Meta

At the annual shareholder meeting of Meta (formerly Facebook) on May 25, 2022, Free Enterprise Project Director Scott Shepard will present proposal 12. Shepard's supporting statement can be heard here and read below.

Our proposal asks the company about whether, in its myriad diversity, inclusion and equity efforts, the company discriminates against employees it has not honored with the label “diverse.” And we asked that in compiling the report, the company consult with experts from a wide range of viewpoints, including those of the center/right, representing the majority of Americans and almost certainly of ultimate Meta shareholders.

No doubt those outside consultations with center/right groups are vital. After all, equity means current discrimination now to make up for other discrimination against other people by other people in the past. And it also means dividing national wealth and power by a racial spoils system, with each racial and other identity-based group getting a proportional share, in disregard of individual accomplishment.

This is all illegal and immoral, as anyone outside of the far-left echo chamber could easily explain. But as Meta’s executives themselves report in their opposition to our proposal, the outside advisors who lead Meta’s equity efforts are not of the center/right, but are hard-left equity activists who have a deep personal interest in ignoring the truth that equity is illegal modern discrimination. The company doesn’t even try to assert that these compromised activists sought the input of even a single opponent of equity-based discrimination, much less took any such advice on board.

Meta manifestly cannot look within for countervailing council. The company has proven itself to be captive to hard-left doctrine throughout. Consider that at a recent shareholder meeting Global Affairs President and chief censor Nick Clegg blithely averred that he knew that Facebook’s moderation policies were appropriate because Republicans wanted less of them and Democrats wanted more. He thought, or pretended to think, that this illustrated nonpartisan censorship, but as any schoolchild could have explained to him, it laid Facebook’s discrimination bare.

Mind you, we’re not surprised that the former Deputy Prime Minister couldn’t interpret data flows correctly. After all, he led his Liberal Democratic Party more disastrously than a predecessor who had literally tried to have a lover killed while he served as party leader. But it has become undeniable over the past year that Mr. Clegg is not an outlier, that brash and self-congratulatory reckless disregard has become the norm at what is now pleased to call itself Meta.

This has not been a good year for Facebook’s integrity. It has been caught in lie after lie, and may be caught in many more when federal investigatory power next changes hands. It has actively interfered in the U.S. political process on claims that have proven false: what it labels misinformation turns out to be true; what it supports, false.

At very minimum Facebook would be wise to get outside of its bubble to find out that all Americans have not only civil rights but the same civil rights, so that its equity-based discrimination is very illegal indeed. And it might also want to discover how much arrogant-billionaire overreach crosses the line for the American polity.

You may very well have blown past that line already. In moving fast and breaking things, what you’re in danger of breaking is Facebook. Oh, sorry. “Meta.”

For more information, see http://freeenterpriseproject.org