A group of Twitter shareholders is urging the company for an update on how it is fighting fake news, abuse, and to specify the regulatory risk it faces. Twitter’s board responded that the company is “taking action.”
The New York State Retirement Fund and Arjuna Capital have filed a shareholder proposal that would encourage Twitter to put together a detailed report about how well it’s doing enforcing its social network’s terms of service, the company disclosed in a regulatory document on Wednesday. The shareholders are also urging the company to include in the report the possible financial and other risks it faces from fake news and similar controversies.
“Shareholders are concerned that Twitter’s failure to address these issues proactively has created regulatory, legal, and reputational risk,” the investors said in their proposal. “We believe Twitter has an obligation to demonstrate how it manages content to prevent violations of its terms of service. Yet, disclosures have been inadequate.”
Twitter also noted its statement of opposition, saying “Our board of directors has considered this proposal and, for the reasons described below, believes that adopting this proposal is not in the best interests of Twitter and our stockholders and unanimously recommends that you vote ‘AGAINST’ this proposal. Our board of directors and management have devoted, and continue to devote, significant effort to ensure that we are aware of and able to properly address public policy issues of importance to our business. Because we believe that the issues raised in the proposal are or have already been addressed as part of our ongoing business operations through our existing robust systems, structures, processes and controls, with significant oversight from our board of directors and management at the highest levels, we do not believe that establishing a separate public policy committee of the board of directors is necessary.”
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