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My experience of whistleblowing even here in the west is that usually it goes very very badly. The only real thing open to you is to refuse to do anything uneth
by PaulKeeble 3y ago
My experience of whistleblowing even here in the west is that usually it goes very very badly. The only real thing open to you is to refuse to do anything unethical, quit and walk away. Many people can't afford to do that. Things ought to be different but we live in corrupt societies where the law is different for the rich and powerful than for everyone else.
- throwawaysleep 3y agoNot surprising that it will go badly. Most of us have some secrets to hide, so the individuals that make up society have an incentive to exclude such people from their lives. I couldn’t trust a whistleblower. While grateful for a lot of the work they do, I never want to be their target and would never risk getting close to them.
- jackdaniel 3y agoWhile I disagree with your opinion, I appreciate a lot that you've stated it. That's a very honest thing to say.
- automatic6131 3y ago>I appreciate a lot that you've stated it Well, from an anonymous account, it means jack. Bull, even.
- jackdaniel 3y agoPeople often lie not only to others, but also to themselves. Also I don't see a problem with somewhat controversial takes from anonymous accounts; given today's internet opposite would be brave/stupid.
- throwawaysleep 3y agoIs it that you morally disagree (I agree that it is a poor reward for doing me a service) or you have a disagreement about why society punishes whistleblowers?
- jackdaniel 3y agoI disagree with equating whistleblowering and snitching. We all have dirty secrets, but let's loosely say that the scale matters. It is a different story when coworker tells "boss" who is lazying around, and a different story when someone reports a serious misconduct towards other people. I'm not sure how to phrase it clearly, but generally I would not associate myself with former people, but I wouldn't mind the latter. Maybe one day they'd prevent me from doing something really terrible (given I wouldn't know better).
- rsynnott 3y agoPossibly a fundamentally different outlook? I would trust a whistleblower, but I would have difficulty trusting a person who would cover up serious crimes for an employer. Most employers, by the way, actually do not want it covered up when one of their departments is Doing Crime. (In particular if you're in, say, finance, or a safety-critical industry, you are not going to want to hire someone who has a known track record of failing to report crimes. I mean, unless you're, like, FTX or someone.)
- monsieurbanana 3y agoNo, most of us don't have that kind of secrets. I have secrets, but if someone were to leak them nobody would seriously employ the term "whisteblower". Implying that because someone doesn't want to stay quiet when he sees unethical/unlawful things they can't be trusted on a personal level is a dehumanizing thing to say. I might be breaking a rule here, but this comment could probably be found verbatim in some company's playbook to discourage whiteblowing.
- mewpmewp2 3y agoImagine someone blows the whistle on you liking K-Pop. By the way, I don't like it at all. But just imagine if you were to like it and someone was to blow the whistle. I seriously haven't listened to K-Pop at all, I know it's just an embarrassing thing people do.
- plagiarist 3y agoThat's not whistleblowing, that's being a jackass. Whistleblowing is reporting illegal or unethical behavior that is causing real harm to people.
- mewpmewp2 3y agoImagine hanging out with Snowden, you both have done a few rounds of pints. Suddenly you slip up about your music preferences. Next thing you know, tomorrow you see a tweet on Snowden's Twitter account and thousands of comments laughing at you.
- whitepaint 3y agoAnd I couldn't trust someone who couldn't trust a whistleblower. Like what the hell did you do that you really don't want others to find out..?
- jstarfish 3y ago> Like what the hell did you do that you really don't want others to find out..? It doesn't matter. This still applies even if you haven't done anything yet. Nobody wants to be friends with the kid who narcs on everyone. Show me the man and I'll show you the crime he's committed. Why subject yourself to that?
- Buttons840 3y ago> Most of us have some secrets to hide It's a bit reductionist to consider the things that get whistleblown about as just "everyone has their secrets". Alice is illegally spying on all of society, well, everyone has their secrets. Billy has a porno magazine hidden in his closet, well, everyone has their secrets. Charlie is stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers, well, everyone has their secrets. Daryl is running a child trafficking ring, well, everyone has their secrets. Not all secrets are the same. > I couldn’t trust a whistleblower. While grateful for a lot of the work they do, I never want to be their target and would never risk getting close to them. So, you make it a little more likely that whistleblowers will have a hard time, and a little more likely that whistleblowers will be discouraged from ever whistleblowing in the first place. The end result is that you are a little more likely to be affected by the corruption that might have been stopped by whistleblowers. Everyone has their definition about what a "good person" is. Let me offer my definition. A "good person" is someone who is more likely to benefit than to be harmed by widespread wistleblowing. Good people should want whistleblowers to be protected and commonplace.
- meiraleal 3y agosecrets aren't crimes. to work with a criminal is much more riskier
- Beijinger 3y agoThere is truth on this. People love treason but they hate the traitor. In the US you can get a lot of money for whistle-blowing. You will need it. Don't expect to ever find a decent job afterwards.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago> I couldn’t trust a whistleblower. You see, it makes sence, consider that guy over there - corporate drone, climbing the ladder, would sell his own mother - totally trustworthy, you know what he is gonna do. But this guy, who values his abstract principles and integrity above any social contract? Can you tell when he has had enough? Do you even know what his values are? What if, one day, he decides that the place is so miserable, so corrupt, so complicit in suffering, that he just burns it all to the ground?
- keiferski 3y agoI encourage anyone interested in the consequences of whistleblowing to watch The Insider. A truly excellent film about a whistleblower at a tobacco company and the terrible things they did to try and stop him. Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, Bruce McGill, Christopher Plummer, many others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Wigand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Wigand Trailer: https://youtu.be/MGOb29aePyc https://youtu.be/MGOb29aePyc The best scene: https://youtu.be/gNKmmA6_oTQ https://youtu.be/gNKmmA6_oTQ
- LastNevadan 3y agoA similar film is Silkwood, which is about the life of Karen Silkwood, who reported concerns about corporate practices related to health and safety in a nuclear facility where she worked. She was severely harassed by her employer and then died in a suspicious car accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silkwood https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/silkwood
- lynx23 3y agoThats the movie that prominently features "Amazing Grace", right? I still remember having watched it on public television in the late 80s. But all I really remember from the movie was amazing grace being played after the car crash scene.
- brightball 3y agoAnybody who becomes the target of large orgs is going to have a bad time. Just think about the guy who was falsely accused of being the pipe bomber at the Atlanta Olympics after he saved people.
- hn8305823 3y ago> the guy His name was Richard Jewel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_jewel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_jewel
- bambax 3y agoOf course, but I don't think it's specific to "the west" or "corrupt societies". It's human nature. If you're part of a group and you speak against the group, esp. to another group, the group will move to destroy you. It doesn't matter if you're right; it doesn't matter if the group is doing bad things; it doesn't matter if speaking up will help save lives. The function of the group is to survive as a group; it will do whatever it takes to achieve that. Laws that go against human nature fight an uphill battle; it doesn't mean we should not try, but it does mean we should be aware of the difficulty.
- mewpmewp2 3y agoYeah, in the end it all comes down to game theory.
- stjohnswarts 3y agodo you want to bet on that?
- lynx23 3y agoYou pretty much nailed it. Its only a whistleblower to outsides, its a mudslinger to insiders.
- dustingetz 3y agowell stated! i would add that the solution is to find a path of action that does not actually go against human nature but rather embraces it. My favorite historical example is religion, e.g. Moses and the 10 Commandments.
- gadders 3y agoUnless you're Bradley Birkenfield [1] TBH that's the only circumstance in which I think it would make sense to whistle blow. "In 2012, as a consequence of his whistleblower status, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) awarded him $104 million, 26% of the total $400 million in taxes returned. It was the 4th reward paid to date since the IRS Whistleblower Program went into effect in 2006." He did 40 months in prison as well but stil... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Birkenfeld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Birkenfeld
- plagiarist 3y agoI would almost be okay with 40 months in white-collar prison for $104 million. It is a pretty long time, though.
- gadders 3y agoI reckon I could do it if I knew I had $104m waiting for me. Think of it as $31m/year to live somewhere equivalent to a moon base or the ISS or something.
- jstarfish 3y ago> TBH that's the only circumstance in which I think it would make sense to whistle blow. It's equally-lucrative in Defense. You won't work anywhere ever again, but the DoD pays out enough to make it worth your while.
- Beijinger 3y agoPeople love treason but they hate the traitor :-) Forget about whistle-blowing in Europe, it will likely blow up in your face. Best thing is, if you are in a company with unethical behavior, to pack your stuff and leave ASAP and hope that you don't get anything of the fallout.
- loa_in_ 3y agoCan you elaborate?
- Beijinger 3y ago"Forget about whistle-blowing in Europe, it will likely blow up in your face." In most European countries, in fact not any that I am aware of, will you get a reward for blowing the whistle. If you do, best case, you don't get any legal problems. Don't expect anyone to hire you in the future. Nobody blew the whistle with the "VW/Audi emissions scandal". They would have gotten a big reward in the US. In the trial the big boss claimed as long that he had nothing to do with it, that it was the sole decision of his engineers, until the court offered him a probation sentence. You blow the whistle? Expect that your boss will claim that it was only your responsibility and he knew nothing about it. Emails on the company server? Expect them to be gone. "Best thing is, if you are in a company with unethical behavior, to pack your stuff and leave ASAP and hope that you don't get anything of the fallout." When I was a young engineer in a terrible place, the big boss told me to do something. Disregarding all good practices, risking the health of the employees with this action etc. If I had followed his oral command, it would have been at the same time a reason to be fired on the spot. I could have lived with that, but they could have also claimed millions in damages from the circumstances. There were other issues (IP that I developed). I called in sick for two weeks and then submitted my resignation. Best decision ever. I read about this guy many years later in a major newspaper when he screwed another employee totally off. (Do you read hear H.L.?). Bottom line: If shit hits the fan, people will lie. They will try to throw you under the bus. I actually emailed my old boss when I saw the newspaper article, put a link to the article and wrote: "I'm glad to hear that you stayed true to your character." He did not reply. Yes, he got trouble from the Newspaper article, but they guy he screwed over, he screwed over deeply.
- hef19898 3y agoOne of the reasons I like the SEC solution so much: It is annonymous, you can provide info through am attorny and the payouts for whistleblowers are high enough that people can, theoretically, stop working and retire.
- baner2020 3y agoOh yeah… a country where most safety features… seat belts (for example or lead poisoning) are results of whistleblowers, yet the path is paved with retaliatory actions , hr taking it like a personal jihad to prove the conversation wrong …. I can personally relate to what it feels to take punches If the person has pre existing medical condition like diabetes, doing good will literally cost one’s life . Living the experience, for voicing discrimination at employment situation Have interviewed 176 attorneys over 2 year period with only 5 confirming that the discrimination is illegal , but they had signed agreements to not represent employees. Found out that one can buyout judges, apparently a judge can punish a legal practice if they don’t want a whistleblower case be presented Being rich definitely allows one to be ignorant all these ongoing friction in life
- mx_03 3y agoFor sure walk away if the company asks you to something ilegal. Not worth the jail time even if you cant afford having no job.
- didntknowya 3y agoidk the SEC whistleblower payout seems to be working for some.
- berniedurfee 3y agoI think part of the problem is there aren’t really any “good guys” in most cases. With regulatory capture and the revolving door between .com and .gov, those who run the corporations and those who are supposed to respond to the whistle are often hanging out in the same back rooms. The general response seems to be a slap on the wrist and a hardy “Don’t get caught doing that again!”