The Nathan Cummings Foundation has resubmitted a proposal about Amazon.com’s approach to hate speech and products that foment it on the company’s platforms. It earned 27.2 percent in 2019 and again asks for a report on

efforts to address hate speech and the sale or promotion of offensive products throughout its businesses. The report should...discuss Amazon’s process for developing policies to address hate speech and offensive products, including the experts and stakeholders with whom Amazon consulted, and the enforcement mechanisms it has put in place, or intends to put in place, to ensure hate speech and offensive products are effectively addressed.

The proposal raises the issue of hate speech and its prevalence among product offerings on Amazon’s platform, saying that while Amazon has a policy against offensive materials, it appears to be applied inconsistently, citing examples of various white supremacist paraphernalia available for purchase on the site. Nathan Cummings points to other companies that have experienced boycotts over similar issues, and notes tightening hate speech legislation in Europe that comes with fines for non- compliance. The proponent also makes a case that employee engagement and satisfaction may suffer if the company allows hateful materials on its platform. Amazon said last year that it takes these issues seriously, and pointed to its policies on the subject; it said that as part of its enforcement activities around the world in a wide array of cultural contexts, it “seeks information about potentially offensive products from various sources including customer contacts, social media posts, and the press.” The company uses an automated process to support its offensive products policies and may include human intervention in ambiguous cases.

A new proposal at Alphabet from Trillium Asset Management wants to see more scrutiny of whistleblower protections. It asks for a report “evaluating” these policies “and assessing the feasibility of expanding those policies and practices above and beyond current levels to cover, for example, information concerning the public interest and/or information concerning rights contained in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.” The resolution says that protecting employees who identify dishonest behavior “is vital to a well-functioning system,” but such protections are patchy. It notes human rights groups urged subsidiary Google to provide protections to employees who felt the company is “failing its commitments to human rights.” The company faced an employee walkout connected to employee unionization efforts in November, the resolution notes; the company fired employees who were protesting company work they found ethically objectionable, such as its work in China and that for Project Maven, an artificial intelligence offering for the Department of Defense that the company later cancelled.