I agree with you that just about any comment or explanation from FLI would seem to help, and that passing the email exchange with Max over to Denton’s seems to make the situation worse (slower responses, less full responses, bad optics etc.).
As an outsider (i.e. with no access to the legal advice or internal discussions at any of these orgs), I wonder how the legal risk is being weighed against the reputational risk in EA crisis comms at the moment. It seems like there is almost no communication coming out from EA orgs and leaders, which presumably is very legally safe but can have very damaging reputational consequences.
I expect you’re constrained in what you can say in response to this but, candidly, I think it’s important to note that CEA itself is choosing public silence, albeit about a different issue. Accordingly, I was surprised to see you posting (in a personal capacity) about another org needing to give a full explanation and you not understanding why they haven’t, and especially in such strong terms. CEA’s example probably influences a lot of other orgs within EA.
Is there something I am missing on this? Maybe that the FTX situation is sui generis?
I think it very likely that FLI would have made a statement here if there were an innocent or merely negligent explanation (e.g., the document is a forgery, or they got duped somehow into believing the grantee was related to FLI’s stated charitable purposes and not pro-Nazi). So, unless there is a satisfactory explanation forthcoming, the stonewalling strongly points to a more sinister one.
On the other hand, U.S. state charity regulators and the Internal Revenue Service’s exempt-organizations staff are badly underfunded. Supporting neo-Nazis is constitutionally protected in the U.S. and poses no discernable legal risk. Using charitable resources to promote ends unrelated to the charity is, however, not protected. By making a case much easier to prove with minimal investigation, a written confession would significantly increase the odds of action against the organization and/or personal action against those responsible. In particular, the allegations here if true would support an inference that FLI used charitable resources to further the interests of a family member of the president and treasurer.
As far as PR strategy, do you think FLI could even survive a confession in anything close to its current form? I think the first rule of running a charity is not to embarass your megadonors by bringing them into public scorn by associating them in any way with neo-Nazis. FLI could have felt that this could blow over and remain mostly limited to a foreign publication, while an admission to supporting this organization would be a death knell for FLI.
I’m not attempting to justify their PR decisions as correct, of course. There are higher moral priorities than protecting one’s organization. But the PR decisions don’t seem irrational on their face if the main/only priority is protecting FLI.
I think it very likely that FLI would have made a statement here if there were an innocent or merely negligent explanation
I think this sort of reasoning is helpful and generally underutilized. But one thing to keep in mind is that organizations can take weirdly long times to make even super obvious public statements relative to the value of getting clarification public, mostly for silly internal reasons.
(Ex: not clear who needs to approve, someone who would normally look at it is traveling, someone misses that this is urgent, …)
Good point. Bureaucratic inertia just doesn’t seem likely at all in this case. A decision was made to send a response—that sounds vaguely threatening/intimidating to my ears—through FLI’s lawyer within days.
Hi Jack — reasonable question! When I wrote this post I just didn’t see what the legal problems might be for FLI. With FTX, there are a ton of complications, most notably with regards to bankruptcy/clawbacks, and the fact that actual crimes were (seemingly) committed. This FLI situation, on face value, didn’t seem to have any similar complications — it seemed that something deeply immoral was done, but nothing more than that. Jason’s comment has made me realise there might be something else going on here, though; if that is the case then that would make the silence make more sense. I do still think it’s very weird that FLI hasn’t condemned Nya Dagbladet though — CEA did, after all, make it very clear very quickly what our stance on SBF was.
I do still think it’s very weird that FLI hasn’t condemned Nya Dagbladet though — CEA did, after all, make it very clear very quickly what our stance on SBF was.
Please don’t do this.
I think it’s very unfair to act like there are clear standards in a gray area where those standards are just enough to cover your own ass.
The example I often think of is an adult brother and sister keeping in touch with their parents, where the brother decides the standard is to call them daily and does so, the sister decides the standard is to call them weekly and does so, and then the brother chastises the sister for not doing enough. (And perhaps it’s easier for the brother to call daily, and perhaps the sister knows their parents find it annoying how often the brother calls, and perhaps the sister is doing other nice things for their parents etc.)
I feel a bit bad about singling you out because I think other orgs do this too (CE being a recent example), but I guess I’d come to expect more from CEA as I generally consider them to be one of the more professional EA orgs.
I’m thankful that I haven’t seen any more comments from you like this one or the one above in recent months, but I thought someone should say something about this comment too.
Hi Shakeel,
Thanks for this. I agree with your post and upvoted it.
However, I do also wonder if they are following what seems to be a common theme in EA crisis comms recently, which is to say as little as possible (presumably on the basis of legal advice). You wrote about this here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Et7oPMu6czhEd8ExW/why-you-re-not-hearing-as-much-from-ea-orgs-as-you-d-like
I agree with you that just about any comment or explanation from FLI would seem to help, and that passing the email exchange with Max over to Denton’s seems to make the situation worse (slower responses, less full responses, bad optics etc.).
As an outsider (i.e. with no access to the legal advice or internal discussions at any of these orgs), I wonder how the legal risk is being weighed against the reputational risk in EA crisis comms at the moment. It seems like there is almost no communication coming out from EA orgs and leaders, which presumably is very legally safe but can have very damaging reputational consequences.
I expect you’re constrained in what you can say in response to this but, candidly, I think it’s important to note that CEA itself is choosing public silence, albeit about a different issue. Accordingly, I was surprised to see you posting (in a personal capacity) about another org needing to give a full explanation and you not understanding why they haven’t, and especially in such strong terms. CEA’s example probably influences a lot of other orgs within EA.
Is there something I am missing on this? Maybe that the FTX situation is sui generis?
I think it very likely that FLI would have made a statement here if there were an innocent or merely negligent explanation (e.g., the document is a forgery, or they got duped somehow into believing the grantee was related to FLI’s stated charitable purposes and not pro-Nazi). So, unless there is a satisfactory explanation forthcoming, the stonewalling strongly points to a more sinister one.
On the other hand, U.S. state charity regulators and the Internal Revenue Service’s exempt-organizations staff are badly underfunded. Supporting neo-Nazis is constitutionally protected in the U.S. and poses no discernable legal risk. Using charitable resources to promote ends unrelated to the charity is, however, not protected. By making a case much easier to prove with minimal investigation, a written confession would significantly increase the odds of action against the organization and/or personal action against those responsible. In particular, the allegations here if true would support an inference that FLI used charitable resources to further the interests of a family member of the president and treasurer.
As far as PR strategy, do you think FLI could even survive a confession in anything close to its current form? I think the first rule of running a charity is not to embarass your megadonors by bringing them into public scorn by associating them in any way with neo-Nazis. FLI could have felt that this could blow over and remain mostly limited to a foreign publication, while an admission to supporting this organization would be a death knell for FLI.
I’m not attempting to justify their PR decisions as correct, of course. There are higher moral priorities than protecting one’s organization. But the PR decisions don’t seem irrational on their face if the main/only priority is protecting FLI.
I think this sort of reasoning is helpful and generally underutilized. But one thing to keep in mind is that organizations can take weirdly long times to make even super obvious public statements relative to the value of getting clarification public, mostly for silly internal reasons.
(Ex: not clear who needs to approve, someone who would normally look at it is traveling, someone misses that this is urgent, …)
Good point. Bureaucratic inertia just doesn’t seem likely at all in this case. A decision was made to send a response—that sounds vaguely threatening/intimidating to my ears—through FLI’s lawyer within days.
Jeff is right: I just returned from my mom’s memorial service, which delayed the just-posted FLI statement.
I’m very sorry for your loss and apologise for jumping to conclusions about why there wasn’t an immediate statement.
My sincere sympathies for your loss.
Hi Jack — reasonable question! When I wrote this post I just didn’t see what the legal problems might be for FLI. With FTX, there are a ton of complications, most notably with regards to bankruptcy/clawbacks, and the fact that actual crimes were (seemingly) committed. This FLI situation, on face value, didn’t seem to have any similar complications — it seemed that something deeply immoral was done, but nothing more than that. Jason’s comment has made me realise there might be something else going on here, though; if that is the case then that would make the silence make more sense. I do still think it’s very weird that FLI hasn’t condemned Nya Dagbladet though — CEA did, after all, make it very clear very quickly what our stance on SBF was.
Please don’t do this.
I think it’s very unfair to act like there are clear standards in a gray area where those standards are just enough to cover your own ass.
The example I often think of is an adult brother and sister keeping in touch with their parents, where the brother decides the standard is to call them daily and does so, the sister decides the standard is to call them weekly and does so, and then the brother chastises the sister for not doing enough. (And perhaps it’s easier for the brother to call daily, and perhaps the sister knows their parents find it annoying how often the brother calls, and perhaps the sister is doing other nice things for their parents etc.)
I feel a bit bad about singling you out because I think other orgs do this too (CE being a recent example), but I guess I’d come to expect more from CEA as I generally consider them to be one of the more professional EA orgs.
I’m thankful that I haven’t seen any more comments from you like this one or the one above in recent months, but I thought someone should say something about this comment too.
Thanks for responding Shakeel.