My name is Forest Resener and I want to thank you for the opportunity to present item number eight, Shareholder Proposal Regarding Report on Community Standards Enforcement.

As You Sow has been engaging Facebook, now Meta, with similar resolutions for the past five years asking our company to take responsibility for the material damage to our brand caused by dangerous and criminal behavior, hate speech, and disinformation on our platform.

The disinformation is playing a fundamental role in undermining democracy and our society’s ability to collectively solve problems like climate change. The newly elected Filipino President Marcos fabricated his family history through our social media platform. In the U.S., over 70% of Republicans think Trump won the election without a single supporting fact.  Our platform not only allows, but actively promotes the cancerous spread of misinformation and destructive ideas.

The Company agrees this is a problem; as demonstrated by the reported investment of over 13 billion dollars and 40,000 people working to reduce harmful content. Yet, the Facebook platform continues to be the home for widespread incitement of violence, harassment, toxic content, child exploitation, sex trafficking, and political advertisements containing deliberate lies and mistruths.

All of these resources and people have so far failed to stem the tide of harm to society and shareholders.  The creation of the “Transparency Center” and the 25 “Community Standards” seemed like a good concept. . . it is time to acknowledge that it is not working and to reassess this approach. We can do better. 

Shareholders ask that an assessment be performed by an external, independent panel to analyze why this approach has proven ineffective at controlling the dissemination of user content that contains or promotes hate speech, disinformation, or content that incites violence and/or harm to public health or personal safety.

This report should cover each of Meta’s major products, including Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and any other app that reaches over 100 million users.

Mark and Sheryl WE MUST DO BETTER for your kids,  for my generation  and our future kids generation.

Thank you for your time today and your vote FOR item number eight.