Child sexual exploitation: Christian Brothers Investment Services, Proxy Impact, and several faith-based ICCR members launched a new effort last year to enlist corporate support for ending child sexual exploitation online. Just one of three proposals went to a vote in 2019, earning 33.9 percent at Verizon Communications. Also last year, CBIS ended up withdrawing at Apple after discussions with the company about its policies. This year, there are four proposals:
At Verizon and AT&T proponents want:
a report on the potential sexual exploitation of children through the company’s products and services, including a risk evaluation... assessing whether the company’s oversight, policies and practices are sufficient to prevent material impacts to the company’s brand reputation, product demand or social license.
At Alphabet, they want a report
assessing the risk of children being sexually exploited across the Company’s platforms and businesses...by February 2021, including whether the Company’s existing policies and practices are sufficient to prevent adverse impacts to children (18 and younger) and to the company’s reputation or social license.
At Facebook, proponents led by Proxy Impact seek the same sort of report, specifically about the risk of increased sexual exploitation of children as the Company develops and offers additional privacy tools such as end-to-end encryption. The report should address potential adverse impacts to children (18 years and younger) and to the company’s reputation or social license, assess the impact of limits to detection technologies and strategies.
Withdrawal—In a late-breaking development as this report was being finalized, the proponents withdrew at Verizon after the company agreed to conduct a child risk assessment across its business, provide metrics on its efforts to fight child sexual exploitation online and report annually to the board on these efforts.
FACEBOOK AT CENTER OF STORM OVER CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION ONLINE
MICHAEL PASSOFF
CEO, Proxy Impact
There has been an explosion of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online and it is likely going to get much worse unless tech companies take more aggressive action to stop it. What was once the province of individual child predators taking photos for their own use has–through the proliferation of smart phones, social networks, and data storage—increased exponentially with the growth of the internet and children going online. (One third of Internet users are children and 800 million kids now are on social media.)
Trafficking: The Adrian Dominican Sisters have withdrawn a proposal at Amazon.com that asked for a report on the company’s “management systems and processes to implement its commitment to prohibit human trafficking in its operations.” It pointed out what it saw as deficiencies in the company’s implementation of a policy against trafficking—contrasting it to other companies including Albertsons, Costco, FedEx and UPS that work with groups such as Truckers Against Trafficking to take proactive measures. It noted the vast array of delivery services commanded by the company. The withdrawal came after the company agreed to engage further on the issue with investors; increase disclosure of its prevention efforts to prevent and raise awareness of the problem. It also agreed to partner with Truckers Against Trafficking.
U.S. slavery reparations: In a first, an individual named March S. Gallagher has proposed that the railroad CSX take steps to atone for pre-Civil War slavery through a company it now owns. The resolution asks that the company
set aside sufficient funding to commission a study, beginning no later than the fourth quarter of 2020, to determine how the corporation can best atone for its participation in slavery. The commission, made up of recognized scholars with knowledge and experience in reparations, will: (1) study how other corporations have atoned for slavery; (2) formulate CSX’s own atonement with an emphasis on apology and community-building reparations through an atonement trust fund; and (3) clarify the historical record regarding CSX’s participation in slavery so that the corporation’s shareholders and the public at large understand why atonement is being made.
The body of the resolution makes the case for reparations given current economic disadvantages for African Americans, noting that the U.S. government has paid reparations to Japanese Americans forced into internment camps during World War II and the German government to Holocaust victims. It says, “Many companies benefitted from the use of slave labor during the time it was legally sanctioned.” Further, it notes that CSX now owns the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad, which “is still operating on infrastructure built with slave labor,” which produced capital for the company.
CSX has challenged the resolution at the SEC, arguing it concerns ordinary business since it would micromanage the company and because it is not significantly related to the company’s business.