Harvard's former misinformation scholar Joan Donovan says she was fired for criticizing Meta over notorious Facebook Papers after Ivy League school had been awarded $500M grant by Mark Zuckerberg

Harvard's former 'misinformation' program director claims she was fired by the school after grilling Meta executives over the notorious 'Facebook Papers' because bosses wanted to protect donors Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. 

Joan Donovan stopped working at Harvard in February after causing a stir with her questioning of the media's treatment of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Donovan questioned the veracity of the laptop, which contained incriminating emails, photos and information about the President's son. 

Now, she claims that the school was driven to cut ties with her to protect Facebook and parent company Meta, which awarded Harvard a $500million grant to research AI. 

She claims that after she the leak of the infamous Facebook papers - which whistleblower Frances Haugen says detail how the company ignored staff warnings and suppressed research about how its products harmed society - she was iced out by the school. 

Officially, Harvard says Donovan's role was dissolved when it did away with the misinformation department, and that she was offered another job that she turned down. 

In a whistleblower complaint, Donovan says the real reason was more nefarious. 

She claims the school started scrutinizing her work after she raised concerns about Facebook on a Zoom call on October 29, 2021. 

Haugen had by then testified before Congress and shared her fears for Facebook publicly in an interview with 60 Minutes. She claimed that the company desperately needed government oversight, warning that Zuckerberg could not be trusted to self-police. 

Donovan then obtained the documents herself and used them to inform questioning on the Zoom call.  

Elliot Schrage, then the company's chief spokesperson, was also on the call and told Donovan that she'd gravely misinterpreted the documents and Haugen's testimony.

Zuckerberg has always claimed that the documents were taken out of context and misrepresent the company. 

In her whistleblower complaint, Donovan says it took Harvard bosses 10 days to start scrutinizing her department more closely. 

'A significant conflict of interest arising from funding and personal relationships has created a pervasive culture at Harvard Kennedy School of operating in the best interest of Facebook/Meta at the expense of academic freedom and Harvard’s own stated mission,' she wrote. 

Harvard has denied her claims. 

In a statement to DailyMail.com, a spokesman for Harvard Kennedy School said: 'The document’s allegations of unfair treatment and donor interference are false. 

'The narrative is full of inaccuracies and baseless insinuations, particularly the suggestion that Harvard Kennedy School allowed Facebook to dictate its approach to research.

'By longstanding policy to uphold academic standards, all research projects at Harvard Kennedy School need to be led by faculty members. 

'Joan Donovan was hired as a staff member (not a faculty member) to manage a media manipulation project. 

'When the original faculty leader of the project left Harvard, the School tried for some time to identify another faculty member who had time and interest to lead the project. 

'After that effort did not succeed, the project was given more than a year to wind down.

'Joan Donovan was not fired, and most members of the research team chose to remain at the School in new roles.'