Facebook shareholders will be voting at the annual stockholder meeting on a proposal to postpone plans to implement end-to-end message encryption.
Shareholders will vote whether to delay plans by Facebook to make end-to-end message encryption the default option across its messaging platforms to protect privacy. Voting will be held during the 2020 annual shareholders' meeting.
The meeting will only be held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic but shareholders will still be able to vote on measures and hear about the management plans.
Message encryption plans
Activist shareholders pointed out that this would make it almost impossible to detect child exploitation on Facebook. They wanted the social media giant to postpone the move until after its board of directors further assesses the risks of the initiative.
Michael Passoff, founder of Proxy Impact, a shareholder advocacy service supporting the move to delay, said: "As shareholders, we know that privacy is important to a social media company, but it should not come at the expense of unleashing a whole new torrent of virtually undetectable child sexual abuse on Facebook."
Facebook, which claims to be a leader in fighting child exploitation on the internet, said: "As we expand end-to-end encryption to secure people's private messages from hackers and criminals we remain committed to leading our industry in keeping children safe."
The proposal to postpone the implementation of the encryption plans is unlikely to pass since most of the company's voting shares are controlled by Facebook's founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Mark Zuckerberg, and a small number of other executives.
Zuckerberg announced in March 2019 that he wanted end-to-end encryption to become the base level of security for all the company's messaging services, including Facebook Messenger and Instagram messaging.
This means that messages, including text and imagery, are digitally scrambled so that they only make sense to the sender and receiver and not to Facebook. Encryption is already being used by Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp.
Potential for child exploitation
Several governments, including the US, UK and Australia, have been asking Facebook to develop a backdoor or workaround to the encryption technology that will allow them to access messages in criminal investigations.
The tech giant has continually refused to grant the governments' request.
Proxy Impact's measure would Facebook to examine whether it can undertake certain steps to mitigate "the risk of increased sexual exploitation of children" as a consequence.
In 2019, tech companies reported to authorities around 70 million videos and pictures of children being sexually exploited, of which almost 85% of those reports came from Facebook.
Passoff argued that if the company goes through with the encryption, 70% of those cases would become undetected by the firm.
Facebook says it is trying to find a balance between privacy and public security.
In the past, Facebook users have complained about the company's use and protection of their personal data. End-to-end encryption will ensure that criminals will be unable to access private conversations and cannot take hold of personal and financial data.
Lisette Cooper, vice-chair of Fiduciary Trust International, which is supporting the vote, said: "Numerous controversies have eroded its reputational capital and put the company at risk for future competitive threats."
"The position of Facebook as the world's number one hub for online child sexual abuse material is not the marketing strategy you want to have for long-term success," she pointed out.
