Sarah Wynn-Williams already faces financial penalties for speaking out against Meta — penalties she says "would ruin me and my family." So when she was invited to the Hay Festival, she sat on stage for over an hour in total silence to avoid breaching the legal order Meta obtained against her. Meta is now arguing that the attention her silence drew still amounted to speech and wants her fined for it. Our board chair, Mary Inman, told Patricia Clarke for this week’s Sunday The Observer UK that the lawsuit sends a signal to every current Meta employee: "If you speak out, we're going to try and find you." Our co-founder, Jennifer Gibson, put it in a broader context. Political blowback used to be a deterrent for tech companies. It’s what kept them from going after whistleblowers like Frances Haugen. Not anymore, she says: "The message Silicon Valley seemed to take from [the Trump Administration] was: if the federal government is going after their own whistleblowers, we can go after ours too." Tech companies shape our daily lives, yet remain largely black boxes. As Jennifer puts it, whistleblowers are “frankly our first and last line of defense.” When they’re silenced, so is public accountability. NDAs shouldn't be able to gag an employee for life. We need clear public-interest exceptions to their use. More in the comments 👇