October 17, 2018

State Treasurer Joe Torsella, Others Press To Remove Zuckerberg As Facebook Chairman

Pennsylvania State Treasurer Joe Torsella, Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs, Rhode Island State Treasurer Seth Magaziner, and New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer Wednesday co-filed a shareholder proposal asking the Facebook board of directors to make the role of Board Chair an independent position.
If adopted, the measure would remove Mark Zuckerberg as Facebook Chairman.  Read more here.
“Boards of directors should be a check on management teams, not a tool of them, and an independent Chair is essential to achieving that result,” said Torsella. “That’s why I’m joining this effort, so that we can stand up for investors, and against the unchecked corporate power of Mr. Zuckerberg and the threat he currently represents to shareholder value.”
The shareholder proposal, lead-filed by Trillium Asset Management in June, focuses on Facebook missing, or mishandling, a number of severe controversies including:
-- Russian meddling in U.S. elections,
-- Sharing personal data of 87 million users with Cambridge Analytica,
-- Data sharing with device manufacturers, including Huawei that is flagged by U.S. Intelligence as a national security threat,
-- Proliferating fake news,
-- Propagating violence in Myanmar, India, and South Sudan,
-- Depression and other mental health issues, including stress and addiction, and
-- Allowing advertisers to exclude black, Hispanic, and other “ethnic affinities” from seeing ads.
These filings come on the heels of Facebook’s latest controversy, a data breach affecting 30 million accounts.
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