Facebook Shareholders Attack Zuckerberg, Call Out ‘Dystopian Downsides’ of Metaverse

Facebook’s stock has dropped 34 percent sparking anger from a group of shareholders. Among other complaints, the shareholders are deeply concerned by the “dystopian downsides” of Zuckerberg’s much-heralded Metaverse.

The New York Post reports that a group of Facebook (now known as Meta) shareholders are deeply angered by CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s leadership as the company’s shares have plummeted by 34 percent. Investors are reportedly pushing two resolutions at the next shareholder meeting that they say would provide essential oversight of Facebook and Instagram, and would explore the possible “dystopian downsides” of the Metaverse project.

In an effort to garner support for the resolutions, the corporate accountability group SumOfUs which is currently working with activist investors is sending a report to over 4,000 investors with stakes in Facebook, including firms such as Vanguard, Fidelity, and BlackRock.

The report was obtained by the New York Post and describes three crises “engulfing” Meta. The crises include 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.”

Christina O’Connell, SumOfUs’s shareholder engagement advisor, commented that the major drop in stock price should signal to investors that a change needs to be made. “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,” O’Connell said.

She went on to say: “There’s a real concern that given the amount of problems we’ve seen with the company, that the committee is not managing the company’s behavior and performance very well. We would like to see an independent analysis of how that committee is functioning.”

Discussing the idea of the metaverse, O’Connell stated: “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.”

Read more at the New York Post here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com