A letter was sent to Meta’s general secretary on behalf of several shareholders of the group. They complain about repeated scandals and ask for more monitoring, especially on issues that involve Mark Zuckerberg’s group on social issues.
Meta shareholders want change
In this document obtained by Axios, the shareholders ask the board of directors of Meta to “Commission an independent assessment”, with the aim of measure capacity and performance of the audit and risk monitoring committee, which they consider to be too ineffective. They particularly complain about the repeated scandals and are tired of seeing that the Meta group is doing nothing to make it better. Since the Cambridge Analytica affair in 2016, scandals have followed one another …
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More recently, there is notably the subject of the Facebook Files, documents obtained by Frances Haugen. The former Facebook employee denounces in particular the propensity of the social network to prioritize profit over user safety, the lack of transparency of a company judge and party, the need for a reform coming from the States to regulate the platform. There is also a topic on Facebook’s role in the Rohingya genocide.
Other documents unveiled in 2021 revealed that Meta’s internal “Crosscheck” or “XCheck” programs made it possible to apply specific moderation rules to a list of personalities. According to Wall street journal, 5.8 million people would have benefited in 2020 from preferential treatment. Among them, celebrities, political figures, prominent Internet users, as well as journalists and activists …
A sword in the water ?
In January 2021, Facebook was accused of playing a key role in taking the Capitol. According to the FBI, a far-right militia even used Messenger to coordinate its attack on the Capitol. A few weeks later, shareholders sued the group for paying too high a fine to the FTC, in an attempt, they said, to protect Mark Zuckerberg from increased government scrutiny. Over the summer, President Joe Biden also criticized the company for not taking a sufficiently aggressive stance against vaccine misinformation.
Harrington Investments and the Park Foundation are among the investors who want to shake things up. This isn’t the first time Meta has faced requests for surveillance. In 2018, another action led to the creation of the audit and risk monitoring committee. Shareholders who want change have already tabled several proposals in this direction. They were all rejected. In short, the fight is far from won for disgruntled shareholders.