Meta Shareholders Represented by Proxy
Impact—Including Lead Filer Lisette Cooper, PhD, Vice Chair of
Fiduciary Trust International—Seek to Protect Children and the
Long-Term Financial Performance of Meta
Fiduciary Trust International, a global wealth manager and
wholly-owned subsidiary of Franklin Templeton, announces that Meta
shareholder Lisette Cooper, PhD, vice chair, has filed a resolution
for shareholders to vote upon at Meta’s annual meeting in Menlo
Park, CA on May 29, 2024.
The proposal, filed on behalf of Dr. Cooper and other Meta
shareholders by Proxy Impact, calls on Meta’s Board of Directors
to, within one year, adopt targets for reducing dangers and threats
to children on its global social media platforms, as well as
quantitative metrics for assessing the company’s improvement in
this area. The resolution also calls for Meta’s Board of Directors
to ensure these targets and performance metrics are published in an
annual report, enabling investors and stakeholders to judge how
effective Meta’s tools, policies, and actions for protecting
children have been.
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis, the
two largest proxy advisory services, both recommend voting for the
resolution.
“Meta is the largest social media company in the world, with
billions of users, but its platforms—including Facebook, Instagram,
Messenger, and WhatsApp—have been shown to pose a variety of
physical and psychological risks to children and teens,” said
Lisette Cooper, PhD, vice chair of Fiduciary Trust
International. “As a parent, and an investor, with a deep
personal connection to this issue, I support this shareholder
resolution as a meaningful step to encourage Meta’s leadership to
do more to protect the young people who use its platforms—which we
believe will also protect the long-term security of shareholders’
investments.”
Meta’s social media platforms have been linked to many dangers
to the physical and mental wellbeing of children and teenagers.
These range from sextortion, grooming, and human trafficking to
cyberbullying, harassment, exposure to sexual or violent content,
depression, anxiety, self-harm, and self-image distortion.
- The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported
that its CyberTipline received nearly 36 million reports of online
exploitation of children in 2023, including child sexual abuse
material, child sex trafficking, and online enticement—and almost
31 million of them came from Meta platforms.
- A Wall Street Journal investigation published in June 2023
found that Meta’s algorithms for Instagram guide pedophiles to
sellers of child sexual abuse materials, essentially “connecting a
vast pedophile network.”
- Meta has also begun end-to-end encryption of Facebook
Messenger, despite warnings from law enforcement and child safety
organizations that doing so will hide millions of reports of child
sexual abuse materials—masking the actions of predators, and making
children more vulnerable.
- In the wake of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on social
media and youth mental health, 42 U.S. state attorneys general have
filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming Facebook and Instagram
algorithms are designed to intentionally make the platforms
addictive, and that they harm young people’s mental health.
- In September 2022, Meta was fined €405 million, or just over
$400 million, by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission for not
safeguarding children’s information on Instagram.
“The Internet is like the Wild West for children and teens. Meta
and other social media companies need to do more to prevent their
technology from being weaponized against their youngest users,”
said Michael Passoff, chief executive officer of Proxy
Impact. “The more tech companies try to evade responsibility
for the harm caused by algorithms designed to maximize user
engagement, the more the world is fighting back. Shareholders in
Meta and other social media companies can make an enormous
difference by raising their voices against business practices that
treat children as collateral damage.”
If Meta does not sufficiently address child safety issues, it
faces potential financial, regulatory, and legal penalties under
new legislation in the U.S., U.K., and European Union.
- The E.U.’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, which
went into effect in February 2024, will require companies like Meta
to identify, report, and remove child sexual abuse materials.
- The U.K.’s Online Safety Act of 2023 includes measures to keep
children and other online users safe from harmful and fraudulent
content.
- In this country, the REPORT Act was signed into law on May 7,
2024. The legislation will strengthen the capabilities of the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s national
tipline to collect reports of online exploitation, and require the
reports and evidence to be preserved for a longer period—thereby
giving law enforcement more time to investigate and prosecute.
Dr. Cooper’s daughter Sarah is a founding member of the Brave
Movement and has been deeply involved in the Heat Initiative’s
campaign as a survivor/lived experience expert. She is a survivor
of child sexual abuse by an older man who misrepresented himself on
Facebook Messenger. Sarah Cooper has spoken at two of Meta’s
previous annual meetings.
Dr. Cooper is also a member of the Interfaith Center on
Corporate Responsibility’s working group on child safety and
technology. Since 2019, Proxy Impact and Dr. Cooper have worked
with members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
to empower investors to utilize their leverage to encourage Meta
and other tech companies to strengthen child safety measures on
social media.
About Fiduciary Trust International
Fiduciary Trust International, a global wealth management firm
headquartered in New York, NY, has served individuals, families,
endowments and foundations since 1931. With over $102 billion in
assets under management and administration as of March 31, 2024,
the firm specializes in strategic wealth planning, investment
management and trust and estate services, as well as tax and
custody services. The New York-based firm and its subsidiaries
maintain offices in Coral Gables, FL, Boca Raton, FL, Fort
Lauderdale, FL, West Palm Beach, FL, St. Petersburg, FL, Radnor,
PA, Lincoln, MA, Los Angeles, CA, San Mateo, CA, San Francisco, CA,
Washington, DC, Wilmington, DE, Reston, VA, and Atlanta, GA. For
more information, please visit fiduciarytrust.com, and for the
latest updates, follow Fiduciary Trust International on LinkedIn
and X: @FiduciaryTrust.
About Franklin Templeton
Franklin Resources, Inc. [NYSE: BEN] is a global investment
management organization with subsidiaries operating as Franklin
Templeton and serving clients in over 150 countries. Franklin
Templeton’s mission is to help clients achieve better outcomes
through investment management expertise, wealth management and
technology solutions. Through its specialist investment managers,
the company offers specialization on a global scale, bringing
extensive capabilities in fixed income, equity, alternatives and
multi-asset solutions. With more than 1,500 investment
professionals, and offices in major financial markets around the
world, the California-based company has over 75 years of investment
experience and over $1.6 trillion in assets under management as of
April 30, 2024. For more information, please visit
franklintempleton.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and
Facebook.
About Proxy Impact
Proxy Impact provides shareholder engagement and proxy voting
services that promote sustainable and responsible business
practices. For more information, visit www.proxyimpact.com.
Copyright © 2024 Fiduciary Trust International. All rights
reserved.
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