Every day around 9 p.m., Joan Donovan bids her wife good night, heads into her home office — which she calls the “dungeon” — and binges white supremacist videos and conspiracy theories on YouTube.
Donovan’s nightly ritual, which often lasts until 2 a.m., is difficult but essential to her research at Harvard Kennedy School. At a time when false claims around COVID-19 and politics are running rampant, the former punk-rocker from Saugus has been able to predict what types of disinformation will travel from the darkest corners of the Internet to — in some cases — the highest levels of the US government.
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