Neither government protections nor organizational policies cover all the scenarios where someone might reasonably want protection from negative effects of bringing a problem to light. But that seems to be the case in all industries, including in the nonprofit field in general, not something unusual about EA.
I think that is correct as far as it goes, but I suspect that the list of things you generally won’t get protection from (from your linked post) is significantly more painful in practice in EA than in most industries.
For example, although individuals dependent on small grants are probably particularly vulnerable to retaliation in ~all industries, that’s practically a much bigger hole in EA than elsewhere. The general unavailability of protection for disclosures about entities you don’t work for is more stifling in fields with a patchwork of mostly small-to-midsize orgs than in (say) the aerospace industry. Funding centralization could make retaliation easier to pull off.
So while the scope of coverage might be similar on paper in EA, it seems reasonably possible that the extent of protection as applied is unusually weak in EA.
I’m not aware of any EA organizations that provide financial rewards for whistleblowers, which seem like they’d be very tricky to administer without creating incentives you don’t want.
Agree, although those incentive problems could potentially be mitigated by limiting compensation to losses (e.g., loss of job, grant opportunity, an estimate of lost reputation) incurred due to good-faith whistleblowing activity that met specified criteria.
I think that is correct as far as it goes, but I suspect that the list of things you generally won’t get protection from (from your linked post) is significantly more painful in practice in EA than in most industries.
For example, although individuals dependent on small grants are probably particularly vulnerable to retaliation in ~all industries, that’s practically a much bigger hole in EA than elsewhere. The general unavailability of protection for disclosures about entities you don’t work for is more stifling in fields with a patchwork of mostly small-to-midsize orgs than in (say) the aerospace industry. Funding centralization could make retaliation easier to pull off.
So while the scope of coverage might be similar on paper in EA, it seems reasonably possible that the extent of protection as applied is unusually weak in EA.
Agree, although those incentive problems could potentially be mitigated by limiting compensation to losses (e.g., loss of job, grant opportunity, an estimate of lost reputation) incurred due to good-faith whistleblowing activity that met specified criteria.