After a lot of controversy and scandals involving Facebook last year about the leak of data to create voters profiles, one of the largest in its history, the general shareholders meeting of the company last Thursday (30) wanted to give a new message to Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s current CEO.
At that time, more than 68% of the voting members who did not have a stake in the company management board voted to remove the current president from the board of directors, which he is also part of, and to put an “independent figure” in place.
Although the measure was not approved, the vote shows that “Zuckerberg’s potato is baking”. At the last meeting, the percentage of investors who had voted for a similar measure had been 51%, which shows an increase in dissatisfaction with the current CEO.
Today, the company only offers Class A shares for those outside the company’s board of directors, officers and directors. The point is that shares of this type guarantee only one vote per share. Therefore, another measure that went to the vote in the last assembly involves just changes in that framework.
The stockholders’ idea was to eliminate class B shares, which could reduce the power of Zuckerberg and the other directors over the company. Although 83.2% of shareholders voted in favor, the measure was not approved because the board was not in favor. According to experts, shareholders are disgruntled and want changes because such a high voting level to decide on changes in stock structure is quite unusual.
Discontent with the CEO’s attitudes and how the company has been governed is closely related to how the company’s president handled a series of scandals involving interference in social networks and controversy with Cambridge Analytica.
At the time, allegations of misuse of Facebook user data by Cambridge Analytica, which was hired by current President Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016, have led to several investigations in the United States and Europe. The problems began to be publicized early last year and then the British consultancy ended its activities.
And last Friday, the company was obliged to provide further clarification. At the time, a US judge ordered Facebook to deliver shareholder emails and other records to show how the company dealt with data privacy after information from 87 million users was accessed by British consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
