Pinterest | Additional reporting on government requests to remove content at Pinterest

Status
0.33% votes in favour
AGM date
Proposal number
5
Resolution details
Lead filer
National Center for Public Policy
Resolution ask
Report on or disclose
ESG theme
  • Social
ESG sub-theme
  • Digital rights
Type of vote
Shareholder proposal
Filer type
Shareholder
Company sector
Consumer Discretionary
Company HQ country
United States
Resolved clause
Resolved:
Shareholders request that Pinterest (“Company”) provide a report, published on its website and updated semi-annually – and omitting proprietary information and at reasonable cost – that specifies the Company’s policy in responding to requests to remove, “shadowban,” fail to promote or take other action regarding content on its platform or platform users by the Executive Office of the President, Members of Congress, or any other agency, entity or subcontractor on behalf of the United States Government, or by any political party, candidate for public office, or political campaign. This report should include information necessary to give shareholders a full understanding of the interactions without revealing proprietary information, and might reasonably include the name and title of the individual making the request; the nature and scope of the request; the date of the request; the Company’s action or inaction to the request; and a reason or rationale for the Company’s response, or lack thereof.
Supporting statement
Supporting statement
Recent news reports have revealed what many individuals already knew: that social media companies have been censoring and suppressing information at the behest of government entities. Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the FBI instructed Facebook to be on the lookout for so-called “Russian propaganda” prior to the 2020 presidential election.1
According to Zuckerberg, the information provided by the FBI “fit the pattern” of the Hunter Biden laptop story, resulting in Facebook’s censorship of the story implicating President Biden in his son’s business dealings.2 The FBI’s warnings of disinformation similarly resulted in Twitter’s censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story.3
In fact, Twitter’s then VP and Deputy General Counsel, James Baker, was previously the General Counsel of the FBI and was allegedly integral in Twitter’s decision to censor the story.4 Such attempts by the government to interfere with and influence social media content is apparently standard practice. The FBI has said the agency, “routinely notifies U.S. private sector entities, including social media providers, of potential threat information....”5
The FBI held weekly meetings with Facebook and Twitter in the run-up to the 2020 election.6 But in the instance of the Hunter Biden laptop story, the FBI falsely labeled derogatory information about Hunter as disinformation, resulting in social media censorship of the story.7

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