Shareholders at Meta recently rejected a proposal urging the tech giant to publish a detailed report on how it addresses antisemitism and hate speech across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The proposal, put forward by the Anti-Defamation League and its investor advocacy arm, JLens, had not been expected to pass in a proxy vote at the social media company’s annual meeting on May 28. Such shareholder proposals rarely do.
But the measure, alongside anti-Israel proposals at Google and other companies, reflects a growing trend of attempts to bring the broader Arab-Israel conflict into the corporate boardroom.
More than 75 publicly held companies included in the benchmark S&P 500 index have been targeted with anti-Israel shareholder proposals since Hamas
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...launched its war against Israel on October 7, 2023, according to JLens managing director Ari Hoffnung.
The proposals are almost always voted down, and it’s questionable whether they manage anything more substantive than annoying C-level executives and generating attention for whatever cause activists may be pushing.
But JLens, which has used such proposals in the past as part of wider campaigns to lobby successfully for changes by corporations to fight antisemitism or take friendlier stances toward Israel, insists they are more than just headline bait.
"If [Meta] doesn’t take meaningful steps this year, we’ll be back next year — and as long as is necessary until our message is heard," Hoffnung said.
NOT A CHANCE
The JLens proposal presented May 28 called for Meta to prepare a year-long report detailing the company’s policies, practices and effectiveness in combating hate on its platforms, specifically antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-disability hate.
Its goal was "to provide insights into Meta’s content moderation practices, enforcement mechanisms, transparency measures and its effectiveness at combating hate," JLens said.
According to the ADL and others, social media platforms have seen rising levels of antisemitism since October 7, 2023, alongside a general spike in anti-Jewish activity around the world. Nearly half of Jewish adults in the US report concealing their identity online because of rising antisemitism, the ADL has found.
In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg
...the Peewee Herman clone who owns Facebook. He's got more money than Croesus and thinks he should be regulated by the government because it does such a nifty job with all the other stuff it regulates....
announced that Facebook and Instagram would no longer use third-party fact-checkers and instead move toward a user-generated community notes program similar to the model used by Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
He also said content moderation would be scaled back in favor of "more speech," admitting that the moves had been sparked by political events, including the election of US President Donald Trump
...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
"We’re not surprised by Meta’s opposition, but we are concerned," Hoffnung told The Times of Israel before the vote. "The fact that Meta’s own oversight board has criticized the company’s content moderation policies shows that our views have strong support. Unfortunately, its decision to dismantle fact-checking partnerships and scale back content moderation left us no choice but to escalate our concerns through a shareholder proposal."
Meta recommended that shareholders reject the proposal, saying it already has systems in place to block hate speech and uphold its Community Standards policies. In the end, the measure won the support of only about 15 percent of voters.
Hoffnung said that while the result was a long way from victory, it was a relatively strong showing that makes it eligible to be resubmitted next year.
Anti-Israel proposals at other corporations have also fared poorly.
At Intel, a shareholder urged the chipmaker’s board of directors to conduct an ethical impact assessment addressing the company’s business operations in Israel. Shareholders at General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin called on their companies to reconsider sales of arms and military equipment to the Jewish State.
Each of these ultimately received less than 10% of the shareholder vote, Hoffnung noted. However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by...
the threat of future corporate measures against Israel remains high.
"This is not the end, it’s only the beginning," Hoffnung said.
Results are still pending for a proposal at Alphabet, Google’s parent company, which called for it to reconsider sales of products and services in conflict-affected and high-risk areas, including Israel.
The proposal focused primarily on Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion deal Google has with the Israeli government providing AI and cloud services for the IDF and various government ministries.
"While framed as a call for neutral oversight, the measure advances a narrow political agenda: it singles out Israel, mirrors Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) tactics, ignores Israel’s legitimate security needs and leans on biased sources," JLens said about the proposal.
The measure is expected to fail after independent proxy advisory firms recommended voting against it, Hoffnung said.
BULLDOZERS AND PENSION FUNDS
The concept of shareholder proposals began taking shape in the United States during the 1940s, in the wake of the Great Depression, as stockholders sought greater access and accountability in corporate decision-making. New rules introduced at the time gave shareholders the right to submit recommendations for changes within a company, to be voted on at a company’s annual meeting.
While such proposals initially focused primarily on improving corporate governance, as early as the 1960s activists began using them to press companies on issues like civil rights, environmental protection and other progressive causes.
In 2004, the anti-Zionist organization Jewish Voice for Peace issued a shareholder proposal at construction machinery giant Caterpillar, calling on it to reconsider its sales of D9 armored bulldozers to Israel, saying they were being used for human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
violations in the West Bank and Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
Strip.
Since then, anti-Israel proposals have been raised at other companies, including HP, Lockheed Martin and the TIAA-CREF pension funds.
After October 7, 2023, however, anti-Israel proposals have appeared to surge in the past two years, reflecting widespread criticism of the country and its invasion of Gaza following the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack.
JLens was founded in 2012 to promote shareholder advocacy for Jewish interests. It was acquired by the ADL in 2022, a time when many corporations were adopting policies in line with ESG (environmental, social and governance) guidelines, which the group alleged was being exploited by anti-Israel activists to push divestment proposals.
JLens has since helped mobilize the investment community to push back against such moves, Hoffnung said.
PR STUNT?
According to Prof. Zvi Wiener of the Hebrew University Business School, shareholder proposals, including the JLens measure aimed at Meta, are often little more than glorified PR stunts.
"I don’t think it does any good for the Jewish people to force a company to make a declaration in our favor," he said ahead of the vote. "The people in power at Meta clearly said they thought the report was unnecessary, and recommended voting against it. Activities of this type tend to create a big show without providing any real positive impact."
Financial reports show that it is extremely unlikely for politically motivated proposals to win shareholder approval.
Only about 4% of the 929 shareholder proposals at publicly traded companies won majority approval in 2024, according to a report by international law firm Gibson Dunn. Of these, all but three were related to internal governance issues unrelated to social or environmental policy, the report said.
Hoffnung disagreed that shareholder proposals had little value.
"That’s a misunderstanding of how shareholder advocacy works," he said of Weiner’s assessment. "These proposals are truly about driving real change, and we’re making a sound business case. A company that fails to protect its users from hate is a company that’s exposing itself, and its investors, to unacceptable risk. This proposal is part of a broader, long-term strategy to ensure companies manage those risks responsibly."