MIT Media Lab Chief Joi Ito Resigns Following Ronan Farrow's New Yorker Expose (newyorker.com) 75
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:
It was beginning to look like Joi Ito, the director of the MIT Media Lab, might weather a scandal over accepting donations from the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But less than a day after a scathing new expose in the New Yorker by Ronan Farrow alleged the Media Lab had a deeper fund-raising relationship with Epstein than previously acknowledged and attempted to conceal the extent of its contacts with him, Ito resigned from his position. "After giving the matter a great deal of thought over the past several days and weeks, I think that it is best that I resign as director of the media lab and as a professor and employee of the Institute, effective immediately," Ito wrote in an internal e-mail.
In a message to the MIT community, MIT President L. Rafael Reif wrote, "Because the accusations in the story are extremely serious, they demand an immediate, thorough and independent investigation," and announced that MIT's general counsel would engage an outside law firm to oversee that investigation.
Ronan's damning New Yorker story began: "Dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained by The New Yorker reveal that, although Epstein was listed as 'disqualified' in MIT's official donor database, the Media Lab continued to accept gifts from him, consulted him about the use of the funds, and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university. Perhaps most notably, Epstein appeared to serve as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors, soliciting millions of dollars in donations from individuals and organizations, including the technologist and philanthropist Bill Gates and the investor Leon Black."
"The effort to conceal the lab's contact with Epstein was so widely known," reports the New Yorker, that some of Ito's staff "referred to Epstein as Voldemort or 'he who must not be named.'"
In a message to the MIT community, MIT President L. Rafael Reif wrote, "Because the accusations in the story are extremely serious, they demand an immediate, thorough and independent investigation," and announced that MIT's general counsel would engage an outside law firm to oversee that investigation.
Ronan's damning New Yorker story began: "Dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained by The New Yorker reveal that, although Epstein was listed as 'disqualified' in MIT's official donor database, the Media Lab continued to accept gifts from him, consulted him about the use of the funds, and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university. Perhaps most notably, Epstein appeared to serve as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors, soliciting millions of dollars in donations from individuals and organizations, including the technologist and philanthropist Bill Gates and the investor Leon Black."
"The effort to conceal the lab's contact with Epstein was so widely known," reports the New Yorker, that some of Ito's staff "referred to Epstein as Voldemort or 'he who must not be named.'"
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
He was never tried for the accusations that were serious (because he was "intelligence" according to Comey). He served time for an absurd plea deal, and at that half of it was in his cozy "home office".
Then we find out that Minsky was flying on the Lolita Express and fucking young girls on Little St. James, according to deposition.
Who else at MIT flew? Time to clean house - they're sending my daughter Admissions information all the time, but unless the President takes some heads quality students will look
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Can the MIT Media Lab unilaterally choose to ignore the
Re: (Score:1)
Re:So we've gone back to guilt by association? (Score:4, Interesting)
Congratulations, you've just nullified your original argument and justified that "We're now, as a society supposed to second guess the justice system because we don't like what it produced, " Bullshit plea agreement make it a-ok the rest of us to decide what we wish.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Special pleading is the least convincing argument. And remember, we each get to decide what we consider to be bullshit -- or is that just you?
Re: (Score:2)
University Policy is NOT the justice system.
You're right, but you counted the justice system out of the game far, far too early. I'm no lawyer or legal mind but there's got to be several types of torts and crimes that may have occurred between State and Federal laws controlling contract law, fiduciary interest issues, criminal conspiracy/RICO questions, IRS regulatory reporting requirements, charitable donations laws, and probably much more I'm not aware of.
If this just dies quietly after Ito's departure then it's very likely TPTB are concerned that
Re:So we've gone back to guilt by association? (Score:5, Insightful)
We're now, as a society supposed to second guess the justice system because we don't like what it produced
Absolutely we are. The justice system in not infallible.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why we have pardons and elect people who can change laws when we don't like what they produce.
Re: (Score:2)
Also why there was an underground railroad at one time. Sometimes the justice system is dead wrong such as the Dread Scott decision to pick an extreme.
When 34% vote to oppress a group, 33% vote against and 33% don't bother voting, you can get injustice in the laws of the land.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: So we've gone back to guilt by association? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What people are advocating is essentially something like the Amish practice. Shunning. Don't take money from THAT GUY, he's BAD.
Yes. And I have no real problem with that. Society is more than people doing the minimum required by law. Turns out if you act like an utter dickhead you may lose your friends, spouse and get disinherited by your parents. I will never, ever advocate to take away the right of someone to say "fuck you i will never deal with you again ever". Freedom of association is every bit as impo
Re:So we've gone back to guilt by association? (Score:4, Informative)
We're not, and it isn't [snagajob.com]. Unless you have access to large sums of cash, in which case we'll conceal and/or fabricate reality because anything can be forgiven if you're sufficiently rich [buzzfeednews.com].
Re: (Score:3)
If you were as concerned for the post-conviction treatment of the jobless drug user as the billionaire child rapist, I'd consider giving that comment a moment's thought. Bleeding heart conservatives only seem to emerge when there's money involved, now don't you?
Re: (Score:2)
Funny you would say so, seeing how the majority religion of the US is a literal doomsday cult wishing for the world to end since it's full of sinners.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:So we've gone back to guilt by association? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nobody knows how he made his money, that hedge fund bit was just the story he told. Nobody in finance or the hedge fund world had any knowledge of him or his trading which would be impossible if he was moving as much money trading as he claimed. His $70 million NYC house was GIVEN to him as a gift and nobody can explain why.
Re: (Score:2)
Ghislaine Maxwell's father was given a full Israeli-state funeral on the Mount of Olives presided over by the Israeli president, prime minister and no less than six former and serving heads of the Mossad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Maxwell (the father) was an interesting person. I remember the "Newsweek"-title when he died. I was in school back then.
I had always wondered where his children did end up.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They didn't launder Epstein's payments through Gates. It was the other way around. Epstein got donations from others such as Gates for the Media Lab. He was acting as an anonymizing middleman. I guess that is why they kept him around even though he was on the disqualified list - it wasn't just his own donations they would be cutting off.
Re: (Score:2)
It would make more sense if there were filming of Epstiens activities and the MIT media lab was helping with clendestine filming.
But that's tinfoil hat stuff right?
Re: So we've gone back to guilt by association? (Score:2)
Re:So we've gone back to guilt by association? (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly, so what?
Read the article. MIT had flagged him as being ineligible to donate to the institution. The folks at the Media Lab knew this, yet actively continued to solicit him for funds and then would cover up that the money came from Epstein.
Re:So we've gone back to guilt by association? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have always been there.
Kinda like how all Democrats are accused of being socialist/communist and how all republicans are accused of being nationalist/populist. Everyone is guilty by association and it's often the virtue signalers that are the worst, most hateful people at the core of this stuff. They exist on all sides and often times become poster children for problems people are discussing in politics.
Guilt by association exists for good reasons. (Score:2)
At least for an organization that subsists on donations.
Donations are a way of converting financial capital into social capital; that's why Epstein was such a prolific donor. He was a scumbag who made his money in shadowy ways who bought respectability and status by being seen rubbing elbows with intellectual rock stars.
*Any* organization that solicits donations, whether it's an arts group, environmental organization, political party or research institution, is in the business of selling association, and as
Re: (Score:2)
It wasn't so much "shadowy" as blackmail and theft.
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile, the Florida prosecutor [frontpagemag.com] — who was so reluctant to, you know, prosecute him [anncoulter.com], local police have gone to the FBI (which is how a certain Acosta [anncoulter.com] got involved in it years later) — remains a valuable member of the "legal community", and recipient of various awards [floridabar.org]...
No apologies, no pressure to resign, no attempts to withdraw the said awards, no corruption-investigations, and no media buzz demanding all of the above...
Re: (Score:2)
No, the problem here is not association per se. It is that Epstein was blacklisted by MIT, but Ito continued to accept his donations while hiding the source. If he wasn't blacklisted, it wouldn't be an issue.
If Ito thought he was doing a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
then he shouldn't have tried to hide it.
Re:If Ito thought he was doing a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
This type of logic is terrible and ignorant. It ranks right up there with... if you have nothing to hide then you should not have to keep any secrets.
No matter what, doing the right thing can get you into trouble as well. Just imagine all the people in the underground railroad that had to hide doing the right thing or people that work charity that hide what they do to avoid being abused by people that take advantage of kindness. Just imagine all the people in the world that have been punished for doing the right thing and trying to stay hidden while doing it like whistle blowers.
It's sad that no matter widely know these things are this kind of logic is up-voted on social media.
Re: (Score:2)
Now if only you could demonstrate that this qualified as "doing the right thing."
Re: (Score:2)
I am just letting folks know that the logic is terrible and the very good reasons why.
Your request that I demonstrate if what was done qualified as "doing the right thing" is both dishonest and literally why innocent people are in jail. You need to describe why I have to justify anything that was or was not done just because I let someone know that their logic is bankrupt!
Re: (Score:2)
Because their logic was not bankrupt. You raised situations in which the ends and the means were just, but illegal. That is an exception to the norm that one should ordinarily follow the law (or policy) while seeking to change the law (or policy). You have not demonstrated that the ends and the means were just so as to qualify for that exception.
Re: (Score:2)
"Because their logic was not bankrupt."
Yes it is and I have more than proven why with the very easy to understand examples that have occurred all throughout world history in many cultures new and ancient.
"You raised situations in which the ends and the means were just, but illegal."
This is irrelevant.
I also raised situations that were not illegal as proof of why someone would conceal doing the right thing. Or are you claiming that charity work and whistle-blowing are also illegal activities?
"That is an exc
Re: (Score:2)
You named them, you did not apply them. Whistleblowing is no different from your first example. And your charity example is simply illogical. You don't get to give away your employer's resources, anonymously or otherwise, in violation of your employment.
Self-evidently relevant. Yet another form of special pleading - you cannot
Re: (Score:2)
I have apparently underestimated how intelligent you are.
let me make it clear. There is zero responsibility on my part to prove or disprove right or wrong doing here. You really need to get off this fallacy of yours.
I am only saying that the position that "someone hiding something makes them automatically guilty" is ethically, morally, and intellectually bankrupt.
"And you're equally likely to be the one on trial and quite guilty."
lol, thank you for proving my point. open mouth insert foot much?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes there is. You have not demonstrated that your point applies to this situation and the original comment. You merely assumed that since there are some times that disclosure justifiably cannot be done, that that applies here. But the original post never made a universal rule, and didn't comment beyond this particular situation.
You first.
Re: If Ito thought he was doing a good thing (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
While it's absolutely true that doing the right thing can get you in trouble, you're making a really weak analogy.
You have no duty to tell the police anything, but if you *do* tell them something, lying opens you up to any number of criminal charges: obstruction of justice, filing false reports, accessory after the fact, perverting the course of justice.
As for the underground railroad, people involved in that were committing civil disobedience, which by definition means they were committing a crime. There
Re: (Score:2)
Not to take away your point but the people at the end of the underground railroad, whether northerners or Canadians depending on the law at the time, were not breaking a law.
This is actually a strong hint that a law is immoral, when crossing an imaginary line (border) changes something from illegal to legal.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, in the northern US they were in violation of both the Fugitive Slave Clause of the US Constitution (Article 4 Section 2 Clause 3) and the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (which by the way disproves the claim that the Civil War was about states's rights).
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm, interesting, I didn't know about US Constitution (Article 4 Section 2 Clause 3) though I do have the excuse of not being American.
Still leaves Canada where generally slavery was not legal with exceptions. I believe there was a short period when it was legal and also immigrants were allowed to keep their slaves but had to release their slaves children at the age of majority (21?) and before that educate them and such to prepare them for freedom.
Re: (Score:2)
That will certainly feed the blackmail conspiracy (Score:3)
Who better to make up really high quality blackmail tapes than a media lab. MIT's lab should be able to add lots of extra details.
Fiction just can't match reality.
Minsky and Ito (Score:2)
Both strongly connected to Epstein, Minsky through testimony and Ito through cash trails. I'm thinking that MIT may be about to have its very own Penn State-style culture of denial exposed.
that ronan farrow guy (Score:3)
Is going to die young. Mark my words.
Re: (Score:1)
In Soviet America Conspiracy Theorizes you.
donor incrimination ? (Score:2)
It's not clear to me why Epstein was donating to MIT Media Lab.
Some might believe that *I* have perverse inclinations. Maybe I like to drink the blood of 16 year old virgins. But it's not unreasonable to think that I have other interests. Maybe I like fast cars or pre-impressionist art or the music of Albinoni. Is it not possible that my interests may be both admired and questionable?
So this Epstein guy wanted to support the Media Lab and we are making that out to be a crime. I don't know why, but maybe tha
Re:donor incrimination ? (Score:5, Insightful)
That MIT determined that he could not donate to the institute, that the MIT Media Lab unilaterally decided that he could and that they'd fabricate records in order to conceal it, and that MIT was going to fire someone from the MIT Media Lab for doing so, if they didn't manage to resign first.
Management fires employee for significant breach of management's policy that resultied in bad press. Such an unusual story.
Re: (Score:2)
That MIT determined that he could not donate to the institute, that the MIT Media Lab unilaterally decided that he could and that they'd fabricate records in order to conceal it, and that MIT was going to fire someone from the MIT Media Lab for doing so, if they didn't manage to resign first.
Simple solution:
Change the name from MIT Media Lab to MIT Redacted Media Lab. Censuring, redacting and fudging records is part of their mission.
Problem solved!
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine place full of young impressionable people, ~half of them women, and the director of said place treating you like royalty. Now imagine what you can do with it when your main job is recruiting underage prostitutes and pimping them to powerful people for blackmail material.
Re: (Score:3)
"His main job"? The numbers reported seem to be rather low for that and do not at all fit the kind of money this guy had. Seems any attempt at finding the truth of what happened has already been abandoned.
Re: donor incrimination ? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You cannot keep something like that going on this scale or for a longer time. No, not credible at all. Also, if he had that leverage he would not have died in prison.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You do not seem to be aware how extortion works. As I have noticed before, you are deeply stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
Pro-tip (Score:2)
from the we're-a-bunch-of-pussies dept (Score:2)
Gates, huh? (Score:2)
"Gates has previously denied receiving financial advisory services from Epstein; in August, CNBC reported that he met with Epstein in New York in 2013, to discuss âoeways to increase philanthropic spending.â"
Quick, let's get this information to the doxxers. I want to know if Billy ever rode the Lolita express, visited the island, etc. Nothing would surprise me less.
Re: (Score:3)
Quick, let's get this information to the doxxers. I want to know if Billy ever rode the Lolita express, visited the island, etc. Nothing would surprise me less.
You don't need to get it to the doxxers, it's been known since the 2014 FOIA request. The date, March 1st, 2013, flight 2250, plane reg#N909JE. Not a direct flight from the island though, but within the region. Now for the fun parts, Boris Nikolic is a backup executor for Epstien's will, he was also Gate's science advisor for a while. The plane with that registration has a lot of shady shit tied to it too. It's just a whole pile of really ...odd... things, repeatedly.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't need to get it to the doxxers, it's been known since the 2014 FOIA request. The date, March 1st, 2013, flight 2250, plane reg#N909JE.
Thanks, I looked that up, found among other links a nice short article [zerohedge.com].
But I want to know what other times they've been together, too, so there's more to dig up there.
I used to rate (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: I used to rate (Score:2)