutions like Harvard should be bastions of free speech, but instead, projects like this one will likely only suppress freedom of speech on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE:<\/strong> YouTube pushes left-wing content, study finds<\/a><\/p>\n

Harvard has previously shown an interest in monitoring social media content. It until recently employed<\/a> a \u201cmisinformation\u201d expert who said that memes helped President Donald Trump win the 2016 election.<\/p>\n

However, Joan Donovan, the former expert, also downplayed the reliability of Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop. The contents have repeatedly been verified as accurate.<\/p>\n

Donovan, now at Boston University, also said \u201cright-wing agitators\u201d who post videos of Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots were to blame for creating a narrative of leftist violence, as The Fix<\/em> previously reported. Donovan also called<\/a> for social media companies to \u201cwork actively to prevent militias and vigilante groups from staging these armed standoffs,\u201d in reference to armed citizens showing up to counter protest leftist riots.<\/p>\n

University efforts to reshape social media have come under fire recently, including revelations that Stanford University worked with the Department of Homeland Security and Big Tech to flag posts for censorship.<\/p>\n

The California university\u2019s \u201cElection Integrity Partnership,\u201d \u201csurveilled hundreds of millions of social media posts and collected from the cooperating government and non-governmental entities that it calls its ‘stakeholders’ potential violations of social media platforms\u2019 policies concerning election speech,\u201d as reported<\/a> by RealClearInvestigations<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Stanford and University of Washington have both faced legal action<\/a> for their role in allegedly helping censor right-leaning social media content prior to the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

MORE:<\/strong> Northwestern lab envisions ‘ethical internet’ without capitalism<\/a><\/p>\n

IMAGE: Brian A Jackson\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

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