If yes, it is hard to come up with a principled reason why Alice and Chloe canât be named now.
I expect no one was interested in writing something about Alice and/âor Chloe (A/âC), by name or otherwise, before Benâs post, and people only want to name them now because they think A/âC should face consequences for falsely (they believe) alleging abuse. Which is very close to retaliating against whistleblowers, and we should be very careful, which includes maybe accepting a rule that will have some false positives.
To take a different example, my non-professional understanding is it would normally be legal for an MA employer to report their employee to immigration authorities, but if the employer did this right after the employee had filed a complaint with the attorney generalâs office, even a false one, this is probably actually illegal retaliation. This will have the occasional false positive, where the employer really was going to report the employee anyway but canât prove it, but we accept that because avoiding the harms of retaliation is more important.
Jeffâactual âwhistleblowersâ make true and important allegations that withstand scrutiny and fact-checking. I agree that legit whistleblowers need the protection of anonymity.
But not all disgruntled ex-employees with a beef against their former bosses are whistleblowers in this sense. Many are pursuing their own retaliation strategies, often turning trivial or imagined slights into huge subjective moral outragesâand often getting credulous friends, family, journalists, or activists to support their cause and amplify their narrative.
Itâs true that most EAs had never heard of âAliceâ or âChloeâ, and didnât care about them, until they made public allegations against Nonlinear via Ben Paceâs post. And then, months later, many of us were dismayed and angry that many of their allegations turned out to be fabricated or exaggeratedâharming Nonlinear, wasting thousands of hours of our time, and creating schisms within out community.
So, arguably, we have a case here of two disgruntled ex-employees retaliating against a former employer. Why should their retaliation be protected by anonymity?
Conversely, when Kat Woods debunked many of the claims of Ben Pace (someone with much more power and influence in the EA/âRationalist community), why was she not considered a âwhistleblowerâ calling out his bullying and slander?
Yet again, the gender bias in âmoral typecastingâ becomes important, as I mentioned in a previous comment here.
So, arguably, we have a case here of two disgruntled ex-employees retaliating against a former employer. Why should their retaliation be protected by anonymity?
Highlighting that is an important crux (and one on which I have mixed feelings). Not all allegations of incorrect conduct rise to the level of âwhistleblowing.â A whistleblower brings alleged misconduct on a matter of public importance to light. We grant lots of protections in furtherance of that public interest, not out of regard for the whistleblowerâs private interests.
Is this a garden-variety dispute between an employer and two employees about terms of employment? Or is this a story about influential people allegedly using their power to mistreat two people who were in a vulnerable position which is of public import because it should update us on how much influence to allow those people?
In Australia people can be, and have been, prosecuted when they whistleblow on something commercially or otherwise sensitive (that was of major public importance!) by disclosing it publicly without completely exhausting internal whistleblowing processes. So even in cases of proper whistleblowing, countervailing factors can dominate in what the consequences are for whistleblower.
actual âwhistleblowersâ make true and important allegations that withstand scrutiny and fact-checking. I agree that legit whistleblowers need the protection of anonymity.
I think thatâs too strong? For example, under my amateur understanding of MAlaw I donât see anything about the anti-retailation provisions being conditional requiring a complaint to withstand scrutiny and fact-checking. And if this were changed to allow employers to retaliate in cases where employees claims were not sustained then I think weâd see, as a chilling effect, a decrease in employees raising true claims.
I agree that requiring that the claims be sustained would have a chilling effect. However, in many contexts, we donât extend protections to claims submitted in bad faith. For instance, we grant immunity from legal retaliation against people who file reports of child abuse . . . but that is usually conditioned on the allegations were made in good faith. If a reported individual can prove that the report was fabricated out of whole cloth, we donât shield the reporter from a defamation suit or other legal consequences.
Note that this is generally a subjective standardâif the reporter honestly believed the report was appropriate, we shield the reporter from liability. This doubtless allows some bad actors to slip through with immunity. However, we believe that is necessary to avoid reporters deciding not to report out of fear that someone will Monday-morning quarterback then and decide that reporting was objectively unreasonable.
In your example, I suspect that knowingly filing a false report with a state agency is a crime in MA (as it is with a federal agency at the federal level), so there is at least some potential enforcement mechanism for dealing with malicious lies.
I expect no one was interested in writing something about Alice and/âor Chloe (A/âC), by name or otherwise, before Benâs post [ . . . .]
(Correctly) surmising a lack of interest in writing a hypothetical expose about A/âC isnât quite the same thing as reaching a conclusion that the post shouldnât have been allowed to remain. However, I think there is a lot of overlap between the two; the reasons for lack of interest seem similar to the arguments for why the post shouldnât be allowed. So I think we are both somewhere vaguely near âthere would be no legitimate/âplausible reason for someone to write an expose about A/âC, unless one accepted that their whistleblowing activity made it legitimate.â
One interesting thing about this framing is that it raises the possibility that the whistleblowersâ identities are relevant to the decision. If a major figure in EA were going around telling malicious lies about other EAs, that would be (the subject of an appropriate post /â something people would be interested in writing about) independently of any specifically whistleblowing-retaliation angle.
One could stake out an anti-standing argument in which Nonlinear et al. would not be able to identify A/âC because we would be worried that vindictive or retaliatory desires were affecting their judgment, but an truly disinterested person (e.g., not friends of Nonlinear employees) could identify themâbecause they are likely to be acting from purer, less emotionally-invested motives (e.g., protection of the community from those they perceive as brazen liars). Iâm not endorsing that view, but it is interesting to ponder.
Continuing with your analogy, if you were a random person who found out about the employee filing with the AG independently of the employer, and you somehow were able to determine that the employee knowingly filed a false report out of (e.g.) racial animus, would it be OK for you to report the employee to the immigration authorities? [Asking ethically, not under MA law.]
Relatedly, your example relates to a situation with a significant power imbalance (employer/âemployee). It probably isnât illegal for me to report someone to the immigration authorities where my real motive is that they cheated on me, they cheated on my friend, etc. [I didnât specifically check that example.] So it seems that we often protect individuals exercising socially-important functions like whistleblowing from retaliation by some actors but not others.
I expect no one was interested in writing something about Alice and/âor Chloe (A/âC), by name or otherwise, before Benâs post, and people only want to name them now because they think A/âC should face consequences for falsely (they believe) alleging abuse. Which is very close to retaliating against whistleblowers, and we should be very careful, which includes maybe accepting a rule that will have some false positives.
To take a different example, my non-professional understanding is it would normally be legal for an MA employer to report their employee to immigration authorities, but if the employer did this right after the employee had filed a complaint with the attorney generalâs office, even a false one, this is probably actually illegal retaliation. This will have the occasional false positive, where the employer really was going to report the employee anyway but canât prove it, but we accept that because avoiding the harms of retaliation is more important.
Jeffâactual âwhistleblowersâ make true and important allegations that withstand scrutiny and fact-checking. I agree that legit whistleblowers need the protection of anonymity.
But not all disgruntled ex-employees with a beef against their former bosses are whistleblowers in this sense. Many are pursuing their own retaliation strategies, often turning trivial or imagined slights into huge subjective moral outragesâand often getting credulous friends, family, journalists, or activists to support their cause and amplify their narrative.
Itâs true that most EAs had never heard of âAliceâ or âChloeâ, and didnât care about them, until they made public allegations against Nonlinear via Ben Paceâs post. And then, months later, many of us were dismayed and angry that many of their allegations turned out to be fabricated or exaggeratedâharming Nonlinear, wasting thousands of hours of our time, and creating schisms within out community.
So, arguably, we have a case here of two disgruntled ex-employees retaliating against a former employer. Why should their retaliation be protected by anonymity?
Conversely, when Kat Woods debunked many of the claims of Ben Pace (someone with much more power and influence in the EA/âRationalist community), why was she not considered a âwhistleblowerâ calling out his bullying and slander?
Yet again, the gender bias in âmoral typecastingâ becomes important, as I mentioned in a previous comment here.
Highlighting that is an important crux (and one on which I have mixed feelings). Not all allegations of incorrect conduct rise to the level of âwhistleblowing.â A whistleblower brings alleged misconduct on a matter of public importance to light. We grant lots of protections in furtherance of that public interest, not out of regard for the whistleblowerâs private interests.
Is this a garden-variety dispute between an employer and two employees about terms of employment? Or is this a story about influential people allegedly using their power to mistreat two people who were in a vulnerable position which is of public import because it should update us on how much influence to allow those people?
In Australia people can be, and have been, prosecuted when they whistleblow on something commercially or otherwise sensitive (that was of major public importance!) by disclosing it publicly without completely exhausting internal whistleblowing processes. So even in cases of proper whistleblowing, countervailing factors can dominate in what the consequences are for whistleblower.
I think thatâs too strong? For example, under my amateur understanding of MA law I donât see anything about the anti-retailation provisions being conditional requiring a complaint to withstand scrutiny and fact-checking. And if this were changed to allow employers to retaliate in cases where employees claims were not sustained then I think weâd see, as a chilling effect, a decrease in employees raising true claims.
I agree that requiring that the claims be sustained would have a chilling effect. However, in many contexts, we donât extend protections to claims submitted in bad faith. For instance, we grant immunity from legal retaliation against people who file reports of child abuse . . . but that is usually conditioned on the allegations were made in good faith. If a reported individual can prove that the report was fabricated out of whole cloth, we donât shield the reporter from a defamation suit or other legal consequences.
Note that this is generally a subjective standardâif the reporter honestly believed the report was appropriate, we shield the reporter from liability. This doubtless allows some bad actors to slip through with immunity. However, we believe that is necessary to avoid reporters deciding not to report out of fear that someone will Monday-morning quarterback then and decide that reporting was objectively unreasonable.
In your example, I suspect that knowingly filing a false report with a state agency is a crime in MA (as it is with a federal agency at the federal level), so there is at least some potential enforcement mechanism for dealing with malicious lies.
(Correctly) surmising a lack of interest in writing a hypothetical expose about A/âC isnât quite the same thing as reaching a conclusion that the post shouldnât have been allowed to remain. However, I think there is a lot of overlap between the two; the reasons for lack of interest seem similar to the arguments for why the post shouldnât be allowed. So I think we are both somewhere vaguely near âthere would be no legitimate/âplausible reason for someone to write an expose about A/âC, unless one accepted that their whistleblowing activity made it legitimate.â
One interesting thing about this framing is that it raises the possibility that the whistleblowersâ identities are relevant to the decision. If a major figure in EA were going around telling malicious lies about other EAs, that would be (the subject of an appropriate post /â something people would be interested in writing about) independently of any specifically whistleblowing-retaliation angle.
One could stake out an anti-standing argument in which Nonlinear et al. would not be able to identify A/âC because we would be worried that vindictive or retaliatory desires were affecting their judgment, but an truly disinterested person (e.g., not friends of Nonlinear employees) could identify themâbecause they are likely to be acting from purer, less emotionally-invested motives (e.g., protection of the community from those they perceive as brazen liars). Iâm not endorsing that view, but it is interesting to ponder.
Continuing with your analogy, if you were a random person who found out about the employee filing with the AG independently of the employer, and you somehow were able to determine that the employee knowingly filed a false report out of (e.g.) racial animus, would it be OK for you to report the employee to the immigration authorities? [Asking ethically, not under MA law.]
Relatedly, your example relates to a situation with a significant power imbalance (employer/âemployee). It probably isnât illegal for me to report someone to the immigration authorities where my real motive is that they cheated on me, they cheated on my friend, etc. [I didnât specifically check that example.] So it seems that we often protect individuals exercising socially-important functions like whistleblowing from retaliation by some actors but not others.
All good points! Iâm quite conflicted here.