Washington (AFP) – Being a whistleblower comes down to careful preparation but also an eye trained for dirty tricks, said Ifeoma Ozoma, an ex-employee of several Silicon Valley giants turned revealer of tech world wrongdoing.
"I planned it like a program or product launch. Obviously the experience is something very personal, but I approached it like work," she told AFP.
While Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen has become a figurehead for the fight against social media's faults, there are others in the tech world, like Ozoma, who have also taken big risks to stand up.
An African-American, former policymaker relations specialist for Google, Pinterest and Facebook, she continues to work for ethics in tech, but from the outside, via her consulting firm Earthseed.
She has marked a first big success via the recent adoption in California of a law she co-sponsored, called "Silenced No More."
Starting in January, this law will prohibit employers from using confidentiality clauses to prevent victims of harassment or discrimination in the workplace from speaking out.
In mid-October, she posted online a guide for whistleblowers.
"The difference with tech companies and other industries is on the power that they wield, but also they pretend they're better for workers, consumers, society than more traditional industries," she told AFP. "That's just not borne out in reality."
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