Protecting human rights through technology

As technology proliferates in our daily lives – especially with the rapid advent of artificial intelligence – so too do concerns around its long-term societal impacts, including data security, privacy, and the spread of mis- or disinformation.

Since 2018, we have engaged a tech giant over the long-term societal and ethical impacts of its technologies. Along with an international coalition of like-minded investors, we filed a shareholder proposal in 2020 requesting that the board of directors establish a societal risk oversight committee and, in its wake, we were pleased to see the company make some improvements, including expanding the charter of its Audit Committee to explicitly oversee sustainability and human rights risks.

However, with the ever-expanding scale and risks of technology platforms, we again filed a shareholder proposal in December 2021, this time geared towards the human rights impacts of its content management policies and management of misinformation and disinformation. At the company’s next annual meeting in June, our proposal was supported by more than 60% of the company’s unaffiliated voting shareholders.

At the end of 2022, we were able to secure our first conversation with the company and, since that time, we have continued to build momentum and share investor expectations – which are increasingly calling for comprehensive human rights due diligence.