As Twitter is facing well-deserved scrutiny over its recent decision to continue to allow Liz Harrington to tweet the words of Donald Trump even though he has been banned from the platform for continual violations of the company’s content standards, socially responsible shareholders are petitioning not only these social media companies for proper adjudication but for the federal government, to in fact, fill the void and ensure disinformation and incitement of violence is not allowed to flourish in the absence of common sense regulation.
From matters of propagated disinformation on public health; to hateful, incendiary speech that incites violence; to unmitigated illicit activity and abuse of children — social media’s content moderation problem continues to pose egregious and existential risks to our collective health and safety, the rule of law and democracy, itself.
Many socially responsible firms and asset managers do not hold social media companies in their portfolios. This includes Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet, the parent company of YouTube. Some hold them and use their shareholding rights to advocate for corporate responsibility through engagement and filing shareholder resolutions.
