Disgruntled shareholders file plea to kick out Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook can be separated. In fact, if you say Facebook, Zuckerberg comes to mind and vice versa. However, some people believe that Facebook is not Zuckerberg and are going to court to prove their point.
Apparently, Facebook is being coerced to remove the CEO and founder, Zuckerberg from the board of directors of the company by a consumer watchdog group SumOfUs, the proposal stated. The online community group works to control the growing power of corporations, whether it relates to pollution or tax evasion or humans rights and climate change.
The proposal states:
“In our view, shareholder value is enhanced by an independent board chair who can provide a balance of power between the CEO and the board and support strong board leadership. Independent board leadership is sorely needed at Facebook following the board’s decision in 2016 to approve a new capital structure which reduced the rights of Class A shareholders without requiring a majority vote of those shareholders.”
Adding further, the proposal stated, “We believe the combination of these two roles in a single person weakens a corporation’s governance, which can harm shareholder value.”
As a result, the group has proposed to appoint an independent chairperson who would be best suited to “oversee the executives of the company, improve corporate governance, and set a more accountable, pro-shareholder agenda.”
According to a report from VentureBeat, nearly 333,000 people have filed the petition seeking the ouster of Zuckerberg as the Facebook CEO, as they want Facebook to improve the way it functions and treats its employees. Out of all these petitioners, about 1,500 actually owned Facebook shares.
Zuckerberg has been a member of the company’s board of directors since 2012.The application for the forceful resignation of current CEO of Facebook is extremely influenced by the on-going problems associated with the company including the promotion of fake news, odium and hate speech, so-called discrepancies in the application of company’s public standards guidelines and content procedures, and much more.
“Facebook is receiving criticism regarding its perceived role in the promotion of misleading news; censorship, hate speech and alleged inconsistencies in the application of Facebook’s community guidelines and content policies; targeting of ad views based on race; collaboration with law enforcement other government agencies; and calls for public accountability regarding the human rights impacts of Facebook’s practices,” the proposal said.
The recent proposal also cites the lawsuit involving the new structure approved by Facebook last year as an imbalance of power.
The proposal itself is unlikely to raise alarm bells for Zuckerberg anytime soon, as he is one of the largest shareholders of Facebook, which gives him the right to veto the move to remove him as CEO with a quick motion.
It is not uncommon to have someone serve as both CEO and Chairperson for companies. Amazon, IBM, Tesla, and Netflix to name a few have one person for both positions.
