January 15, 2021 – For the first time, shareholder resolutions have been filed with companies that advertise or manage major ad budgets on Facebook and other social media companies, citing concerns with how advertisers may have inadvertently financed the spread of white supremacy, disinformation, voter suppression, government censorship, and more on social media platforms.
For years, social media platforms have faced criticism for failing to manage the spread of hate speech and disinformation online. After last week's violent white supremacist attack at the Capitol, companies like Facebook, Alphabet and Twitter are again scrambling to clamp down on increasing incitements to violence on their platforms. Amid a growing threat of violence both online and offline, these shareholder resolutions urge advertisers to independently assess their own proximity to this harm, and to ensure they are not complicit in violations of civil and human rights.
The resolutions—filed with top online advertiser Home Depot and ad agency holding company Omnicom—call on the companies to commission third-party reports investigating whether their ad buys contribute to “violations of civil or human rights” on social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
“Advertising is the lifeblood of social media,” said Michael Connor, executive director of Open MIC, a corporate accountability non-profit that’s coordinating the shareholder actions. “The rampant abuse we’ve seen proliferate on social media is impossible without financial support from some of the biggest brands on the planet. They are in no small part responsible for these abuses, and they have the duty to stop them.”
Home Depot and Omnicom are leading advertisers on social media. Home Depot was the top ad buyer on Facebook in 2019, spending a reported $179 million. Omnicom is the second largest advertising holding company in the world, managing a total of $38 billion in ad buys from clients including Disney and Apple. The company is also part of Facebook’s client council, advising on issues like content moderation. Neither of the companies formally joined over 1,000 advertisers who boycotted Facebook over the summer in order to curb the spread of hate on its platform.
Laura Campos, director of corporate and political accountability for the Nathan Cummings Foundation, which filed the Omnicom resolution, said: “It’s past time that major advertisers acknowledged the support they give to upholding the hate and disinformation we’ve seen spread on these platforms—and act to end it.”
“The insurrectionists apparently used social media platforms to organize last week’s violence at the Capitol—and are continuing to do so,” said Myra K. Young, the shareholder who filed the Home Depot resolution. “That’s why we need to scrutinize the business model of these social media platforms. Advertisers should not be exempt from that same scrutiny.”
The shareholder resolutions are being coordinated by Open MIC, which has previously organized successful shareholder campaigns at tech companies over how tech products and services can threaten civil and human rights.
The shareholder proposals come as a group of investors representing $395 billion in assets under management have written letters this week to the boards of Facebook, Alphabet, and Twitter pressing them to address further incitements to violence on their platforms leading up to the inauguration, and to re-examine aspects of their business model, which has for years incentivized the spread of hate speech and disinformation online.
Unless the companies seek to block shareholders from weighing in on these issues by arguing against them at the Securities and Exchange Commission, shareholders will have an opportunity to vote on these proposals at the annual general meetings of each company in the spring of 2021.
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