4 ms·

I think that the media is overusing the term "whistleblower". There are many of wrong things happening at big companies (FB, Google, Amazon) and you are not rea

I think that the media is overusing the term "whistleblower". There are many of wrong things happening at big companies (FB, Google, Amazon) and you are not really a whistleblower by bringing this up. Media labelling those people as "whistleblowers" feels like encouraging conformity in a place that needs changing. But I guess they get more clicks when they put "whistleblower" in the headline.

bertil 5y ago
The reason they are using it might be for legal reasons: many employees sign an NDA and it seems like they would be breaching that contract by sharing those. The Whistleblower status was meant when breaking laws like Official Secrets Act, so a meaningfully different concern as you mention, but by presenting leakers that way, the press is framing them in a protective light. I believe that the official status of whistleblower is only in certain circumstances (the institution is knowingly breaking the law or “mismanagement, gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety”) and I’m not sure who decides whether someone applies—presumably the judge in one of the subsequent cases, which comes much later and therefore expose the person leaking information to a substantial legal risk in the meantime. I suspect that the press is trying to encourage more leaks by avoiding headlines about how previous leakers ended up in hot waters.
- pharmakom 5y ago
  This distinction is what makes the Julian Assange case so interesting. For whatever reason, the press didn’t frame their stories in a protective way.
  - diegoperini 5y ago
    Assange is a competitor of the press that wrote about him.
  - bertil 5y ago
    I’m not sure that Assange broke any laws: most apply to government employees and contractors (he’s never been either) and in general only to citizens and residents of that country (same); international laws are rare, and I can’t think of any related to espionage. The press tries to redact private information that is not relevant for their stories out of compassion (and it’s universally seen as a good thing) but it’s not always clear that they have a legal duty to do so. The one case that I know is illegal _in the US_ is to reveal the name of a CIA agent, but a most other information revealed by Wikileaks falls under fairly standard First amendement rights. Assange wasn’t a whistleblower: he found an alternative way to protect whistleblowers by hiding their identity, including voluntarily ignoring it himself. A lot of Americans are dismissive of the idea that US laws doesn't apply to non-residents, but there’s plenty of examples that will show how absurd it is. Turkey bans saying anything bad about Ataturk: if you did, would you feel like you broke the law? No, because you don’t live there. It might reduce your holiday options but I get the feeling that Assange was never the DisneyWorld kind of guy.

bertil 5y ago

The reason they are using it might be for legal reasons: many employees sign an NDA and it seems like they would be breaching that contract by sharing those. The Whistleblower status was meant when breaking laws like Official Secrets Act, so a meaningfully different concern as you mention, but by presenting leakers that way, the press is framing them in a protective light. I believe that the official status of whistleblower is only in certain circumstances (the institution is knowingly breaking the law or “mismanagement, gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety”) and I’m not sure who decides whether someone applies—presumably the judge in one of the subsequent cases, which comes much later and therefore expose the person leaking information to a substantial legal risk in the meantime. I suspect that the press is trying to encourage more leaks by avoiding headlines about how previous leakers ended up in hot waters.

pharmakom 5y ago
This distinction is what makes the Julian Assange case so interesting. For whatever reason, the press didn’t frame their stories in a protective way.
- diegoperini 5y ago
  Assange is a competitor of the press that wrote about him.
- bertil 5y ago
  I’m not sure that Assange broke any laws: most apply to government employees and contractors (he’s never been either) and in general only to citizens and residents of that country (same); international laws are rare, and I can’t think of any related to espionage. The press tries to redact private information that is not relevant for their stories out of compassion (and it’s universally seen as a good thing) but it’s not always clear that they have a legal duty to do so. The one case that I know is illegal _in the US_ is to reveal the name of a CIA agent, but a most other information revealed by Wikileaks falls under fairly standard First amendement rights. Assange wasn’t a whistleblower: he found an alternative way to protect whistleblowers by hiding their identity, including voluntarily ignoring it himself. A lot of Americans are dismissive of the idea that US laws doesn't apply to non-residents, but there’s plenty of examples that will show how absurd it is. Turkey bans saying anything bad about Ataturk: if you did, would you feel like you broke the law? No, because you don’t live there. It might reduce your holiday options but I get the feeling that Assange was never the DisneyWorld kind of guy.