More Trouble For Facebook: Under Fire From Shareholders

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At the annual shareholders meeting in Menlo Park, CA, home of inventor Thomas Edison, many investors expressed their displeasure about how the company is being run- calling CEO Mark Zuckerberg "a dictator." The meeting was even interrupted by a plane flying overhead trailing a banner that read YOU BROKE DEMOCRACY. What began altruistically as a "place to meet on the internet," has devolved because of greed and lust for power, into a morass of iniquity... if there was any altruism involved at all is now in question after revelations of involvement by government security agencies from the outset.

The data collection and sales of information of millions of people worldwide is now common knowledge and although Zuckerberg feigned contriteness at the Senate Hearings, he has remained for the most part unapologetic where the shareholders are concerned. Zuckerberg's response to any and all complaints was the same trite excuses he's been using since the hearings both here and abroad, indicating to anyone paying attention he has absolutely no intention of changing a thing unless forced to do so... "'The big theme we’re focused on is making sure we take a broader view of our responsibility to everyone we serve,' Zuckerberg said."

Christine Jantz from NorthStar Asset Management, brought up the first issue... “If privacy is a human right — as stated by Microsoft CEO — then we condemn that Facebook's poor stewardship of customer data is tantamount to a human rights violation,” she said. Speaking of "human rights violations," Facebook has even come under fire from the UN who accused the company of "facilitating genocide in Myanmar.

Andy Barr of 10 Yetis, the digital media company condemned Facebook's lack of transparency: “At a time where global businesses are fighting to try and demonstrate transparency and democracy, Facebook, seemingly driven by Zuckerberg himself, is trying to shy away from any kind of accountability, especially with rules like his shares carrying 10 times more weight than normal shareholders.”

This dissatisfaction seems to have set the tone for the entire meeting. “Facebook is the biggest nation in the world and we have a dictator, if you look at it from a democracy standpoint, Mark Zuckerberg is a dictator,” Peter Sunde, the founder of Pirate Bay, recently told CNBC. “I did not elect him. He sets the rules.” The investors forced the Board of Directors to vote on six different proposals each and every one was vetoed.

So what can we expect from Facebook in the aftermath of the meeting... more of the same apparently. Although the shareholders have the power of their own pocketbooks, it doesn't appear that they intend to pack up and move on. Facebook shares are currently trading for only a few dollars off of their all-time high (they're at $191). One problem is that Zuckerberg and his little coterie at the top of the Facebook pyramid hold a special class of stock that gives them more voting power than other investors. One of the proposals that was vetoed by the board was a more democratic voting structure, another indicator that things are unlikely to change anytime soon.

"James McRitchie, who proposed changing the voting structure from what he labeled a 'corporate dictatorship' to something more democratic, urged Zuckerberg to 'take a page from history. Emulate George Washington, not Vladimir Putin.'"

Apparently, no mention of the current censorship that pervades social media was made... So I guess that, at least as far as Facebook is concerned, nothing significant will change, the "Dictator" and his faithful cadre will continue their Gestapo-like behavior, the investors will complain and continue stuffing their pockets, and the users will bear the brunt of Facebook's totalitarian regime.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/xwmvqz/shareholders-facebook-zuckerberg-dictator (From an article published in Technocracy News)

https://www.citizensforfreespeech.org/