{"id":918,"date":"2018-05-30T12:17:49","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T10:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=918"},"modified":"2018-06-01T12:21:31","modified_gmt":"2018-06-01T10:21:31","slug":"angry-facebook-shareholders-challenge-zuckerberg-over-corporate-dictatorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=918","title":{"rendered":"Angry Facebook shareholders challenge Zuckerberg over &#8216;corporate dictatorship&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the months since Facebook faced one of the greatest crises in its 14-year history over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, its chief executive,\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/mark-zuckerberg\" data-link-name=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Mark Zuckerberg<\/a>, has faced tough questioning and increased scrutiny from his users, the media and governments around the world.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, the billionaire executive faced another challenge: from angry shareholders at the company\u2019s annual meeting, where activist investors had forced votes on six proposals to change the company\u2019s governance or institute other reforms.<\/p>\n<p>And while Zuckerberg and his board of directors escaped the election unscathed \u2013 a foregone conclusion thanks to the company\u2019s unequal voting structure \u2013 the event provided a platform for stinging rebukes of their leadership.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-2 | 1\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-news--item rich-link--pillar-news\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more-text\">The tone was set just minutes into the meeting, when an attendee interrupted the meeting chair to complain that the shareholders would not be able to speak until after voting was over.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cShareholder democracy is already lacking at\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/facebook\" data-link-name=\"auto-linked-tag\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Facebook<\/a>,\u201d the woman argued, before her microphone was turned off.<\/p>\n<p>Another attendee, Christine Jantz of Northstar Asset Management, said: \u201cIf privacy is a human right, as stated by Microsoft\u2019s CEO, then we contend that Facebook\u2019s poor stewardship of customer data is tantamount to a human rights violation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jantz was speaking in favor of a proposal to reform Facebook\u2019s stockholder voting structure. Under Facebook\u2019s current structure, Zuckerberg controls the majority of voting shares despite not owning a majority of the company, because his shares have 10 times the voting power of the shares available to regular investors.<\/p>\n<div id=\"dfp-ad--inline1\" class=\"js-ad-slot ad-slot ad-slot--inline ad-slot--inline1 ad-slot--rendered\" data-link-name=\"ad slot inline1\" data-name=\"inline1\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-mobile=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|300,274|fluid\" data-desktop=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|620,1|620,350|300,274|fluid\" data-google-query-id=\"CMOWqvWestsCFQsX4AodY_0P6A\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/59666047\/theguardian.com\/technology\/article\/ng_6__container__\" class=\"ad-slot__content\">\n<div class=\"unruly_in_article_placement\" data-unruly-ad-type=\"horizontal\">\n<div class=\"unruly_ia_bottombar\">Jantz blamed that structure for enabling problems like the Cambridge Analytica scandal, calling it an \u201cegregious example of when a board is formed by a CEO to meet his needs\u201d rather than those of investors.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Will Lana of Trillium Asset Management said that his firm had identified \u201cat least 15 distinct controversies\u201d facing the company as he spoke in favor of a proposal to change the board\u2019s approach to risk management.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe proof of the current structure\u2019s inadequacies is on display in the current headlines,\u201d Lana said.<\/p>\n<p>James McRitchie, a shareholder activist, spoke in favor of a proposal to change the voting structure from what he called a \u201ccorporate dictatorship\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr Zuckerberg, take a page from history,\u201d he said. \u201cEmulate George Washington, not Vladimir Putin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his own remarks, Zuckerberg sounded familiar notes from the recent apology tour that has seen him appear before the US Congress and European parliament as he discussed the various challenges the company faces.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe big theme we\u2019re focused on is making sure we take a broader view of our responsibility to everyone we serve,\u201d Zuckerberg said, before discussing the company\u2019s various initiatives to increase advertising transparency, improve content moderation, and prevent interference in elections.<\/p>\n<p>During a question and answer session, Facebook\u2019s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, made one new announcement \u2013 that the company would adopt a \u201c<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.fb.com\/news\/2017\/08\/facebook-diversity-update-building-a-more-diverse-inclusive-workforce\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">diverse slate approach<\/a>\u201d when it comes to choosing members of its board of directors. The approach, akin to the NFL\u2019s \u201cRooney Rule\u201d, requires hiring managers to consider candidates from underrepresented groups when filling an open position.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook added the first non-white member, the American Express CEO, Kenneth Chenault, to its board in January. In May, the company announced that Jeff Zients, former director of Barack Obama\u2019s National Economic Council, would replace the WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum on the board.<\/p>\n<p>source:https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2018\/may\/31\/facebook-shareholder-meeting-mark-zuckerberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the months since Facebook faced one of the greatest crises in its 14-year history over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, its chief executive,\u00a0Mark Zuckerberg, has faced tough questioning and increased scrutiny from his users, the media and governments around the world. On Thursday, the billionaire executive faced another challenge: from angry shareholders at the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}