In recent years, whistleblowing in the tech space has led to concrete change.
Here are several noteworthy examples.
Calls from shareholders for corporate whistleblower protections
Following Timnit Gebru’s firing, shareholders of Google’s parent company Alphabet filed a resolution asking its board to oversee a review of corporate whistleblower policies and their effectiveness in protecting employees. The resolution cited concerns that a lack of whistleblower protections may lead Alphabet to “face business risks related to employee morale and user trust.”
Revised legislation
Amidst her pregnancy discrimination case against Google, Chelsey Glasson worked with Washington Senator Karen Keiser to draft Senate Bill 6034, signed into law in 2020 (see Whistleblowers Among Us). The bill updated the Washington Law Against Discrimination, extending the statute of limitations for pregnant women to file a discrimination complaint from six months to one year.
Empowerment of other workers
Intentionally or not, tech whistleblowers often speak to matters that impact many employees facing similar struggles. This advocacy can have a snowball effect, giving more people the courage to speak their truth — which can then garner attention from the employers in question and from the media. This kind of momentum occurred in the case of Chris Smalls, who rallied Amazon workers nationwide, emboldening others to speak out about poor working conditions.
Personnel change
When Susan Fowler posted a blog detailing how Uber’s HR department repeatedly ignored her reports of sexism and sexual harassment, the company’s major investors published a letter, “Moving Uber Forward,” calling for then-CEO Travis Kalanick’s immediate resignation. Uber was entrenched in various other scandals at the time, but many consider Fowler’s whistleblowing a direct catalyst for the change in leadership (see Susan Fowler — Uber).
Congressional hearings
In 2018, Christopher Wylie released a cache of documents to The Guardian that revealed how Cambridge Analytica misused Facebook data with the intention of delivering Donald Trump the 2016 election. After a series of stories broke based on Wylie’s findings, the FBI investigated. Representative Adam Schiff invited Wylie to the House Intelligence Committee and Judiciary Committee to discuss Cambridge Analytica’s role in the election. Lawmakers demanded that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testify before Congress, resulting in Facebook being fined $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for privacy violations.
Improved work conditions
Karen Silkwood is widely known as the first prominent nuclear whistleblower, having testified to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) with evidence of multiple health violations at her nuclear power plant in 1974. She intended to bring her evidence to The New York Times but was tragically killed in a car accident on the way to meet the reporter. However, Silkwood’s evidence and testimony resulted in numerous protections for nuclear workers, including medical monitoring and worker compensation.
