Whistling at the Fake - Rountable (Private Sector)

WHISTLING AT THE FAKE
INTERNATIONAL ROUNDTABLE
Mal- Mis- Disinformation and the Private Sector

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On the 25th of February 2022, it was held the Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Mal- Mis- Disinformation and the Private Sector.“ The event aimed at exploring a series of burning issues including methods or techniques used to spread malinformation, misinformation, and disinformation; the legal relevance of and the economic interests behind such phenomena; the role of social media platforms in spreading misleading or fake information; contaminated research; COVID-19 pandemic and fake news; and the role of whistleblowers in unveiling malinformation, misinformation, and disinformation.

The event was organized by the project Principal Investigator, Dr. Costantino Grasso, who is Associate Professor of Law at Manchester Law School and moderated by Prof. Diane Rin g, who is Interim Dean and Professor of Law, Boston College Law School.

The Rountable was divided into three interconnected sessions. The video recordings of all sessions of the Roundtable are available below.

Suggested Citation

APA: [Speaker's surname, initial(s)] (2022, January 28). Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Mal- Mis- Disinformation and the Private Sector“. Session I, video recording at 27:56. Retrieved from https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector.

HARVARD: [Speaker's surname, initial(s)] (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Mal- Mis- Disinformation and the Private Sector“ [Online]. Session I, video recording at 27:56. Available at: https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector.

OSCOLA: [Speaker's name and surname] ‘Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Mal- Mis- Disinformation and the Private Sector“’ (Corporate Crime Observatory, 28 January 2022), Session I, video recording at 27:56, <https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector>.

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Panelists

Moderator:
• Diane Ring – Interim Dean of Faculty and Professor of Law at Boston College Law School

Panelists:
• Sarah “Poppy” Alexander – Lawyer and Partner at Constantine Cannon LLP
• Karim Amer – Film Producer and Director: The Square (2013), The Great Hack (2019)
• Maurizio Bianchini – Associate Professor of Business Law at University of Padova
• Martin Bright – Investigative Journalist
• Branislav Hock – Senior Lecturer in Economic Crime at the University of Portsmouth
• Mary Inman – Lawyer and Partner at Constantine Cannon LLP
• Joseph A. McCahery – Professor of International Economic Law at Tilburg University

• Daniel T. Ostas – Professor of International Economic Law at Tilburg University
• Ryan Smerek – Associate Professor in Organizational Change Program at Northwestern University
• Claire Warlde – Professor of the Practice at Brown University; Director of First Draft News

Principal Investigator and Scientific Coordinator:
• Costantino Grasso – Associate Professor of Law at Manchester Metropolitan University

Interactive Table of Contents - Session I

Opening Remarks (Dr. Costantino Grasso)
Panel Introduction (Prof. Diane Ring)
Panel 1 – Topic 1: Exploring the phenomenon
Panel 1 – Topic 2: Facebook and the Silicon Valley Seduction
Panel 1 – Topic 3: The long-term threat of disinformation
Panel 1 – Topic 4: Legal barriers to unveiling the truth
Panel 1 – Topic 5: Inequality of arms in legal proceedings
Panel 1 – Topic 6: Disinformation and conspiracy theories

Session 1 - Select Opinions and Arguments
(click on the specific timestamp in the citation for a direct link to the relevant part of the discussion)

The story of Cicero, the brilliant lawyer and greatest orator of the late Roman Republic, who was caught and killed by Mark Antony’s soldiers as a sign of revenge for his speeches and writings, makes it clear that the battle for truth has ancient origins. However, the advent of the Digital Age, which has given us access to information at the touch of a button, has made us vulnerable to new forms and means of manipulation of truth, which may have far-reaching and harmful consequences for our societies (Grasso, 2022).

Suggested citation: Grasso, Costantino (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 02:21. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

The concept of misinformation and disinformation were useful in 2016, now the situation is more complex. Broader terms like "information disorder" may capture a variety of phenomena including "malinformation", which is genuine information that is used to cause harm (Wardle, 2022).

Suggested citation: Wardle, Claire (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 17:34. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

The combination of an aggressive libel culture and the collapse of traditional journalistic approaches as well as their financial models is making it particularly difficult to report on wrongdoing (Bright, 2022).

Suggested citation: Bright, Martin (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 19:17. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

The case of Ashley Gjøvik, who is known as the Apple whistleblower, demonstrates how powerful corporations may unduly influence the press hindering journalists from reporting freely about these kinds of events (Bright, 2022).

Suggested citation: Bright, Martin (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 20:58. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

The case of the American data scientist and Facebook whistleblower Sophie Zhang, who unveiled how at Facebook there was an entire team working on preventing potential disinformation in elections within Western democracies, however, she was assigned alone to prevent such a phenomenon in the rest of the world, making it clear how problematic the role that social media platforms can be in the area of disinformation (Inman, 2022).

Suggested citation: Inman, Mary (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 28:28. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Social media giants tend to invest more in the prevention of disinformation in countries where they believe they may face a risk of regulation. Even if they were unprepared, to maximize their profits they expanded their activities in countries they had no possibility to monitor like Myanmar and Kazakhstan; at the same time, people have been seduced by the tech-utopian idea of connecting the entire world, which was conceived in the Silicon Valley. Society did not react in time and let the monster grow too big without applying proper solutions, such as the establishment of a global regulatory authority (Wardle, 2022).

Suggested citation: Wardle, Claire (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 30:02. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Although the multifaceted issue of disinformation has been with us forever, the problem of manipulation of information appears to have become more acute over the course of the last few years. For instance, the idea of fake news has been used so often during the Trump administration that it has saturated the whole society and people have started to distrust all sorts of news (Ostas, 2022).

Suggested citation: Ostas, Daniel (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 34:16. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Although the phenomenon of disinformation is not new, a serious issue is represented by the fact that now technology has generated an amplification effect making it easy and free for a single individual, even inexperienced, to potentially spread a piece of disinformation all over the globe in real-time (Wardle, 2022).

Suggested citation: Wardle, Claire (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 35:52. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

As Carole Cadwalladr's case demonstrates, the fourth estate is under assault. The strategic legal actions against journalists are effective in silencing the press (Amer, 2022).

Suggested citation: Amer, Karim (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 41:31. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

The film industry, like the platforms on the internet, has become quite balkanized. For example, you cannot depict as a "villain" a country that is relevant for your economic interest. Some companies such as Netflix are even adapting their content to the local context, like what they did in Russia (Amer, 2022).

Suggested citation: Amer, Karim (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 44:10. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

A point that has to be addressed is investigating how much money companies like Facebook make when they publish potentially misleading information, and how much this behavior is embedded in their business model (Amer, 2022).

Suggested citation: Amer, Karim (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 51:08. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Big firms are not scared of lawsuits because they know how to fight them and they have lawyers lined up to act upon their behalf. What does scare them more is the potential reputational damage generated by the dissemination of pieces of information through social media (Alexander, 2022).

Suggested citation: Alexander, Sarah "Poppy" (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 51:57. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

The case of Matt Rivitz, who started a Twitter account called Sleeping Giants that aimed at alerting advertisers whose ads were appearing on Breitbart and convinced more than 4,000 companies to take their ads off that site because of the hate speech, is emblematic of how the same social media platforms may be used as a leverage to fight against hostile information (Inman, 2022).

Suggested citation: Inman, Mary (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 53:46. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

We have to make a distinction between what social media platforms do and what bad actors do. Then, what has to be evaluated is the degree to which platforms enable bad actors and are reliant on bad actors because they are actually financially incentivized by those bad actors. Bad actors will always be there, what needs to be fixed is the platforms' business model (Amer, 2022).

Suggested citation: Amer, Karim (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 58:43. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

We have always had conspiracy theories, but they have always been on the fringe. However, in the last two years, what has been so concerning is seeing these pretty obscure ideas move very much into large mainstream Facebook groups. Unfortunately, these conspiracy theories give us something like a sense of agency, the sense that it is not your fault that the world has turned upside down. The persistent lack of accountability for all the recurring financial and political scandals has exacerbated such a tendency in our society (Wardle, 2022).

Suggested citation: Wardle, Claire (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 01:05:55. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

What is really problematic, especially for journalists, is how to deal with conspiracy theories that are weaponized by bad actors or state actors. For example, the conspiracy theories about Syria or about whether or not certain war crimes have been perpetrated by the Assad regime (Bright, 2022).

Suggested citation: Bright, Martin (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 01:10:21. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

There is a difference between protecting the right to freedom of expression, and profiting from spreading misleading or fake information. This is a problem that affects capitalism and we should aim at curbing the financial incentives connected to such a phenomenon (Amer, 2022).

Suggested citation: Amer, Karim (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 1 [Online]. Video recording at 01:12:29. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Interactive Table of Contents - Session II

Panel 2 – Topic 1: Disinformation and Corporate Power
Panel 2 – Topic 2: Legal actions against journalists
Panel 2 – Topic 3: Asymmetry of information and disclosure
Panel 2 – Topic 4: Corporate transparency
Panel 2 – Topic 5: Media independence
Panel 2 – Topic 6: Contaminated research

Session 2 - Select Opinions and Arguments
(click on the specific timestamp in the citation for a direct link to the relevant part of the discussion)

ExxonMobil is currently using a rather obscure Texas law, known as rule 202, to pursue legal action against a number of municipalities or municipal officers in California who had accused Exxon and others of breaking state law by misrepresenting or burying evidence including evidence from its own scientists regarding climate change. In such a way, the company is trying to pressure and intimidate the California litigants (Ring, 2022).

Suggested citation: Ring, Diane (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 02:51. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

It is terrifying when corporations use their power to try to silence people, like when giant oil companies use RICO suits against the various state attorney generals for trying to regulate climate change. At the same time, these examples show us the power of collective action. Companies are scared when these different groups get together, and sometimes this induces them to find an obscure piece of legislation, a sort of anti-law that no one had ever heard of before - like the Texas rule 202, and use it to threaten the activists (Alexander, 2022).

Suggested citation: Alexander, Sarah "Poppy" (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 05:00. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Another example of a corporation using a lawsuit to try to suppress an inquiry about misleading information is Nike v. Kasky when Nike claimed that its statements were noncommercial speech on matters of public concern and thus were constitutionally protected under the first amendment (Ostas, 2022).

Suggested citation: Ostas, Daniel (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 06:05. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

As the case of Carole Cadwalladr in the UK teaches us, lawyers who work for corporate entities or the ultra-rich are just becoming much more sophisticated at realizing where the weak points lie. What's ingenious about this case is that they have realized that, as a freelancer, she is extremely vulnerable and so they have attacked her personally. They have not sued the newspaper or Carole on the material that she used in her newspaper articles, but they attacked her for what she said during a TED talk on Twitter (Bright, 2022).

Suggested citation: Bright, Martin (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 12:27. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Asymmetry of information in the corporate world is a real issue and our best weapon to fight it is represented by whistleblowers, who are people from the inside that can expose when the firms’ internal communications don't match the external communications. The best way we can get whistleblowers out is to have rules that impose the duty to disclose. For example, if the SEC determines that the duty to disclose climate misinformation is material to investor decisions, we will have a path through which to apply the SEC whistleblower program for that kind of information (Alexander, 2022).

Suggested citation: Alexander, Sarah "Poppy" (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 21:52. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Imposing a duty to disclose or a certain level of corporate transparency is extremely challenging. For example, the US Corporate Transparency Act has been circulating through Congress for years, but it was only the “FinCEN files” investigation that triggered its adoption. The “FinCEN files” was brought about by a whistleblower - Natalie Edwards, who now sits in jail and leaked information about the US FinCEN financial criminal enforcement system. It basically emerged that banks are facilitating money laundering by slow-walking some of the suspicious activity reports. So, we must acknowledge the positive origins of these leaks and the important role of collaborative journalism (Inman, 2022).

Suggested citation: Inman, Mary (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 24:57. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

When we speak about the independence of media, an interesting comparison could be traced between what was supposed to be a potential solution for developing countries consisting in putting in charge a benevolent dictator and the situation we have now in the West where you go from one benevolent billionaire to another. This is indicative of the polarization and failure of our societies (Amer, 2022).

Suggested citation: Amer, Karim (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 36:40. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Concerning “contaminated” research, there is the case of Dr. Elisabeth Bik, who is an accomplished and independent microbiologist that for years has looked at research that was potentially contaminated. She was able to set her sights on the hydroxychloroquine studies and so that was at a time when Bolsonaro and Brazil and Trump were relying on hydroxychloroquine at the height of the pandemic as it was going to be our magic bullet. Although she unveiled the inaccuracies and lack of integrity of some hydroxychloroquine studies, she felt like a lone voice, and she was attacked in the most vicious way and had also to deal with lawsuits (Inman, 2022).

Suggested citation: Inman, Mary (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 51:08. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Another example that shows how pervasive could be the seduction of Silicon Valley and how the funding of big universities can contaminate research is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) food computer scandal. There was a principal research scientist - Caleb Harper, who was promoting a so-called food computer that was supposed to create the fourth agricultural revolution. It basically did not work, and all advertisement was basically fake and misleading. It is shocking to see that an institution like MIT may allow these things to happen and that everything was stopped only after that an insider blew the whistle (Inman, 2022).

Suggested citation: Inman, Mary (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 54:37. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

The way in which corporations and platforms are funding non-profits and universities to do research or projects and the soft power they may exert has to be discussed, especially in the misinformation space (Wardle, 2022).

Suggested citation: Wardle, Claire (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 57:46. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Interactive Table of Contents - Session III

Panel 3 – Topic 1: Disinformation and COVID-19 pandemic
Panel 3 – Topic 2: The position of Big Pharma
Panel 3 – Topic 3: Whistleblowers unveiling the truth
Panel 3 – Topic 4: Non-legal approaches to whistleblowing
Panel 3 – Topic 5: Institutional shareholder vs disinformation
Panel 3 – Topic 6: Deficiencies in protecting whistleblowers
Panel 3 – Topic 7: The role of film industry

Session 3 - Select Opinions and Arguments
(click on the specific timestamp in the citation for a direct link to the relevant part of the discussion)

Over the course of the pandemic, we witnessed a significant increase in instances of whistleblowing. Considering the reasons for this, a lot of people lost their jobs, and this simplifies the typical loyalty dilemmas that potential whistleblowers often face, or the fact they have a pay check so it’s difficult to speak up and jeopardise that, so they may have felt freer to make disclosures (Inman, 2022).

Suggested citation: Inman, Mary (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 04:18. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

We have had the normal whistleblower profile change to people who were only in their jobs for a short period of time, and it may be due to everyone being separated from their organisation so it changes the culture, so it’s possibly far faster and easier for people to see that things are wrong, and they don’t have the same loyalty (Alexander, 2022).

Suggested citation: Alexander, Sarah "Poppy" (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 05:57. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Consering the relationship between misinformation and the pandemic, misinformation right now is a matter of life or death. People are dying because they believe in misleading information and that is bringing to attention the importance of misinformation to the general public (Alexander, 2022).

Suggested citation: Alexander, Sarah "Poppy" (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 08:05. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

In terms of UK democracy, there have been some serious questions to answer. The pandemic has uncovered astonishing levels of fraud and corruption within the UK that come very close to the government, and this has been immensely shocking (Bright, 2022).

Suggested citation: Bright, Martin (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 09:46. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

There has been some concern around the proportionality of secrecy in the corporate contracts used by pharmaceutical companies when supplying vaccines to EU member states, especially around pricing. The justification for this was ‘trade secrecy’ and protection from anti-trust or cartel issues should they be made public, however, these are now being abused in order to obscure information that should be in the public sphere (Bianchini, 2022).

Suggested citation: Bianchini, Maurizio (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 18:22. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

One thing that may motivate a whistleblower is the high value they’ve placed on reason and truth, and they’re willing to trade off the benefits of being part of the group for the high value they’ve placed on the truth (Smerek, 2022).

Suggested citation: Smerek, Ryan (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 22:38. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

As many cases have taught us, including Theranos, a major barrier that whistleblowers face is not only the threat of the resources that large companies have to engage in character assassination, but the risks posed by SLAPP suits and legal actions for breach of confidentiality agreements, theft of documents, or theft of trade secrets, amongst others (Inman, 2022).

Suggested citation: Inman, Mary (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 25:39. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

There is a psychological factor to being the only person calling out the truth about wrongdoing and everyone else is telling you it’s not a problem, and that can make you feel a little crazy. The self-doubt that comes from this is very hard to overcome, especially when companies are very good at providing assurances of legitimacy. This is a huge mental barrier to overcome (Alexander, 2022).

Suggested citation: Alexander, Sarah "Poppy" (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 27:58. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

From all the work I have done on documentaries like "The Great Hack," I have learned that it is extremely terrifying for people that would like to unveil misdeeds or serious issues to find themselves lonely and without any support or guidance to make disclosures in the public interest. That is why we as a community need to support them more (Amer, 2022).

Suggested citation: Amer, Karim (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 28:52. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Social support is an important first step to empowering whistleblowers by letting them know they’re not alone (Smerek, 2022).

Suggested citation: Smerek, Ryan (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 34:49. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Solidarity is extemely important. As we have learned from the Theranos case, corporations know that and try to isolate the individual who is reporting. Also, often people don’t realise they’re a whistleblower when they report internally, they think they’re just doing their job by letting the company know where something is wrong until the company closes ranks around them to send a strong message to others, to not report identified issues (Inman, 2022).

Suggested citation: Inman, Mary (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 38:08. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Effective legal reform to empower whistleblowers must be multifaceted in some way, by example through knowing that if they are retaliated against regulatory agencies will aggressively support them and have their back (Alexander, 2022).

Suggested citation: Alexander, Sarah "Poppy" (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 40:45. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

While reward programmes to encourage people are important, they don’t stand alone and are coupled with regulatory protections against retaliation. One important thing they have done in the EU to strengthen protections is shifted the retaliation burden of proof, and put this on the employer to prove they have not engaged in retaliation (Inman, 2022).

Suggested citation: Inman, Mary (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 43:03. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Shareholders are increasingly able to hold corporate leaders to account, i.e., the exit voice mechanism is becoming much more substantial in index funds, for example on attacking greenwashing of mutual funds or pharma washing, and we are seeing this produce some interim results (McCahery, 2022).

Suggested citation: McCahery, Joseph (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 46:16. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

There exists a lack of discussion and focus on the use of coordinated misinformation and disinformation by governments and politicians running black ops, or using PR firms to orchestrate coordinated inauthentic behaviors (Wardle 2022).

Suggested citation: Wardle, Claire (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 48:31. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

There remains a lot of public distrust of whistleblowers, and there remains a lot of focus on the motive of the whistleblower, as opposed to the fabric of the information disclosed, even when there is no clear benefit to whistleblowing (Alexander, 2022).

Suggested citation: Alexander, Sarah "Poppy" (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 3 [Online]. Video recording at 51:30. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

Films can curate and frame who our heroes are, and in a world where Marvel governs what heroism looks like these days, we need to find alternative stories and elevate them to the highest level to be able to frame whistleblowing as having a benefit to society and helping people (Amer, 2022).

Suggested citation: Amer, Karim (2022) Whistling at the Fake International Roundtable “Disinformation and the Private Sector“, Session 2 [Online]. Video recording at 58:17. Available at https://www.corporatecrime.co.uk/whistling-at-the-fake-roundtable-private-sector

WHISTLING AT THE FAKE INTERNATIONAL ROUNDTABLE Mal- Mis- Disinformation and the Private Sector

WHISTLING AT THE FAKE
INTERNATIONAL ROUNDTABLE
Mal- Mis- Disinformation and the Private Sector