The New York Post reports that Facebook’s stock has dropped 34 percent, sparking anger from a group of shareholders who are deeply concerned by the “dystopian downsides” of Mark Zuckerberg’s new Metaverse platform.
Investors are reportedly pushing two resolutions at the next shareholder meeting that they say would provide essential oversight of Facebook and Instagram. To garner support for the resolutions, the corporate accountability group SumOfUs is sending a report to over 4,000 Facebook investors.
The report describes three crises “engulfing” Meta: privacy restrictions by Apple and Google that have had a negative impact on Meta’s advertising business, the ongoing antitrust lawsuits and regulatory bills targeting Facebook, and allegations that Zuckerberg lied to investors and lawmakers about Instagram’s harmful side effects on teens.
The investors allege that these issues arose under Zuckerberg’s leadership and that he has failed to prove that his Metaverse idea is anything more than a “rushed attempt to divert attention from fundamental issues with Meta’s core business.”
“When you see a loss of over $230 billion in February, that shakes up everybody, and that should be a sign that it’s time for change,” said SumOfUs shareholder engagement advisor Christina O’Connell. “Meta has been unable to manage its problems here now in the world where we’re all living, so it’s pretty shocking that they want to move into a more complex platform such as the metaverse. Harms to children, harassment, hate speech — that all becomes amplified when you start moving into the metaverse.”