World Whistleblower Day: The cost of exposing facts in the age of misinformation

Whistleblowers are a powerful force for integrity and transparency. They bring to light hidden wrongdoing, expose abuse of power, and help hold institutions and individuals to account. But in today’s world, where misinformation and disinformation campaigns flourish, whistleblowers find themselves doubly vulnerable. They become targets of coordinated attacks designed to undermine their credibility, intimidate them into silence, and manipulate the narrative in the court of public opinion.

These attacks come in many forms. Sophisticated online smear campaigns amplify falsehoods and foster doubts about the motives and character of the whistleblower. Defamation lawsuits, often called strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), are increasingly used to harass, intimidate, and discredit those who speak up. At the same time, from their unique vantage point within organisations, whistleblowers can cut through this fog of disinformation and expose not only fraud and abuse, but also the mechanisms by which misinformation is manufactured and deployed.

On World Whistleblower Day, we celebrate their indispensable role in strengthening integrity and upholding the public’s right to know. We also reflect on the growing need to protect these brave individuals from retaliation, online attacks, legal intimidation and even physical violence, because when whistleblowers are silenced, we all suffer a weakening of accountability, fairness, and trust in our institutions.

Take Sophie Zhang, a former data scientist for Facebook. She spent three years as part of a team in charge of identifying “fake engagement”. She uncovered how fake pages were used to manipulate political discourse in several countries across the globe, including Honduras, Azerbaijan, India, Ecuador, Italy, Poland, and Ukraine, finding clear evidence that inauthentic activity, such as fake likes and shares, was artificially boosting political leaders and drowning out legitimate debate.

Zhang reports that she repeatedly raised concerns with her managers, including senior leadership. With the exception of a handful of instances, she states that she was repeatedly told that resources were limited to follow up on all reports.

In 2020, after being fired from Facebook for “poor performance” – which she claims was due to her prioritising eradicating fake engagement over management orders – she wrote a memo detailing her findings and posted it in an internal channel – the note was later published by Buzzfeed.

Her revelations showed how the platform’s inaction allowed authoritarian regimes and corrupt officials to manipulate public perception. Zhang’s public stance came at a heavy cost. She faced immense pressure, risked legal action and her future career prospects.

During an interview with the Guardian, she described how the case had a high impact on her mental health. “It was just very overwhelming and frustrating. I tried to fix this problem within Facebook… I spoke to my manager, my manager’s manager, different teams, and everyone up to a company vice-president in great detail. I repeatedly tried to get people to fix things…” Despite this, Zhang continues to advocate for stronger regulation of online platforms.

Zhang is a trailblazer – but she hasn’t been the only one to blow the whistle about Facebook’s internal practices. Just a year later, Frances Haugen, another former employee, disclosed thousands of internal documents that would become known as The Facebook Files.

As a product manager on the civic misinformation team, Haugen saw firsthand how Facebook’s algorithms prioritised engagement even when it spread harmful content. She grew increasingly alarmed after the civic integrity team was dismantled in late 2020 and began collecting documents showing how leadership failed to act on internal warnings.

After resigning in May 2021, Haugen shared the documents with journalists and U.S. lawmakers. Her congressional testimony revealed the extent to which Facebook’s engagement-driven model expanded hate speech, misinformation and violence-inciting content.

While some whistleblowers uncover digital manipulation from inside global tech companies, others expose how disinformation spreads on the ground, sometimes at great personal risk. In the Central African Republic (CAR), journalist Ephrem Yalike-Ngonzo became the first person to provide a detailed account of Russia’s coordinated disinformation operation in the country.

In 2019, while working for the pro-government news site Le Potentiel Centrafricain, Yalike-Ngonzo was approached by a man linked to Wagner, a Russian paramilitary group operating in CAR. At first, he was asked to write pro-Russian stories praising military and humanitarian efforts. But by 2022, the expectations escalated. Yalike-Ngonzo states he was tasked with coordinating propaganda campaigns and covering up abuses committed by Wagner fighters.

He reports that when he was accused of leaking information to an independent outlet, he was abducted, taken to a remote forest, and interrogated, an experience that led him to secretly contact the journalist network Forbidden Stories. After receiving death threats, he went into hiding before fleeing the country with support from the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF). His revelations contributed to a major investigation, published in 2024, which exposed the full scale of Russia’s information warfare in CAR.

Whether challenging powerful tech companies or clandestine disinformation campaigns, whistleblowers like Zhang, Haugen, and Yalike-Ngonzo put their careers – and sometimes their lives – on the line to bring the truth to light. Their actions illuminate wrongdoing, expose abuse, and help societies confront problems that would otherwise remain hidden.

But honouring their courage means more than simply praising their resolve. It means strengthening legal safeguards, creating robust institutional support, and establishing clear and safe channels for whistleblowers to come forward. Without these measures, the future of accountability hangs in the balance. When we empower those who speak up in the face of injustice, we safeguard not only their well-being but also the health of our democracies. The price of silence is far greater – a world in which misinformation, secrecy, and impunity flourish unhindered.

Frances Haugen spoke to TIME in November 2021 about how Facebook’s algorithms amplify harm and why she chose to come forward: Watch it here.

In April 2021, Sophie Zhang told The Guardian how her attempts to stop political manipulation on Facebook were ignored and what it cost her: Watch it here.