Meta, Mark Zuckerberg face shareholder pressure over efforts to protect kids online: Need ‘transparency’

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg faces a potential revolt at the company’s annual meeting on Wednesday as shareholders push the Big Tech firm to step up transparency regarding its efforts to protect kids online.

A group led by Lisette Cooper, vice chair of the Franklin Templeton subsidiary Fiduciary Trust International and the parent of a child sex abuse survivor, is backing a non-binding resolution urging Meta’s board to publish an annual report tracking the company’s performance on child safety and protecting young users from harm on its apps.

The report would require “quantitative metrics appropriate to assessing whether Meta has improved its performance globally regarding child safety impacts and actual harm reduction to children on its platforms.”

“If they want to reassure advertisers, parents, legislators, shareholders on whether they’re making a different on dealing with this problem on harm to children, they need to have transparency,” Cooper said in an interview with The Post. “They need better metrics.”

The resolution is set for a vote during a time of intense scrutiny for Zuckerberg-led Meta – which faces a legal and regulatory crackdown in the US and abroad about its alleged failure to keep kids safe on Instagram and Facebook.

Zuckerberg himself recently apologized to the families of victims of online sex abuse during a high-profile Congressional hearing.