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On 25 May 2023, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre reached out to Alphabet for comments on the human rights concerns raised in the 2023 Annual General Meeting (AGM) shareholder proposals. Alphabet did not respond.
Alphabet has not responded to
Big tech continues to dismiss human rights concerns, even as shareholders raise red-flags
Amazon provided a response concerning surveillance technology violating privacy rights, transparency on content governance for the Amazon.com e-commerce platform, warehouse workers' rights, union rights, gender and racial pay gaps and animal welfare standards.
Alphabet did not respond to requests for information about the shareholder proposals that raised human rights concerns.
Meta shareholders voted on Proposal 7 at the Meta Annual General Meeting on May 31. As per the preliminary voting results, Proposal 7 did not garner enough support from the shareholders and thus, the outcome was not in its favour. Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg along with other members of senior management own a majority of voting shares, resulting in an imbalance of power amongst shareholders.
Meta responds to concerns about government takedown requests, the dual-class capital structure, targeted advertising, lobbying, content management biases, reproductive rights and data privacy, child safety, lobbying, etc.
Heading into big tech’s 2023 Annual General Meeting (AGM) season, there are a number of shareholder proposals pushing for tech sector accountability related to human rights harms. Access Now reviewed shareholder proposals for Amazon, Alphabet and Meta.
Amazon.com investors voted against all 18 shareholder-led proposals during the 2023 annual general meeting. Shareholder proposals pushed for action concerning warehouse workers rights, union rights, gender and racial pay, amongst other human rights issues.
The Council on Ethics of the Swedish AP Funds (AP1, AP2, AP3 and AP4) have organised a group of institutional investors with EUR 7 trillion in combined assets under management to collaboratively engage tech giants with the aim to strengthen their management of human rights risks and impacts.