Over the course of our engagement on data privacy and safeguarding policies, we encouraged the company to more clearly outline the steps it would take to solve the issues, and for its quarterly reporting to include information on how it is improving data privacy.
We also relayed our concerns with the dual-class share structure and executive compensation, and encouraged the company to accelerate board refreshment.
In 2022, we published and shared with the company the EOS Digital Rights Principles, which outline our expectations on privacy rights, freedom of expression, and other human rights specific to digital products and services.
We also met with the company prior to the annual meeting to consider its views prior to issuing our voting recommendations. Ultimately, our voting recommendations acknowledged some positive consideration of shareholder feedback while signaling our support for further changes at the company.
We welcomed the company publishing its first freestanding human rights report in 2022. The report provides some helpful information on policies and procedures, enhanced its bullying and harassment policy, enacted prohibitions against certain mass harassment or brigading, and expanded its policies that prohibit veiled and implicit threats.
However, we remain concerned that the business model—which correlates higher revenue with higher quantities of clicks, likes, posts, and shares—contributes to the spread of problematic content on its platforms.
The company appointed three new independent directors in 2020 and a fourth in 2022. However, we continue to question the continued presence of the dual-class share structure, as well as excessive quantum.
Following the publication of the company’s first human rights report, we would like the company to create videos and images describing its privacy policies and terms and conditions.
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