Encouraged by strong votes at AI companies, as well as Microsoft’s inaugural Responsible AI Transparency Report, Open MIC and partners seek to build momentum for more disclosure and remediation of AI risks.
2024 Shareholder Resolutions on Generative AI & Disinformation: A Build-the-Vote Messaging Guide for Sustainable Investors
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.
Big Tech Shareholder Proposals: Annual Meeting Results Offer Lessons for the Future
The big tech companies have tremendous positive potential, and tremendous capacity to harm. Over the past several years, investors have turned up the pressure on tech, shattering shareholder proposal records and making the case for responsible and rights-respecting corporate governance. Open MIC has been, and continues to be, an important part of that effort.
Majority of Alphabet Independent Shareholders Vote To Support A Racial Equity Audit
According to final voting numbers for Alphabet’s 2022 annual general meeting, approximately 64.3 percent of independent shareholders voted in favor of a third-party racial equity audit analyzing the company’s impacts on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. However the proposal failed to earn an overall majority due to the outsized voting power of Alphabet founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
Alphabet Insider Shareholders: Support the Shareholder Proposal for a Racial Equity Audit
Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt: As Class B shareholders, your support or abstention has the power to make or break this popular and necessary investor-led advocacy. We urge you to uphold Alphabet’s principles and “do the right thing” by supporting proposal 9 for an independent racial equity audit.
Salesforce To Adopt ‘Silenced No More’ Protections For All U.S. Employees; Shareholder Resolution Withdrawn
Salesforce, a leading provider of cloud-based software, announced today that it plans to adopt the principles of a shareholder proposal filed by Whistle Stop Capital regarding the company’s use of concealment clauses in employment agreements and will extend the protections of California’s Silenced No More Act to all U.S. employees. In light of this news, shareholders have successfully withdrawn their proposal.
SEC Rules Against Meta on Shareholder Proposal Questioning Company’s ‘Metaverse’ Plan
In a major victory for investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ruled that Meta - the parent company of Facebook and Instagram - must give investors an opportunity to consider and vote on a shareholder proposal that questions Meta’s ”social license to operate an emerging technology like the metaverse” without fully understanding the potential risks and negative impacts.
Apple Shareholders Reject Company Recommendation and Vote for Transparency on Concealment Clauses
Shareholders: Meta Platforms (Facebook) Needs Third-Party Assessment of Metaverse User Risks and Advisory Shareholder Vote
Open MIC Voices Opposition to SEC Rules that Would Undermine Shareholder Engagement & Allow Companies to Further Avoid Accountability
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.