In response to Alphabet’s recommendation to vote “against” the proposal, Open MIC filed an exempt solicitation letter with the SEC, again making the case for increased transparency and active risk mitigation to prevent widespread harms due to misinformation and disinformation resulting from generative AI products.
Lead filer Arjuna capital provided an exempt solicitation letter to the SEC in response to Meta’s opposition statement, further clarifying the purpose of the proposed annual report, and the need for additional transparency and oversight related to gAI misinformation.
The rise of generative AI (gAI) over the last 18 months has raised numerous questions about how to regulate these powerful new technologies so that they do not compromise people’s ability to exercise their human rights. Generative AI poses a particular threat to the right to freedom of expression, including the right to access information, because it makes it so easy to create and spread deceptive, yet believable content. False content threatens people’s ability to make informed decisions, a prerequisite for healthy democracies.
Shareholders at Alphabet and Meta, following on the success of a similar resolution at Microsoft last month, have filed shareholder proposals recommending that the companies issue annual reports on the risks of misinformation and disinformation produced and amplified by their deployment of generative artificial intelligence (gAI). All three companies have made multibillion dollar investments in gAI.
At Microsoft’s annual general meeting on Thursday, shareholders will vote on a resolution recommending that the company issue an annual report on the material risks of generative AI-powered mis- and disinformation to its business operations. The proposed report would include Microsoft’s plans to mitigate those risks, as well as the effectiveness of its efforts. The resolution, which appears as Proposal 13 on the company’s proxy statement, was submitted by Arjuna Capital (lead filer), Azzad Asset Management, Eko, and Open MIC.
In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Open MIC voiced strong opposition to proposed changes to Rule 14a-8 that would severely limit the rights of shareholders to engage with corporations regarding risky social, environmental and governance practices, including shareholders’ ability to file shareholder resolutions.
Open MIC today joined a coalition of 40 organizations in urging the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), an independent executive branch agency, to recommend suspension of facial recognition programs across the federal government. The organizations sent a letter to the PCLOB citing the dangerously rapid growth of government-supported facial recognition systems targeting American citizens within the United States.
Open MIC today joined with The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Color Of Change, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Muslim Advocates, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and 41 civil rights, public interest, labor, faith, and technology organizations to urge Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to consider the “protection of civil rights as a fundamental obligation as serious as any other goal of the company.” The letter follows Zuckerberg’s Georgetown University remarks and recent Facebook policy changes to exempt politicians’ speech from its Community Standards and fact-checking program.
On October 18th, Open MIC joined with 22 organizations and individuals in supporting comments filed by the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) opposing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s attempt to weaken protections against housing discrimination. For decades, HUD and federal courts have recognized disparate-impact liability under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). This means that people are protected not only from intentional housing discrimination, but also from practices that appear neutral yet still result in discriminatory effects.
Despite Google’s attempts to quell public outrage over Dragonfly, employees and shareholders remain concerned that work on Dragonfly has not fully stopped, and that the company must perform human rights due diligence during the product development phase, not after. The proposal (Proposal Number 14) asks Alphabet to publish a Human Rights Impact Assessment by October 30, 2019, to examine “actual and potential impacts of censored Google search in China,” with specific consideration of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
As federal regulators move to investigate platform companies like Facebook over antitrust violations, an Open MIC analysis of Facebook’s latest filing to the SEC, following last week’s annual meeting, shows that independent shareholders overwhelmingly support major governance changes at the company.
The reports from the proxy advisors come amid mounting pressure for change at the top levels of Facebook. In today’s open letter to Facebook’s largest institutional shareholders, investors and leading civil society organizations are seeking support for a “Vote No” campaign that would withhold votes from Mr. Zuckerberg as a member of Facebook’s board. “As Facebook’s largest institutional investors, your vote ‘no’ on Mark Zuckerberg will send a clear message that it is past time for new governance,” says the letter.
Citing unchecked hate speech, rampant privacy violations, discriminatory advertising and a host of other ills, shareholders and civil rights groups today launched a “Vote No” campaign urging Facebook investors to withhold their votes of support from Mark Zuckerberg as a member of the company’s board. The new push is taking place ahead of the Facebook annual meeting on May 30 and follows months of revelations of abuses and no persuasive evidence that existing corporate leadership can turn things around for shareholders.
Open MIC joined 25 other civil society organizations in sending a letter to Congress calling on legislators to ensure that any federal privacy legislation addresses the discriminatory impacts of commercial data practices and protects people of color, women, religious minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, persons with disabilities, persons living on low income, immigrants, and other vulnerable populations.
In a major victory for investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled late yesterday that Amazon must give shareholders an opportunity to consider and vote on two separate shareholder resolutions that address major business risks posed by the sale of Amazon's facial recognition technology to government agencies. The SEC’s ruling comes amidst mounting criticism of the Amazon technology, “Rekognition,” as racially biased.
A coalition of Google shareholders has filed a resolution asking the company to publish a human rights impact assessment for a controversial censored search product -- called "Dragonfly" -- that Google is reportedly developing for use in China. Led by Azzad Asset Management, the shareholders are concerned that Google's compliance with China’s repressive laws would facilitate and legitimize surveillance and censorship, posing serious human rights risks.
Open MIC joined with 43 civil society organizations in sending a letter to Congress calling on legislators to protect civil rights, equity, and equal opportunity in the digital ecosystem. As members of Congress continue to hold hearings and introduce legislation on digital privacy, they must address the data security and privacy abuses that disproportionately harm marginalized communities.
Citing critical concerns over immigrant surveillance of vulnerable communities, racial profiling, and other civil and human rights violations, Amazon shareholders have filed a resolution asking the company to prohibit sales of “Rekognition”, Amazon’s facial recognition technology, to government agencies — unless the company’s Board concludes the technology does not pose actual or potential civil and human rights risk.
An institutional shareholder in Google is calling on the tech giant to disclose information about the risks associated with a controversial Chinese search engine product, "Project Dragonfly," that has drawn criticism from lawmakers and activists.
Azzad Asset Management, a socially responsible investment firm, on Monday filed a shareholder petition asking Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., to evaluate the potential impact on investors if Google developed a censored search engine in China and to publish a report on its findings by Oct. 30, 2019.
As many U.S. tech companies — and so-called defenders of privacy and freedom of expression — work harder and harder to enter China’s booming market, they must confront their own complicity in enabling the Chinese government’s harmful policy of all-encompassing surveillance and control. Open MIC’s new report, Does Privacy Protection Have Borders? China’s Data Localization Rule and the Risks for U.S. Tech Companies, highlights this tension, revealing how U.S. tech giants have been employing a double-standard on user privacy in China compared to their operations elsewhere, endangering the lived realities of people in China and beyond.
Facebook Inc.’s Board of Directors responded to pressure from shareholders and quietly adopted important and substantial changes to the charter of one of the board’s key committees, renaming the committee and broadening its mission to include oversight of issues that have placed the social media platform at the center of global controversy, including privacy, data use, community safety and cybersecurity.
Last night, Facebook, Inc. released the full results of last week’s shareholder votes, showing that outside investors are overwhelmingly outraged by the dual-class voting system, lack confidence in Facebook’s leadership overall, and seek stronger content management and governance as the company reels from scandal after scandal.
Shareholders, organized in part by Open MIC, have long been calling on Facebook to address critical issues, such as the platform’s role in enabling election interference, violations of privacy, “fake news” distribution, online hate speech and sexual harassment. Yet CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the company’s senior management have consistently brushed this all under the rug – until the recent Cambridge Analytica data scandal and other controversies finally forced these problems into the light and Zuckerberg himself into congressional testimony.
