06 Sep Meta Can Do Better, If They Try

In its response to our letter campaign with Access Now, Meta takes issue with aspects of its score in RDR’s 2022 Big Tech Scorecard. Here’s why we stand by our results.

Ranking Digital Rights wishes to address Meta’s response to the letter campaign led by Access Now, in coordination with RDR. As part of this campaign, Meta, along with all the companies we ranked in our 2022 Big Tech Scorecard, was asked to make one improvement on their human rights performance. This year, Access Now called on Meta to be more transparent about government censorship demands, particularly those targeting WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. While several companies issued responses, Meta’s was unique in raising questions about RDR’s standards and findings.

Meta’s response made a number of claims that we have decided to address directly below.

1. Meta’s claim: RDR’s standards are unattainable.

   What our data says: Meta notes that “it’s important that there be ambitious goals…but also that at least some of these be attainable.” Yet all of the goals set forth in RDR’s indicators are attainable. However, they require that corporate leadership dedicate time and willpower to fulfilling them. For example, when the inaugural RDR Index was released in 2015, none of the ranked companies disclosed any data on what content and accounts they restricted for breaching their own rules. As of our latest Scorecard, companies that do not disclose this information are quickly becoming the outlier. Similarly, even companies that already score well can make considerable progress from year to year.

2. Meta’s claim: The Big Tech Scorecard doesn’t give points for publishing the results of human rights due diligence processes.

   What our data says: Meta claims that the Scorecard does not consider “criteria related to communicating insights and actions from human rights due diligence to rights holders.” It is true that our human rights impact assessment (HRIA) indicators focus on procedural transparency rather than simply the publication of results. We do recognize that Meta has coordinated with reputable third parties such as BSR and Article One Advisors to publish several abbreviated country-level assessments as well as to guide its work on expanding encryption. However, it has yet to demonstrate the same degree of transparency on issues that are fundamental to how it operates, including targeted advertising and algorithms. In addition, its country-level assessments have notable gaps. Human rights groups have raised serious questions about the lack of information Meta shared from its India HRIA in its inaugural human rights report. This HRIA was meant to evaluate the company’s role in spreading hate speech and incitement to violence in that country. Societies where Meta has a powerful and rapidly growing presence deserve more than a cursory view of the company’s impact, especially when Meta is being directly linked to such explicit human rights harms.

3. Meta’s claim: RDR should have given Meta a higher score for its purported commitment to human rights standards in the development of AI.

   What our data says: Meta points to its Corporate Human Rights Policy, arguing that it “clearly specifies how human rights principles guide Meta’s artificial intelligence (AI) research and development” and questioning why our Scorecard “indicate[s] [Meta] do[es] not commit to human rights standards in AI development.” The problem is: Meta’s human rights “commitment” on AI falls short of actually committing. Our findings acknowledge an implied commitment to these standards (which equates to partial credit). For example, their policy states that human rights “guide [Meta’s] work” in developing AI-powered products and that Meta “recognize[s] the importance of” the OECD Principles on Artificial Intelligence. We encourage Meta to make its commitment to human rights in the development and use of AI an explicit one.

4. Meta’s claim: RDR unfairly expects “private messaging” services to meet the same transparency standards as other services.

   What our data says: By inquiring about the factors RDR considers when “requir[ing] private messaging services, including encrypted platforms, to conform to the same transparency criteria as social media platforms,” Meta seems to be implying that we do not understand how their products work or that our indicators are not fit for purpose with respect to so-called “private messaging” services like Messenger and WhatsApp.

   To start with, Facebook Messenger, the more popular of the two apps in the U.S., is not even an encrypted communications channel (at least not yet). Meanwhile, many users are not fully aware of how “private” (or not) a messaging service is when they sign up for it. There is abundant evidence that Meta monitors Messenger conversations, ostensibly for violative content, but the precise mix of human and automated review involved remains a mystery. As efforts to strip people of their reproductive rights continue to grow, Meta has a responsibility to shine a light on government demands for users’ messages and information. Law enforcement in U.S. states where abortion is now illegal have successfully obtained Messenger chats that eventually led to criminal charges. Finally, even for encrypted platforms like WhatsApp, our standards call for companies to be as transparent as possible regarding automated filtering, account restrictions, and other enforcement actions. Transparency on such basic protocols shouldn’t be too big of an ask.

Meta also notes its plan to build out its disclosures on government demands for content restrictions. This is an encouraging sign. In particular, Meta announced that it plans to publish data on content that governments have flagged as violating the company’s Community Standards—a tactic governments often use to strong-arm companies into compliance without due process. It also committed to start notifying users when content is taken down for allegedly violating a law. Our indicators have long called for companies to enact these two measures. Still, much work remains, not all of which is reflected in Meta’s plans.

The issues Meta has expressed about how our standards pertain, in this case, to transparency on government censorship demands. This means that our most fundamental concern about Meta’s human rights record remains unaddressed: The company’s business model still relies almost entirely on targeted advertising. Meta does not report on the global human rights impacts of its targeting systems and publishes no data on how it enforces its advertising policies. These omissions are unjustifiable. There is widespread agreement that a business model powered by mountains of user data generates harmful incentives and ultimately leads to human rights harms. Even Meta’s shareholders are vigorously supporting calls to assess these harms, only to be stymied by Mark Zuckerberg’s inflated decision-making power.

Without addressing the problems that lie at the root of many of its human rights impacts or recognizing the need for systemic change, Meta will continue to “nibble around the edges,” as shareholders have argued in recent calls to action. Along with our allies, RDR will continue to push Meta and other Big Tech companies to achieve the standards needed to uphold human rights. We do so with the knowledge that what we are asking for from companies is not only fully achievable, but also very much essential. Meta can do better; they just have to commit to try.

30 Aug Explore our new and improved investor resources!

Investor advocacy and shareholder action on human rights topics have reached unprecedented levels this year. Five of the largest global tech companies—Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Twitter—all faced a record number of shareholder resolutions. The rise of investing based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors has been a key driver of this trend. Civil society groups like RDR are providing the human rights standards and stories that allow investors to evaluate their holdings’ commitment to a better tomorrow.

Today we are proud to meet the evolving needs of investors with an update to our Investor Guidance page. Working with the investor community is in RDR’s DNA. We developed our very first Corporate Accountability Index in 2015 in partnership with leading ESG research provider Sustainalytics. Our work since then has been suffused with investor partnerships aimed at better protecting human rights. Today’s update illuminates how our work with shareholders has evolved in light of the surge of ESG-driven investor engagement and what digital rights topics have emerged as key investor priorities.

• First, we are publishing more details about the impact of our work with investors. This includes joint undertakings with individual asset managers, but also sweeping projects like the Digital Rights Engagement Initiative, coordinated by the Investor Alliance for Human Rights. The initiative consists of coordinated outreach to individual companies by the 177 signatories of the Investor Statement on Corporate Accountability for Digital Rights, which calls on companies to report on their progress on digital rights and is based on RDR’s standards.
• Second, we are updating and enriching our shareholder resolutions data with information about the outcomes of each resolution, including the result of the final vote. We are also bringing together stories about the direct and indirect impact of these votes: news reports, company announcements, and new campaigns inspired by each resolution. With this update, we are also marking resolutions that cite RDR and those whose development we supported directly.
• Finally, we are creating a separate “Spotlight” space highlighting insights from members of the RDR team on topics we consider critical to both shareholders’ rights and to our human rights-based mission. Our inaugural Spotlight is our mini-report on bringing down barriers to shareholder advocacy.

Delving into the new data we are publishing today highlights noteworthy trends in investor behavior. Shareholders are revealing an increasingly nuanced understanding of the human rights impact of companies’ existing and emerging operations. Alphabet (Google), for instance, faced a petition this year calling on the tech giant to assess the impacts of its plans to build data centers in human rights hotspots such as Saudi Arabia. At Amazon, resolutions calling out the human rights violations enabled by its facial recognition and surveillance products continued to gain traction, winning a robust 40% of shareholder votes. Calls at both Meta and Google to terminate their multi-class share structures, which allow powerful executives to artificially dilute majority support for such resolutions, won near-unanimous support from independent shareholders, setting an all-time record.

Meanwhile, RDR’s involvement in shareholder resolutions has also evolved in the past two years: from providing data points to directly shaping them alongside activist investors. Our Scorecards provide a balanced assessment of more than two dozen companies. Where we see a company’s disclosures on a key topic persistently lagging behind, we help forge collective efforts to push them to improve. This year, we helped craft a proposal that called on Meta to assess the human rights impacts of its targeted ad-based business model, which won the support of over 70% of independent shareholders. We also worked with shareholders to call for an assessment of Google’s FLoC ad technology, which likely influenced the company’s decision to terminate the program.

Improving the behavior of powerful actors requires persistent effort over time. This understanding is baked into our research and rankings, which track the yearly ebb and flow  of companies’ disclosures about how they protect users’ rights. It is baked into our policy engagement, which provides guidance for lawmakers to shape new legislation. It is baked into our work with advocacy partners around the world who adapt our methodology to create new windows of scrutiny. And it is baked into our collaboration with investors, who represent an increasingly powerful source of pressure on companies to act responsibly. We strive to connect these streams whenever possible.

Civil society watchdogs, the responsible investor community, and those working to reform companies from within share a common goal: strengthening corporate accountability and protecting human rights. Today’s update is one more step toward bringing these communities together and showing how their common goal can be achieved.