Google Is Still Getting Away With Funding Hate Speech
It’s time to take our fight against hate speech to its upcoming stockholder meeting.
Ahead of Google’s annual stockholder meeting on June 7th, we’re asking Google’s three biggest stockholders — Vanguard, Fidelity and Blackrock — to hold Google accountable for still funding Breitbart.
In the middle of Google’s massive hate speech crisis in March, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler insisted there was really nothing to worry about.
“It has always been a small problem,” with “very very very small numbers,” said Chief Business Officer, Philipp Schindler during an interview in March.
The stock market told a very different story.
Google was wrong. Appearing alongside hate speech is never “a small problem” when it’s your brand on the line.
Last week, Google got it wrong again: instead of removing websites that publish hate speech from its network, it will now remove ads on a page-by-page basis.
The so-called “page-level exclusions” is a big win for extremists. It allows them to keep running profitably and instead puts the burden on businesses to constantly monitor their brands.
Rather than ending its business ties with racist and extremist websites, Google will now allow extremist sites to keep collecting ad money on some pages while spreading hate speech on others.
And even then, there’s no guarantee Google will act on violations of its own terms & policies. The Sleeping Giants community has been flagging up the bigotry and racism of Breitbart for over six months. No change.
“You have resources, your margins are enormous, you don’t explain to people how algorithms work. You have to change in my view.” — Martin Sorrell, CEO at WPP
Since November, over 2000 businesses have pulled their ads from Breitbart.
The users have spoken, the customers have spoken and the media buyers have spoken. Hate speech shouldn’t be profitable, period. The market shows that it shouldn’t be.
“Sounds like a victory for the people that casually mix in false and misleading news alongside things that are pointed but factually accurate.” — Anonymous publisher via Digiday
Enough is enough. Now, we’re taking our fight against hate speech to Google’s three top stockholders:
Google’s annual stockholder meeting is coming up: It’s time to act
We have our chance to have our views represented on June 7th at its Annual Stockholder Meeting in Mountain View, California.
The day’s agenda includes Proposal 12, a stockholder proposal which asks the company to report on the strategies it’s using to manage hate speech and fake news.
The report would force Google to shed much needed transparency on questions like these around hate speech and fake news:
- How many staff, 3rd parties and technologies are involved in managing it?
- What strategies and policies will they use to manage it? (For example: How does Google plan to evaluate exponentially more content with new page-level exclusions?)
- What’s the extent to which Google blocks ads from these sites?
And that last one? It’s important. We want to know exactly how Breitbart has slipped through the cracks for over six months with fake reports like this:
…and a comments forum like this.
ACTION: Ask stockholders to vote FOR Proposal 12
Vanguard, Blackrock and Fidelity each holds significant voting rights at Google. We need to turn up the heat on them every single day leading up to June 7th.
Here are the two things you need to join us on this mission:
👉🏽 Pre-written template
👉🏽 List of emails and contact details here:
Fidelity:
Jeanne Thompson / SVP Thought Leadership
@jeanne_fidelity
Jurrien Timmer / Director of Global Macro
@timmerfidelity
Media Inquiries
617 563 5800
Fidelity Corporate Affairs
fidelitycorporateaffairs@fmr.com
Blackrock:
Ben Golub / Chief Risk Officer
Stewardship Team
contactstewardship@blackrock.com
Brian Beades / Media contact (Head of Americas)
212 810 5596
Vanguard:
Glenn Booraem / Head of Corporate Governance
Vanguard Media Relations
vanguard_media_relations@vanguard.com
Be sure to follow Sleeping Giants on Twitter and Facebook, where we will be posting additional instructions and updates.
Every message counts. Every email counts. This is big, guys. It’s time to make a difference.
