Amber Scorah knows only too well that powerful stories can change societyand that powerful organizations will try to undermine those who tell them. While working at a media outlet that connects whistleblowers with journalists, she noticed parallels in the coercive tactics used by groups trying to suppress information. "There is a sort of playbook that powerful entities seem to use over and over again," she says. "You expose something about the powerful, they try to discredit you, people in your community may ostracize you." In September 2024, Scorah cofounded Psst, a nonprofit that helps people in the tech industry or the government share information of public interest with extra protections"with lots of options for specifying how the information gets used and how anonymous a person stays. Psst's main offering is a "digital safe""which users access through an anonymous end-to-end encrypted text box hosted on Psst.org, where they can enter a description of their concerns. What makes Psst unique is something it calls its "information escrow" system"users have the option to keep their submission private until someone else shares similar concerns about the same company or organization. Combining reports from multiple sources defends against some of the isolating effects of whistleblowing and makes it harder for companies to write off a story as the grievance of a disgruntled employee, says Psst cofounder Jennifer Gibson.
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