在接受硅谷公司的入職邀請后，可能會被要求簽一份保密協議。這些被學者們戲稱為“沉默合同”的文件以前只要求高管簽署，而今它在科技界卻像羊毛背心一樣隨處可見。

在谷歌、蘋果公司和亞馬遜等企業，所有低級別員工和承包商估計都要簽保密協議，供應商和訪客也不能例外。這種合同通常不會具體說明違約賠償金額，但有一點說的很清楚，那就是話太多的人可能會遭到起訴，不管他講的是別人的工資還是管理者的奇怪行為。

在科技行業最近出現的一系列爭議性事件中，保密協議都處于核心位置，這讓人們開始質疑其數量的激增和覆蓋范圍。雖然企業方面堅持說有必要簽署這樣的協議，但批評人士指出，在它們的威嚇下，人們都不敢提及科技行業的陰暗面。

當性騷擾指控在Uber等公司掀起波瀾時，一些科技從業者表示保密協議讓受害者無法直言不諱。當血液檢測初創公司Theranos的員工越發懷疑高層在騙人時，他們卻不敢公開發出警告。

今年2月，科技新聞網站The Verge刊登的一篇文章講述了時薪15美元的管理員們盡力為Facebook清理色情內容、暴力威脅和騷擾后感覺很受傷的故事，但所有當事人都不同意使用自己的真實姓名，原因也是保密協議。

情況并非一直如此。據從事保密協議研究的圣地亞哥大學法學教授奧利·洛貝爾介紹，這種協議在20世紀70年代流行起來，科技公司把它作為保護商業秘密的手段，而且這仍然是他們口中的主要目的。但從那以后，保密協議開始變成了控制員工和壓制批評的全能大棒。

洛貝爾說，近幾年公司甚至開始用保密協議來防止員工公開自己的薪酬，這是控制工資的妙招。這樣的封口令可能還會阻礙女性和少數族裔曝光自己在酬勞方面受到的不公平待遇，而且直到最近，許多科技公司仍然在淡化這個問題。

她指出：“公司試圖向員工發出的信號是所有東西都碰不得，都是公司專有的。”

這樣的局面可能不會在短時間內發生改變。雖然法律專家建議法官將許多覆蓋范圍寬廣的保密協議認定為不可執行，而且美國聯邦法律保護員工談論工作環境的權力，但這個問題幾乎沒有在法庭上受到過考驗。原因顯而易見。

韋德納大學的法學教授艾倫·加菲爾德長期以來一直在批評保密協議，他說：“這些協議有恐嚇別人的作用。也許你有很好的公共政策訴求，但誰想冒險讓那些厲害的律師威脅說要起訴自己呢？”

當然，保密協議并非不可撼動。加菲爾德提到了最近的“一些大壩決口”事件。比如去年，Uber在壓力之下不再要求涉及性騷擾事件的員工接受私下仲裁或另行簽署保密協議。批評人士一直將這些做法和這家科技公司濫用保密協議聯系在一起。

不過，這樣的事只是少數。對Facebook、谷歌、蘋果和亞馬遜等公司來說，它們盡量擴大保密協議覆蓋面的動力異常充足。這些公司均拒絕或尚未就本文發表評論。就算這樣的協議在法律上站不住腳，鬧到法庭上的可能性也非常小，而且即使讓人簽了最夸張的保密協議，也不會受到懲罰。同時，雖然即將入職的員工可以在談薪水時要求降低保密協議的約束力，但只有最勇敢（或最愚蠢）的人才會這樣做。

由此產生的結果就是，到目前為止，或許必須得由政界頭面人物發起對保密協議使用情況的核查。按照這樣的思路，美國各州的總檢察長已經開始鎖定限制跳槽員工的不正當競業禁止協議，而且理論上，如果公司將保密協議用在保護真正商業機密以外的地方，立法者就可以對其施以懲罰。

加菲爾德和洛貝爾都指出，旨在提高透明度并讓人暢所欲言的法律還包括舉報人保護法和所謂的反對針對公眾參與的策略性訴訟法案（通常會讓可笑的誹謗訴訟目標收到律師費）。但這樣的改革需要時間，也就是說科技公司仍然會要求所有入職人員簽署保密協議。（財富中文網）

本文另一版本登載于《財富》雜志2019年5月刊，標題為《別告訴任何人》。

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

Accept a Job at any Silicon Valley company, and chances are someone will ask you to sign a nondisclosure agreement. These documents, dubbed “contracts of silence” by academics, were once only required of senior managers, but today they are as common in the tech world as fleece vests.

At companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon, every low-level employee or contractor is expected to sign an NDA, and so are vendors and visitors. The contracts typically don’t specify a dollar figure for violating the terms, but they do make one thing clear: Anyone who talks too much—about anything from their salaries to their manager’s weird behavior—may be sued.

NDAs have played a central role in a number of recent tech industry controversies, raising new questions about their proliferation and scope. While businesses insist the agreements are necessary, critics say they scare people from talking about the darker sides of the industry.

When sexual harassment allegations roiled companies, including Uber, some tech workers blamed the agreements for preventing victims from speaking out. When employees at blood-testing startup Theranos grew suspicious about potential fraud by executives, they feared sounding the alarm publicly.

In February, tech-news site the Verge published an article about how Facebook moderators earning $15 a hour felt traumatized after trying to cleanse the service of porn, violent threats, and harassment. None would agree to reveal their real names, citing their NDAs.

It wasn’t always this way. According to Orly Lobel, a University of San Diego law professor who studies the agreements, NDAs became common in the 1970s as a way for tech firms to protect trade secrets, and that remains their main stated objective. Since then, however, they’ve morphed into an all-purpose cudgel to control employees and suppress criticism.

In recent years, Lobel says, companies have even started using them to prevent employees from publicly disclosing their salaries—a subtle attempt to cap wages. The muzzle could also thwart women and minorities from exposing unequal pay, a problem that many tech companies have, until recently, downplayed.

“The companies are trying to signal to employees that everything is off-limits and is proprietary,” says Lobel.

This situation is unlikely to change anytime soon. While legal experts suggest judges would declare many broad NDAs unenforceable, and federal laws protect employees’ right to discuss working conditions, the issue has barely been tested in court. The reason is obvious enough.

“These agreements have the effect of terrorizing people,” says Widener University law professor Alan Garfield, a longtime critic of NDAs. “Maybe you do have a good public policy claim, but who wants to risk having high-powered lawyers threatening to sue you?”

NDAs are not impregnable, of course. Garfield points to recent “breaches of the dam.” Under pressure last year, for example, Uber stopped requiring employees to enter private arbitration or sign separate NDAs in cases involving alleged sexual harassment, practices critics had linked to tech’s overuse of NDAs.

However, such examples are outliers. As for companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon, all of which declined to comment for this story or did not respond, they have every incentive to impose NDAs as widely as possible. Even if the contracts are on shaky legal ground, the possibility of a court challenge is remote, and there is no punishment for asking people to sign even the most outlandish NDAs. And while prospective employees could demand less restrictive NDAs as part of their salary negotiations, only the most brave (or foolish) would do so.

The upshot is that, for now, any checks on the use of NDAs may have to come from political leaders. In the same way that state attorneys general have begun to target the misuse of noncompete agreements that limit employees when switching jobs, lawmakers theoretically could punish companies that use NDAs for anything other than protecting bona fide trade secrets.

Both Garfield and Lobel also point to whistleblower laws and so-called anti-SLAPP statutes (which typically let targets of frivolous libel lawsuits collect attorney fees) as other examples of legislation aimed at promoting transparency and free speech. Such reforms take time, however, meaning tech companies will continue to require NDAs of all comers.

A version of this article appears in the May 2019 issue of Fortune with the headline “Don’t Tell Anyone.”