Stakeholders at businesses worldwide listened attentively last week as a former Facebook product manager testified before a Senate subcommittee about, among other things, the company's purported knowledge of Instagram's impact on young users of the app. Frances Haugen, who worked on issues regarding civic integrity while at Facebook, also released thousands of pages of research and internal documentation suggesting Facebook knew about an array of problems associated with Instagram, including its allegedly toxic effect on teens.
Some speculate that Ms. Haugen's appearance before Congress could be related to the coinciding service outage across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp on October 4, a disruption that cost Facebook approximately $50 billion in market cap loss, as well as $99.75 million in income during the six hours-plus the sites were down—this according to Fortune.
Clearly, not every company faces Facebook-type risks or notoriety in the wake of a whistleblower speaking out. Nevertheless, the threat that whistleblower complaints pose to businesses across industries requires companies large and small to prepare for inevitable claims.
Best practices dictate that companies develop and implement policies and processes to respond to whistleblower complaints. But what should be done in the event a whistleblower surfaces before those procedures are in place? Here are five (or so) immediate action steps businesses should keep front of mind.
Not...
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The Buffalo Club, a private city club that has operated for more than 150 years, has agreed to pay $1.5 million to resolve claims that it falsely represented its eligibility...