Meta Shareholders Seek Action on Alleged Political Entanglement and Content Management Biases in India
Key Highlights :
Meta, a leading social media company, is facing a resolution from its shareholders seeking action on allegations of political entanglement and content management biases in India. The resolution is set to come up for voting at Meta’s annual shareholder and board meeting scheduled for Tuesday, May 31. The resolution is being championed by activist Mari Mennel-Bell and supported by local privacy rights groupings such as India Civil Watch International (ICWI), Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), and Access Now. US-headquartered advisory firm Glass Lewis has advised its institutional investors, including pension funds, to vote in favour of Mennel-Bell’s resolution.
The resolution calls for Meta to commission a non-partisan assessment of the allegations of political entanglement and content management biases in its operations in India, focusing on how the platform has been utilised to foment ethnic and religious conflict and hatred. In their reply to the charges made by the shareholders in April, Meta’s board of directors had said that the company “remained committed to respecting human rights – and their underlying principles of equality, safety, dignity, privacy, and voice – across our business operations”. The board has recommended that shareholders vote against the resolution.
The outcome of the resolution bears significance for the Indian audience as it could set a precedent for other social media companies to take more concrete action on the issues highlighted by such resolutions. The allegations include political bias of the platform towards the leading political party in India and names current and former senior-ranking public policy executives for having "ties to the BJP". The resolution has also alleged that Meta’s content moderation capacities in India are “undercut” by inadequate and poor capacity “misinformation classifiers” as well as the inability of the human moderators that the company has in place to recognise “many of India’s 22 officially recognised languages”.
Meta’s investors must force its leadership to take urgent action to ensure the company fixes its mistakes and builds trust by real actions and true engagement, rather than lobbying to defend its current status quo. It is important for Meta to address these issues to ensure that its platform is not used to foment ethnic and religious conflict and hatred in India.
