Morning. Welcome and thanks for joining us at Facebook's 2019 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I'm Dave Kling, Deputy General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Facebook and Chairman of this Annual Meeting, which I now call to order. First, let's run through today's agenda. We'll start with the business set forth in the proxy statement.
Following adjournment of the formal portion of the meeting, Mark will come on stage and give a company update. Then we'll conclude with a Q and A session. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you to please turn off all mobile devices and of the rules of conduct for this session. Photos or recording of any kind is prohibited. Also, we intend to run an orderly meeting.
Anyone who intend on disrupting the meeting or repurposing it for their own agenda will be asked to leave. We value engaging with our stockholders, but it's important that this engagement be respectful in both directions. Thank you for your cooperation. Let me start by introducing the members of our Board of Directors who are here today, Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Sue Desmond Hellman and Jeff Zients. Peggy Alford, who was nominated for election to our Board of Directors is also in attendance and Mark Andreessen is joining via teleconference.
In addition, we are joined by Richard Jackson of Ernst and Young LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm and Chris Vico, who will act as Inspector of Election for this meeting and will tabulate the results to the voting. Turning now to the formal business. The proxy statement was properly mailed or made available to all stockholders of record as of April 5, 2019. I have a list of stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting, which is available for inspection by any stockholder present and which list will be filed with the records of the meeting. I'm advised by the Inspector of Election that the holders of shares representing at least a majority of the voting power of our Class A and Class B common stock Voting together as a single class are present or represented by proxy here today and the requisite quorum for each proposal is therefore present.
Accordingly, this meeting is authorized to transact the business set forth in the proxy statement. We have 12 proposals to consider at this meeting, each of which is described in the proxy. We will discuss these proposals momentarily. First, however, I remind you that voting today is by proxy and written ballot. If you have already sent in the proxy and do not intend to change your vote, there is no need for you to cast a ballot today.
Your vote will be counted automatically without any further on your part. Any stockholder present who has not returned to proxy or who wishes to change your vote may cast a ballot at this meeting. Does any stockholder wish to cast a ballot today? If so, please raise your hand and one of our volunteers will bring one to you. Got a couple, keep them up high.
All right. It is currently 11:05 and the polls are now open. You may vote at any time during our discussion of the proposals on the agenda. Once you have filled out your ballot, Please raise your ballot in the air and our volunteers will come and collect it. I will now review the proposals to be voted on at this meeting.
The first item of business is to elect our Board of Directors to serve at our next Annual Meeting. The director nominees are Peggy Alford, Mark Andresen Ken Chenault Sue Desmond Hellman Sheryl Sandberg Peter Thiel Jeff Saenz and Mark Zuckerberg. The qualifications of each nominee are set forth in the proxy statement. No other director nominees have been properly submitted for election Pursuant to our bylaws or SEC rules, therefore, no other nominations may be accepted at this time. The Board of Directors recommends a vote for the election of each of the nominated directors.
The second item of business is to ratify the appointment of Ernst and Young LLP as our independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2019. The Board of Directors recommends a vote for this proposal. The 3rd item of business is to hold a non binding advisory vote the compensation program for our named executive officers. The Board of Directors recommends a vote for this matter. The 4th item of business is to hold a non binding advisory vote on the frequency of our say on pay vote.
The Board of Directors recommends a vote for the option of a vote every 3 years with respect to say on pay. Finally, we received 8 stockholder proposals that complied with the requirements of our bylaws and SEC rules and are therefore eligible to be voted on at this meeting. The Board of Directors recommends a vote against each of proposals 5 through 12. The company's position on each proposal is as set forth in the proxy statement. Accordingly, we will not be providing direct responses at this meeting and any questions should be held until the Q and A session at the end of the meeting.
Each stockholder proponent may now make a statement in support of their proposal. I will call you up 1 by 1 to one of the microphones. Please limit your statement to no more than 3 minutes and feel free to use either aisle. First for proposal 5, a proposal regarding a change in stockholder voting. Abigail Shaw will be speaking on behalf of Northstar Asset Management.
Ms. Shaw?
Good morning, fellow shareholders. My name is Abigail Shaw from NorthStar Asset Management in Boston. I am here to represent Resolution 5, A good governance proposal about equal voting rights. Each year for the past 6 years, outside shareholders have supported this proposal by the 1,000,000. We estimate that last year over 80% of independent shareholders voted yes on this proposal, therefore telling Mr.
Zuckerberg and the Board that they are unhappy with the current arrangement. Shareholders continue to have no recourse against the Board or management When scandals pull down shareholder value. It is no secret that our company has struggled in the past 2 years Due to a seemingly endless stream of controversies and data breaches, these include critiques of the company's likely role in proliferating fake news That affected the 2016 U. S. Election, stories that laid bare Facebook's lax policies around the use and sharing of user information And risked losing users' trust in the platform and multiple allegations that the company's communications app WhatsApp And even the Facebook platform itself facilitated the spread of hate in places such as Myanmar and India, which led to violence and aided in genocide.
As shareholders, we do not like reading news stating that Facebook stock plunged as much as 20% after months of scandal and criticism finally hit the company where it hurts, growth, as reported by Time in July 2018. These examples illustrate the risk to a company when a Board is formed by the CEO to meet his needs And is primarily composed of insiders or other affiliated people rather than truly independent directors who would provide Proper management and oversight to protect shareholder investment. Given the existing share structure, the current Status of shareholder outrage against the company and Board can have no corrective effect. We are at a vital impasse for our company. We are faced right now with a situation for which Facebook clearly does not have the expertise to manage.
Yet if these crucial governance proposals fail, The only true recourse is for shareholders to vote with their feet by selling the stock, damaging the value for remaining shareholders. Shareholders, we urge you to vote for proxy item number 5. Thank you.
Great. Thank you, Michelle. Next for Proposal 6, a proposal regarding an independent chair. Jonas Kron will be speaking on behalf of Trillium Asset Management.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, fellow shareholders. My name is Jonas Krone, and I'm here on behalf of Trillium Asset Management and the Park Foundation to hereby move item number 6, seeking independent board share policy for Facebook. This proposal has been co filed by the New York City Controller, the treasurers of Illinois, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Oregon and multiple multitude of smaller and faith based investors. It is at its core, this shareholder proposal is about the risk of concentrating too much Power in one person, any person.
As proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis put it in its report supporting the shareholder proposal, Investing a single person with both executive and board leadership concentrates too much responsibility in a single person and inhibits independent board oversight of executives. Facebook is incredibly powerful with wide ranging and difficult to understand, let alone control social impacts. Over the last 2 years, we have watched with growing dismay as that list of controversial and damaging social impacts grew very long. And as rigorous reporting from The New York Times has shown us, having a unified chair and CEO severely limited the Board's ability to provide the company the oversight it needed. It is these very facts about power and impact, responsibility and Accountability, which highlight why a unified chair and CEO is a misguided idea.
It is unwise to have so much power concentrated in one person, which is why we should look to the examples of other companies, such as Alphabet, Apple, Autodesk and Microsoft, to name just a few, which all have independent Board Chairs. We recognize that Facebook has a lead independent director, and we acknowledge that the Board has recently taken steps to articulate more clearly her powers and responsibilities. However, these recent changes are fundamentally insufficient This question comes to shareholders at a critical moment. Facebook is embarking on a privacy pivot, which leadership has described as requiring a completely new platform. At a time when there is little public trust in Facebook, it is navigating a regulatory landscape that is changing quickly.
It is at a time like this we need 2 different people in these 2 distinctly different leadership positions. Let us not miss this opportunity to make a simple yet powerful change that will go a long way towards creating a successful future, not only for Facebook and its employees and its shareholders, but for individuals, families and communities around the world. Thank you for your time and attention and for your support for an independent Board Chair.
Great. Thank you. Next for Proposal 7, a Proposal regarding majority voting for directors. Abigail Shah will be speaking on behalf of James McRitchie and Mary Young.
This is proposal number 7, majority voting for directors, presented on behalf of James McRitchie and Myra K. Young. This proposal in conjunction with proposal number 5 seeks a meaningful role for shareholders in director elections By changing from a plurality voting system to a majority vote standard, where only Board nominated candidates are on the ballot. Under our company's current voting system, a director can be elected if all shareholders Oppose the Director but one shareholder votes for even if by mistake. 91% of S and P 500 Denise have adopted majority voting for uncontested elections.
So far during the 2019 season, This topic has been voted and results reported 10 times with an average vote of 98.5% voting for a majority vote Standard. BlackRock, the world's largest investor with $6,500,000,000,000 in assets Includes the following in their proxy voting guidelines. Majority voting standards assist in ensuring that directors who are not broadly supported by shareholders, are not elected to serve as their representatives. Our current Board is unaccountable to unaffiliated shareholders. Please vote for proposals number 5 and number 7 to help bring democracy to Facebook.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next for Proposal 8, a proposal regarding a true diversity board policy, David Almasi will be speaking on behalf of the National Center For Public Policy Research.
Hi, I'm David Almasi of the National Center For Public Policy Research and I move Proposal 8, which seeks to increase ideological diversity on the company's Board of Directors. Last year, a colleague and I met with someone from the law firm of Covington and Burling, which was commissioned by Facebook to substantiate and analyze allegations of bias against conservatives on Facebook. We reported that our own Facebook page traffic had plummeted dramatically over the last few years. The investigator asked if our organization discusses climate change. It does.
We were informed that this aspect of our programming, Post seeking to continue the active debate about the science of climate probably kept us from reaching more people about all the issues addressed by the National Center. Also last year, Facebook senior engineer, Brian Amridge, complained on an internal message board that, We have a problem with political diversity. He continued, We are a political monoculture that is intolerant of different views. We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack often in mobs, anyone who presents a view that appears to be an opposition to left leaning ideology. While Amheraj Initially sought to work with management to promote political diversity.
He eventually left Facebook over disagreements about a free speech policy that he told Wired was dangerous and impractical. One of Ambridge's remaining legacies is an internal online group called F. Beers for Political Diversity. This group recently revealed The Facebook had created a list of so called hate agents, including black conservative Candace Owens and Lebanese American activist, Bridget Gabriel. Facebook confirmed the existence of this list to brightbark.com and it's believed that this list played an integral role in the purging of several people from Facebook earlier this month.
And I'll just throw in the Palmer Luckey, the guy behind the Oculus technology that's advertised everywhere these days as the next big thing, Alleges he was fired from Facebook because he made a $10,000 donation to an anti Hillary PAC in 2016. Whether you're willing to admit there's a bias at Facebook is beyond the point right now. In business, perception is often reality. Our proposal provides a tangible way for the company to combat its bias. When the company takes overtly political positions on legal and policy issues, it would benefit from having voices on both sides of the aisle in that room.
The company would be less like much less likely to engage in bias against conservatives if it had a few right leaning folks in positions of power. If their voices were heard, It would go a long way towards fixing both the actual bias and the perception of bias. From the way your one known conservative board member, Peter Thiel, is frequently vilified and called upon To be dismissed by the left, it's clear that you need to be intentional about seeking out and maintaining diversity on the Facebook boardroom. All this points to the necessity of implementing our proposal. We believe that boards that incorporate diverse perspectives can think more critically and oversee corporate managers more effectively.
Appointing a few conservatives may help the company avoid groupthink and address biases. That's a win for investors and a win for true diversity. Please join me in voting yes on proposal 8. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Almasi. Next for proposal 9, a proposal regarding a content governance report, Natasha Lam will be speaking on behalf of Arjuna Capital. Ms. Lam?
Thank you. Ms. Lam?
Thank you. Good morning. My name is Natasha Lam and I'm here to move proposal number 9. On behalf of Arjuna Capital and co filer of the New York State Common Retirement Fund. We're asking our company to report on content governance And specifically, how the mismanagement of Facebook's platforms is impacting human rights and democracy.
This is a critical inquiry as such societal impacts carry reputational, regulatory and financial risks for the company and its investors. From political subterfuge, fake news, violence, hate speech and sexual harassment, It is clear that content that violates Facebook's own terms of service poses a risk to the company's market value and brand. We've been raising these investor concerns at the annual meeting for the last 3 years, but last year the materiality of our concerns was clear. We saw $200,000,000,000 market value drops following the Cambridge Analytica scandal and a subsequent earnings report reflecting decreasing revenue growth and increasing costs to address content and privacy concerns. Since then, our company has been forced to play catch up With increased disclosures and internal compliance and enforcement strategies.
And while the reporting we've been seeking has certainly improved, Facebook's ability to assuage investor concerns has not. Abuse continues. The New Zealand shooting is only the most recent reminder. The United Nations says Facebook has played a determining role fueling hate speech in Myanmar, where violence against the Rohingya bears the hallmarks of genocide. In Germany, researchers found a correlation Facebook use and racist violence.
And in Libya, armed groups have used Facebook to hunt down opponents and traffic weapons. But our concerns go beyond content governance to the top heavy governance structure underpinning Facebook's woes. Mr. Zuckerberg's dominance over the company continues unchecked as the platform and online content is weaponized to propagate election interference, Violence, hate speech, sexual harassment, discriminatory advertising and rampant privacy violations. At today's meeting, Facebook investors have an important choice to make, not just to support Proposal Number 9, So whether to continue to throw our support behind Zuckerberg's failing autocracy or support a more democratic, transparent and accountable governance structure, Absent change, Mr.
Zuckerberg will continue to hold the keys to the council as Chairman and CEO, Control the majority voting power of the shares and ignore the concerns of the company's shareholders. Mr. Zuckerberg cannot fix Facebook alone. Thank you.
Great. Thank you. For proposal 10, a proposal regarding median gender pay, Natasha Lam will again be speaking on behalf of Arjuna Capital.
Thank you very much. Again, my name is Natasha Lam and I move proposal number 10 on behalf of Arjuna Capital asking for a report on gender and racial pay equity. Arjuna Capital first engaged Facebook on pay equity in 2016. This is the 4th time this proposal is going to a vote. Importantly, I would like to acknowledge that last summer, our company took a critical first step By publishing statistically adjusted equal pay for equal work numbers, assessing the pay of men and women performing similar jobs.
Facebook reports women earn 100 percent of the compensation received by men. As a result, the company improved its grade from an F to a C in our annual investor gender pay scorecard, yet the statistically adjusted number is only half of the story. The other half is median pay disclosure, which is the specific objective of this proposal. Median pay is an unadjusted raw measure used by the Organization For Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD, to assess not only equal pay, but equal opportunity. Women who work full time in the United States make $0.80 on the dollar versus men on this basis.
African American women make $0.60 on the dollar And Latina women make $0.55 on the dollar. Gaps in median pay is literally the definition of the gender pay gap. So while adjusted equal pay gaps measure whether women and people of color are being paid commiserate with their peers for the work they are doing today, Median pay gaps measure whether these groups are holding as many high paying jobs within companies, that is whether there's equal opportunity. Given the importance of this measure, disclosure of median pay is now mandated in the United Kingdom. For Facebook's U.
K. Operations, our company reported a 12 Percent hourly median pay gap and a 42% bonus median pay gap. Yet notably, our company has not published median information for its global operations, nor has our company published any information on racial pay equity. Transparent disclosures that tell the whole story of gender and racial pay equity are essential to investors as they create accountability And drive change toward not only equal pay, but equal opportunity. That change is in service to a more diverse company and leadership and therefore better performance.
Thank you so much for your time and support of proposal number 10.
Great. Thank you.
For Proposal 11, a proposal regarding workforce diversity, Peter Flaherty will be speaking on behalf of the National Legal and Policy Center.
Good afternoon. I'm from the East Coast. I'm Peter Flaherty of the National Legal and Policy Center. We sponsor the Corporate Integrity Project. In response to this proposal promoting ideological diversity, The company claims that, Diversity of ideas is core to our business, but then goes on to cite initiatives that make the company less diverse, Not more.
Like the fact that the company publishes data on the ethnicity and gender of its workforce. Is it not racist and sexist to attribute certain thoughts and ideas to individuals based on their gender and race? Do all African Americans think alike? How about all women? Facebook huffs We do not collect data on the political ideology of our employees as if this is somehow intrusive.
I'd suggest that it's a lot less intrusive than quizzing employees about the genetic makeup of their grandparents Or what they do in their bedrooms, information that Facebook is happy to collect and Ballyhoo. Facebook also suggests Are also sites so called biased training programs. As described by Karl Horowitz of my staff in a monograph titled The authoritarian roots of corporate diversity training, Jane Elliott's captive eyes and minds, these programs result in double standards and make employees less likely to voice individual opinions. It seems like Facebook makes a lot of mistakes. Whenever conservatives or libertarians get censored by Facebook.
It's a mistake and the denials fly that the company is biased. But couldn't a lot of these mistakes We avoided if content gatekeepers weren't practically all San Francisco Liberals. As Marc Andreessen candidly observed, I think it is really hard for a lot of people in Silicon Valley to even articulate the other side. What would be wrong With making a conscious effort to hire more people who are truly underrepresented at Facebook, conservatives, libertarians, practicing Catholics and Christians, Observe and choose, pro lifers, Midwesterners, veterans. It's a pretty long list, and I'm not suggesting all these people think alike.
For many Americans, maybe Facebook is so hostile to their values that they would not want to work here. Well, maybe Facebook should start doing something about it. Surely, the company has interest and it should speak out in defense of them. But if Facebook wants to be a Platform for all ideas. Why in the world does it insert itself in the most controversial public policy issues of the day?
Shouldn't the company be carefully neutral on issues that have nothing to do with its core business? Take, for example, Facebook's promotion of the so called Equality Act. It would basically abolish gender before the law, Although in the real world, you can't abolish gender because it's a function of genetics and biology. There is no corner of our society that it would not touch. Of course, without gender, there can be no feminism.
There's no Title IX meeting the end of women's sports, but that's just the start of the controversy. What could be more seemingly calculated to alienate a significant portion of Facebook users, employees and shareholders? How will it play in the rest of the world? Is Mark Zuckerberg's view that supporting the Equality Act must be done because it is the right thing to do? What makes him the arbiter of what is right?
Mr. Zuckerberg is entitled to his own views, but he heads a public company. Almost done. Facebook has hundreds of thousands of employees and shareholders, Billions of users, they don't all think alike. True respect means recognizing that other people may have differing views, but they are entitled to them.
It is time for a little respect in the Facebook workplace and true diversity cannot be achieved without it.
Thank you. Thank you. Finally for proposal 12, a proposal regarding strategic alternatives, Ms. Ariel Cohen will be speaking on behalf of the proponents.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Ariel Cohen, National Organizer with Bend the Arc, and I'm speaking on behalf of members of Some of Us. I'm presenting shareholder proposal 12. Our proposal requests that the Board of Directors begin an orderly process of retaining advisors For strategic alternatives to the current corporate structure, including a breakup of Facebook Inc.
And an empowered committee of independent to evaluate those alternatives in exercise of their fiduciary responsibilities to maximize shareholder value. We believe that Facebook is out of control. It is too large and too complex to be managed effectively. We are sick and tired of apologies as Privacy and the safeties of our families and communities is repeatedly violated as hate is inflamed and as democracy undermined By the myriad interconnected monopolies that comprise Facebook Inc. Facebook has enabled the spread of incendiary fake news and violent extremist content that Sway's elections triggers mass shootings and sparks genocide.
Facebook shareholders have suffered the regulatory fines and actions As only the beginning and this continues to pile up, share holders need to make Facebook more manageable and Facebook's management more accountable. Our proposal is not prescriptive as to which strategic alternatives should be pursued, but Facebook founder Chris Hughes laid out a recommended strategic alternative And it's May 9th New York Times Op Ed. Facebook would have a brief period to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp businesses and the 3 would become distinct companies, Most likely publicly traded. Facebook shareholders would initially hold stock in the new companies and although Mark and other executives would Probably be required to divest their management shares. I think it's easy to understand that this is a business imperative, but I want you to know why it's Last October on a quiet morning, I got a text from a childhood friend that made no sense at first.
She asked, are you okay? She then went on to explain that there had been a mass shooting at the Tree of Life, the synagogue by my home and that housed So much of my beloved Pittsburgh Jewish community. The next 48 hours were a terrifying blur, and I frantically tried to track down friends and loved ones who may have been at Services that Saturday morning at the synagogue. As the hours were on, the horrific details grew clear. A white nationalist had murdered 11 members of my community as they prayed.
He, like so many others, had been radicalized on social media. In the days that followed, my deep mourning gave way to a renewed fear. I have been an outspoken community organizer for years. And as a Jewish woman fighting for social and economic justice, I knew that white nationalists grotesquely emboldened by this massacre would begin targeting people like me for abuse and worse. I found that friends of mine were known to the shooter by name and were callously mocked in this community.
And this community online had metastasized into a cell of white nationalist terror. I was forced to find and block hundreds of white nationalist accounts on Facebook and Twitter to protect my safety. Facebook has played a huge role in spreading the far right hatred that devastated communities like mine. But I refuse to allow this failure of due diligence to force me into hiding. I believe that leadership means living a powerful principled public life.
And it's not just Pittsburgh. In Charlottesville, a Neo Nazi who murdered Heather Hair and injured dozens of protesters Shared white supremacist means on Facebook before the attack. The Christ Church terrorist who massacred 50 Muslims as they worship Live streamed his crimes on Facebook. 300,000 versions of this video made it through Facebook's filters. And despite April's ban on white nationalist content, a recent investigation found that hundreds of far right pages With millions of followers continue to operate openly spreading the hatred that so often spills into fatal violence.
Facebook itself has committed antisemitic and racist and sexist acts. Sheryl Sandberg hired Republican backed PR form Definer's public affairs to publicly target George Soros after Soros rightfully criticized Facebook's business model. These smears against Zorro is fed into venomous anti Semitic conspiracies popular with the far right and Neo Nazis. Facebook claims this incident Bruce is accountable for failing to rein in management and allowing these terrible events to occur. We know that our company's Dual class structure gives Mark Zuckerberg voting control, but regulators and elected officials around the world are calling for to be regulated and broken up because the company has shoddy record and its monopoly power.
It's up to the Board to move forward and study alternatives The current configuration that will give shareholders the most value and will to manage the company in a way that minimizes legal, regulatory and political risk And that have borne in my community. Lastly, I am a millennial and while I call Pittsburgh my home and have for the last 6 years, Facebook is in many ways my neighborhood. I grew up online. Under the direction of Zuckerberg and Sandburg, my neighborhood, Facebook, has become unsafe, fostering communities of violence online and off. I urge shareholders to support our proposal.
Thank you.
Great. Thanks for sharing your story. I just want to take a brief moment to acknowledge that the horrific events that took place in Pittsburgh and Christchurch in too many places around the world this past year We're acts of pure evil. My heart goes out to you and to everyone in the communities that were impacted by these events. I'm sorry for these things that have happened and we're in keeping with that, We're committed to doing all we can to curb extremism and hate speech online.
These things don't have any place on our services. We don't allow people to attack based on national origin, gender, religious affiliation and we remove this content as soon as we become aware of so we're aligned on these things. That was our final shareholder presentation, so we will now collect any remaining Please raise your ballots if you still have them and our volunteers will come around and collect them. We've got
Okay.
All right, I think we have them all. All votes have now been cast on the proposals to be considered at this meeting and as of 11:35, The polls are now closed. I will now confer with the Inspector of Election and report on the preliminary results of the voting. The final results, including any votes turned in at this meeting, will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a Form 8 ks within 4 business days. The votes required to approve each of the proposals are set forth in the proxy statement.
Based on the preliminary results tabulated by the Inspector of Election for Proposal 1. Each of the 8 nominees has been elected to the Board of Directors. I'd actually like to just pause really briefly. We have a new Director who's selected. So Peggy Alford has now joined our Board of Directors.
And so I'd just like to acknowledge that. Welcome, Peggy. Based on the preliminary results for Proposal 2, Ernst and Young has been approved as our independent registered public accounting firm. Based on the preliminary results for Proposal 3, the compensation program for our named executive officers has been approved. Based on the preliminary results for proposal 4, the stockholders have approved the option of a vote every 3 years with respect to say on pay.
Finally, based on the preliminary tabulations by the Inspector of Election, each of proposals 5 through 12 has been rejected by the requisite majority of the votes There are no other items of business on the agenda, so this concludes the formal part of our meeting. The annual meeting is now adjourned. Now before I ask Mark to come up on the stage, I want to remind you that Mark's remarks and the Q and A that follows may contain forward looking statements regarding future events and the future financial performance of the company. We caution you to consider the important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward looking statements. These risk factors are more fully detailed in the caption Risk Factors in our quarterly report on Form 10 Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 25, 2019.
In addition, any forward looking statements that we make today are based on assumptions as of this date and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. Mark, you can come join us for your remarks.
All right. Well, thank you all for coming out. As always, the Annual Shareholder Meeting. This has been a busier year than most, and I thought it would be useful for me to give an update on How things are going and the priorities for the next year in terms of what we want to execute on. And overall, our community and our business continue to grow at a faster rate, even though, we're currently Certainly at the center of a number of really important social issues that we're working to address as well.
Our community Now has more than 2,700,000,000 people around the world who use one of our services, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger, at least once a month and more than 2,100,000,000 people who use one of our services Daily. So that's a lot of continued growth in the community. The business continues to grow. In the last quarter, The business grew to, I
think it
was $15,100,000,000 of revenue, up about 26% year over year, so continuing to grow. But our priorities for the next year are a little bit different from what we've how we've traditionally set up the goals and priorities for the company. Historically, we focused on things like just the growth of the community and amount that people are using the services and the growth of the business. This year, we're focused on 4 primary objectives. The first is to make Continue making substantive progress on the major social issues that our company is at the center of.
So that's everything from Some of the speech and content and safety issues that some of the folks just talked about to, of course, preventing election interference, To making sure that we build a stronger privacy program and deliver the controls that we need to there. And also making sure that people can take their data out in the service well And do things around where they have the data portability that they should have. So we're very focused on a lot of the big issues that are in front of us. The second big priority is to deliver qualitatively new experiences in our product. So a lot of what we do is we come in every day, we fix bugs, we make things a little bit faster, a little bit more secure, we try to Rank News Feed a little bit better to show you the content from the people and interest that you care about.
And that's all important work, but A lot of what we want to do over the next few years is not just improve the products that you know from our services already, but deliver qualitatively new ones, New platforms, new types of experiences, and I'll talk about what that could look like in a few minutes as well. The third priority is to continue the momentum of how we're serving businesses and especially small businesses around the world. The business momentum from the company has been important. We're very proud of the impact that we've had where More than 90,000,000 small businesses around the world now have the opportunity to use marketing tools that previously only big companies would have had access And the vast majority of them use our services for free. We have 7,000,000 active advertisers.
So of the 90,000,000 small businesses who use our services, the vast majority of are getting value from our services without even having to pay us. When we survey them, they tell us They're hiring people because of using our services. And that's just a very big positive impact that we're proud of and we want to continue delivering on. And That's the 3rd priority. And then the 4th priority is to be more transparent and be out there more articulating the case For what we're doing, why it's important in the world, why giving people a voice is important, why giving small businesses powerful tools is important, Why the solutions in ways that we're addressing issues like giving people a voice, but also trying to keep people safe?
Why these solutions are the right places for a service like us to be? And I think we need to do a better job of being out there and articulating this and in a number of more forums. So those are the 4 big things that we're focused on. And that's not just How we're operating the company, that's also how we're going to judge the performance and how we do bonuses and how we Basically decide whether the different folks who are leading the company and operating inside the company are doing a good job for over the next year and beyond. I would imagine that this Set of priorities will continue for some time.
So I want to talk a little bit about a couple of specific areas in this. One is, on the specific social issues that we face. There are issues that I think society overall faces and that address a lot of the Internet companies, but we're certainly at the center of a lot of them. And while I'm proud of a lot of the progress that we've made to limit the spread of harmful content on our services. One of the things that this is probably These single set of issues that I focused the most on over the last few years at our company and one of the things that's just become quite clear To me, as we've made progress is, while there's a lot that we need to do, if the rules for the Internet were getting rewritten From scratch today, I don't think that most people would want private companies to be making so many decisions by themselves About what constitutes acceptable speech or what people are allowed to say around elections or especially in different countries around the world, where we They operate, but may not even have a large physical presence.
So one of the conclusions that we've come to Is that there needs to be an updated regulatory framework around each of these issues. And it's not just one thing. It's on content regulation Online to limit the spread of harmful content on elections and basically governing in each country around the world, what should be political I don't think that our company should be deciding that for democracies around and different countries around the world. I know there should be more robust democratic processes for determining the guardrails on that that we should follow. And we have a voice in those debates and we should basically make sure that people understand what we've learned in our process to Fight these issues, but at the end of the day, whether a certain type of speech is acceptable, or not in political discourse or a certain advertising should be allowed or not, We think should be up to different countries and in a democratic process and that's why I've been out there advocating for this.
So that'll be a continued push. We're going to continue doing the work that we need to. We certainly feel like we have a big responsibility, but at the end of the day, And just like some of the proposals and questions have alluded to, we feel like the right solution for this over time is not for us to have the ultimate authority as a company over all of these decisions either. We think that this would go better if there were a more robust democratic process around more of these things. In terms of product direction and also discussing one of the most important civic and social issues we face Or on privacy.
One of the big themes that we're going to be pushing on for the next 5 to 10 years is building out this vision of a Privacy focused social platform. And the way that I think about this is that in our lives, we have public spaces Like our town squares or cities that we where we can interact with a lot of people at once. And we have private spaces like our living rooms where we Typically interact in more intimate ways with a few people at once. And just like those are the types of settings that we have, the town square and the living room in our physical lives, I believe that in our digital lives, we need that too. And for the last 15 years, we've really focused on building up Facebook and Instagram to be the Digital equivalents of the Town Square, where now you can interact with a lot of people in all the different ways that you would want, not just staying in touch with friends, but Meeting new people and communities that share your interests, starting businesses, organizing fundraisers for causes you care about, a lot of different types of things that you would want to do with a lot of people at once.
But when you think about the private tools that we have for communication, it's still pretty much just texting today. And I just think that when we look back 5 or 10 years from now, we're going to have private platforms, which are as rich and as developed As the more open platforms in the digital town squares that we have today. So I think that that is both a very important product opportunity that people around the world want, want a company like ours to deliver. And I think that this is really important for one of the bigger social issues That we see, which is that privacy is increasingly important to people and delivering the ability for people to have secure private interactions is increasingly important in people's lives. And we see this that of all of the different ways that people are communicating online, the 3 fastest growing ways Our private messaging, small groups and Stories where your what you share the data doesn't stick around forever.
So this kind of fits with the themes of what we're seeing. It fits with the big social issues that we want to address. And this is going to be the major thrust of our product strategy for the next 5 years or maybe even beyond is delivering this privacy focused social platform to complement the work that we've already done building the digital town squares and work that we're going to continue doing to build that. So those are the big themes of what I'm thinking about. Those are the priorities for the company and what you should expect to see me and the other leaders focused on.
And as always, thanks for coming out to the shareholder meeting. And This is an important period for the company. We take the responsibility seriously. We're fighting to do the right things every day. And I think now we should take some more of your questions.
Great. Thanks, Mark. All right. I'd now like to invite Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Dave Wehner, Facebook's CFO and Nick Clegg, Facebook's VP of Global Affairs and Communications to join Mark to answer some of your questions. We'll now open the floor for questions and we anticipate taking questions until approximately 12:15.
If you have a question, please line up behind 1 of the microphones. If you can't get to a mic, please raise your hand and we'll have someone bring one to you. So we can answer as many questions, as possible from the stockholders. We request that you ask only one question and limit your question to no more than 1 minute. As stated in the rules of conduct, please don't address the meeting until you've been recognized.
Now each year we have I see a lot of stockholders lining up our feet here. We have stockholders who stand in line and don't get to ask a question. So please be considerate to the other stockholders. If you have a follow-up question, Please write it down and submit it to one of the volunteers that we have around the room and we'll follow-up on that separately. But we want to try to hear from as many people as we can.
All right,
we'll start you already spoke, I think, so we'll start over on this side.
Okay. Hello. I'm Gata from Gata Salvaire Merch based in Los Angeles. Using social media like Facebook is a bare minimum in effectively growing a platform of exposure. My Queer Black Feminists Small Business pushes back on the systemic issues And navigating the white cisheteropatriarchy.
Every time I have posted my merchandise, I have been banned and thrown in Facebook jail for so called hate speech. Meanwhile, actual racist, misogynist, homophobic people and others have freely shared their hate speech. Women of color like myself keep getting banned. This double standard affects my business. To ensure the training materials for content moderators to effectively understand racism, sexism, homophobia and other discrimination in context And stop banning small business owners like me and focus on them as you're saying that this is a priority for you.
Absolutely. Our policies are that we don't allow hate in any form and we should allow small businesses. So we'll take a look And your account to see what's going on and make sure that the rules are being applied consistently. Yes. If you
look at my hoodie right now, it says men are trash. This is the hoodie that keeps getting banned. Yes. So we'll take
a look at that separately. We also have a civil rights Audit going on that I'm working on directly because we take these issues very seriously and we'll take a look. Okay.
I hope so. Thank you.
Great, we'll come back to this side.
Hi. Talking about ads, there's a school called Action Player Academy. It's a charter school They wanted to their Entrepreneur Club wanted to have a showing of a movie, No Safe Spaces, coming out soon from Dennis Prager and Adam Carolla. And they were told that when they wanted to advertise on Facebook that the school would have to admit a political affiliation. It's a non profit school.
It's not a political school, but they have been banned from having ads on Facebook at the current time because They're not willing to admit a political affiliation. I don't know what the policy is on this, but I wanted to bring it to your attention. It was brought up in The Hollywood Reporter, I think, in the last 48 hours.
We'll take a look. There's no requirement for anyone on Facebook to affiliate with any political party of any kind. Yes, no, so we will take a look. Yes, the information will take a look. Yes, the
information will take
a look. Hello. Mr. Zuckerberg, this question is for you. A lot of the conversation and the comments and the proposals this morning have been about power, voting power, Holding the Chair and CEO role, can you respond directly to the question of whether you would be willing to seed some of that power?
And I know what we all know about power is that once you have it, it's very difficult to let it go. But I think there's a benefit Just sharing that leadership and I think what has become a leadership burden.
Sure. So I spoke about this in the intro comments, but I certainly believe that if people were rewriting the rules for how they wanted the Internet to work and how They wanted companies to address the issues that we face and other companies face, but we're certainly at the center of. I don't think that people overall would want companies Have so much unilateral authority to make as many decisions over speech, and elections and Privacy and a lot of things that are just incredibly important to us as individuals and to our society overall. So I think the big question that we need to The answer is what is the right framework, whether it's regulation or industry bodies that will enable us to solve the specific issues that we're grappling with. And that's what I'm trying Really hard to work through and solve.
I think that there are certain things that we internally have a big responsibility to get right. We're investing a lot. We have very good teams and a lot of our best people working on the systems around content and preventing election interference and strengthening privacy and a lot of these things. But I do acknowledge that there are limits to what I think an individual company should be deciding on this. And We're taking a multipronged approach on this.
One is we're working with governments around the world, not just in the U. S. I was just In Paris meeting with President Macron, we've had a deep engagement with our government where they've spent weeks at our company diligently looking Through our content practices and basically how our systems work and coming up with Their proposal for a regulatory framework, that they think will be effective around this. And that's the kind of engagement that we're looking to do in more places around the world because We think that there should be additional rules around this. Frankly, I would welcome that because I think us having to be in the position that we're in where we make So many difficult calls, I don't think is really the place that we or anyone else wants us to be in.
At the same time, we're also not waiting for regulation. We're taking some steps ourselves like setting up an independent oversight board for content reviews. So that way when Someone makes if we make a decision that you disagree with and there have been a few folks here today who have had situations that they disagree with where we might have made a decision, They'll be able to you can appeal the decision to us already today. But if you disagree with the decision that we make even on appeal, you'll be able to also appeal it to this Independent body. And if they choose to look at your case, which they will for some of the most complex and kind of precedential cases, Then their decision is actually going to be binding, right?
So at that point, it doesn't matter what I think or what any of our product or content teams think. That body is going to have the ultimate. Now I think that it would be better if more of these decisions that independent oversight body will be helpful because it will be independent. So we'll give people assurance that, A, all the decisions aren't being made in a centralized way by our team or by me, B, That there's no doubt that the decisions are not being made for any kind of business reason, which today we don't make content decisions for a business reason. But I understand why people might be confused about that, right?
Because we're one company and we're on the one hand Serving people and serving businesses. And on the other hand, we're, we're also need to be making a lot of these decisions around content. So Having an independent organization will make it so that people can have confidence that this independent body is not making any of those decisions with any of our business considerations in mind. So there are going to be more things like that, that we need to do as well. I certainly agree with the general premise that we would like to build up more regulation independent structures around this, because I understand The importance of the issues and I just don't think that too much of that can be on one company specifically, even though we have a big responsibility to do a lot here as well.
But I'm very focused on making sure we take the right measures and not defaulting to things that seem like they might be Easier to do, but would not actually address the problems that we see.
So more directly, would you be willing to step down from your role as Chair and feed your super voting shares. That's really my question. I think we're
going to
try to limit just to one question.
It's just a yes or no.
We guys have a long line of people. We're going to go over on this side.
Thank you. Michael Verdon, I'm past President of San Mateo County Association of Realtors and the Director for the California Association of Realtors. The jobs, housing and balance is crucial, especially here on the peninsula. This puts pressure on traffic, Home purchases and certainly rents, you are rapidly expanding and this puts further pressure on Cities, last year you mentioned revitalization of perhaps the Dunbarton train quarter. That's at least a decade out.
What is Facebook going to do to bring more housing for their employees here and take some of the pressure off the cities? Thank you.
Yes. Thanks for the question. This is an area that we're really concerned about. We've been doing a lot of work across a number of different dimensions on it. You mentioned Looking at things long term like Dumbarton Rail, but we're not waiting for that.
We're taking action today. We've been a co creator of the partnership For the Bay's future, which is a $500,000,000 fund to help create over to help protect and create over 175,000 Housing, we've also helped start and create the Catalyst Fund, which is another $75,000,000 initiative For housing as well, we're continuing to look at how we think about our footprint and making sure that we diversify where we are, Growing not only jobs here in the Bay Area, but also elsewhere, and also focusing on the impact that Specific decisions within the Bay Area have on things like commute patterns. So putting more of our jobs in other locations rather than just in Menlo Park. So We're trying to take this into account. We're trying to be good partners and looking at places where we can have an impact on this big imbalance issue that you point out, which is real.
So these are some of the things that we're already doing, but we're going to continue to look at places where we can invest more on this front because we think it's a critical issue for the communities in which we operate.
Thank you. Great. Thanks, Dave. Hi.
My name is Jason. I am the shareholder. There were some news reports that Facebook is working on AI voice assistant. And I was wondering, Mark, if you could elaborate on that and how would that work with the Facebook products and platform?
Sure. So one of the products that we have right now is, we shipped this product portal in the last year. And If you haven't checked it out, I really enjoy it and we've gotten a lot of great feedback on it. But one of the important parts of it is being able to speak to it and activate it through voice. And I imagine that there are going to be more products that we build that are going to where voice is going to be an important part of the user interface over the coming years.
So we're working on a lot of different things I don't know that we have anything specific to announce today in terms of the efforts. But I think you can look where the product roadmap is likely to go on this and see why this would be a very useful, and an important way where people are going to want to interact with more technology that
Great. Thanks, Mark. Come back here.
Hi. My name is Carolyn Weisinger.
I am a Facebook user who's been disproportionately Viewed by Facebook because of your content moderation strategies. I was most recently called what U. S. S. XJ called Zookt Because of being banned multiple times, most recently because of my conversations about actor Liam Newsom and John knows parallels to the horrific History of the KKK and black men being hunted in America.
I was also abandoned as Sheryl Sandberg, keynote at LIVES New Tech literally in the middle as He talked about Facebook actually fixing these problems. I was able to talk to your content policy team and they talked about the same thing you talked about today about going into communities and being transparent
about your story as well as
hearing their stories as being abused by Parents about your story as well as hearing their stories as being abused by Facebook. So my question to you, Ms. Zuckerberg, is are you willing to actually go into these communities And instead of having conversations with academics who are primarily white men, actually talk to the people of color and the women who have been affected by Facebook's content policies.
Sure. I mean, I engage very directly on this. I mean, I travel around a lot, talk to a lot of different folks. As Cheryl mentioned, we Have not just an ad hoc policy of traveling and talking to people, but a formal set of audits and work that we do to make sure that we're getting the right Input into the processes that we set up and you can be assured that I am directly engaged in Not only building the content, not only building the systems for safety and security, but also a lot of The theme that's been discussed today is setting up the right system of governance around what the content policy should be as well. That's a very important focus Would
you be willing to have conversations with marginalized people of color who've been disproportionately affected by your platform specifically?
Yes, I do. Thank you. Thank you.
Come back to the side.
Matthew, we're for our shareholder. I'm looking at your directors. You've got Peggy, who's got a financial background, Mark, Venture Capital, Kenneth, Finance, Susan Philanthropy, Show All Business, Peter's Surveillance, Jeffrey Politics, Erskine Politics, Hastings Movies, which strikes me if you don't have anybody in ethics, Journalism or books. And if you think about the origin of Facebook, it was funded by In Q Tel to further facial recognition technology. And along the way, In accomplishing this, we've had a reduction in privacy.
That's not your fault. This has been going on since the Trust Committee investigations. The problem is along the way to destroying privacy, you've also destroyed journalism. So my question is, what exactly are you going to do about this? There's no one on the board with expertise on how to fix this.
And my second question is, why shouldn't Congress what would be The downside I think
we're just going to do one question per person by the way.
Well, it's basically why not break up Facebook in terms of just spinning off What's that? What would be the downside to spinning off WhatsApp into an independent company?
I'll take them both really quickly because there's 2. On the first, we work with publishers all around the world on the impact Facebook has on journalism. We provide subscription services. We're a great distribution channel. Definitely, journalism and media have had real challenges with the advent of the Internet that has changed the business model pretty fundamentally.
But our role is to make sure that these are good partners. People get news from Facebook, and we remain a very important source of traffic for journalists. And we have a lot of expertise within the company, and I know the Board takes it seriously too. On the second, I've spoken out we've spoken out extensively. Nick Clegg published an op ed On our views on antitrust and since it's a second question, we'll refer you to that.
Yes, I do want to be fair. So let's try to keep it to 1 Per person, we still have about 10 people left in line. Back to the side.
Good morning. I'm Janice Mathis with National Council of Negro Women. It's a pleasure to be here this morning. Good to see you again, Ms. Sandberg.
Thank you for coming to meet with one of those marginalized groups of women of color. We represent 2,500,000 African American women. 70% of them are homeowners, 73% have at least a college education, 68% of them earn more than $50,000 a year. My question is, they are deeply concerned about, as you know from having met with them, about election Security and voter protection and that sort of thing. But they're willing to take responsibility for Helping a new generation of Americans understand how our government works.
Many of them are teachers and social workers. And the best protection against tyranny and the Undermining democracy is for citizens to understand how their government works. So my question for you today is, would you be willing to partner with us To help teach young folk, we know you're not teachers, but you've got a great platform for information. Help us teach young folk how the government works so they can discern for themselves The difference between truth and fiction.
Absolutely. That was a wonderful meeting. Thanks to you and all of your colleagues for hosting. It's so inspiring to be with these Women who have played such a huge role in community, but also in the history of getting to more equality and particularly equal voice and equal votes. And so as we discussed that day, we're very interested in combating voter suppression and in voter education, voter registration.
And I think we're already in conversations about doing more together. So I really appreciate your time and the question.
And I'll
just say, if you're getting Criticism from both sides. You got Peter Flair to you and you're probably about in the right place.
Let's go back to this side.
Hi, good morning. My name is Eli Kastergaard Stobbe. My question is for Lead Independent Director, Doctor. Desmond Hellman. Could she be made available for a question,
Let's hear your question first and make sure we have the appropriate person to answer it.
Well, my question is directly to her because she is the only person on the Board that is empowered to call an executive session Without Mark Zuckerberg, the Chair and CEO. And so my question is directly to her about her ability and willingness to exercise that power.
Sure, we can get a question for Sue. We can get a microphone for her.
So the Responsibilities that I have as Lead Director?
No, I have a specific question.
Do you include that? You have a question around my ability to call it.
Go ahead.
Well, so my specific Jennifer, you've been Lead Independent Director since 2015. You are now becoming Chair of the Compensation and Governance Committee. Proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis recommended that investors withhold support from you specifically around the way that you've been exercising or not Exercising your responsibilities as Lead Independent Director. In 2018, a majority of sorry, in 2017, the majority of shares not controlled by Mr. Zuckerberg voted for an independent chair, a truly independent chair on the Board of Facebook.
And last year, 35% of independent shareholders voted against Mr. Zuckerberg as Chair. You, as Lead Independent Director, have the power to call and it says on Page 13 of the proxy, to call it an executive session Without Mr. Zuckerberg, to consider the election of somebody else as Chair. And my question is, will you commit to holding such an executive session?
No, I do have the ability to call an Executive Committee of the Board of Directors as outlined. And just one small correction, I've been Lead Director since 2015, on the Board since 2013. As is outlined in the proxy, The company and I and the Board of Directors are comfortable with the current operating arrangement where Mark is Chairman and CEO. We've outlined that the roles I have as Lead Director, which do include the question you've asked me, and the answer is no. I don't have the intention of calling such a meeting.
And as outlined in the proxy, that's not the direction we want to take the company or the Board.
Understood. Great, we'll come back to this side.
Thank you. It's Steven Vendittos with Media Justice out here in Oakland, California. So since 2016, Several civil rights organizations, including mine, have called on Facebook to submit itself to an independent civil rights audit. The demand really came in the heels of experiences by black users and users of color who had experienced censorship, discrimination and even surveillance on the platform. Last year, After several years of demanding this Facebook finally agreed to an audit, and as much as that decision was motivated in response to the concerns that we were bringing up, It certainly had a lot to do with the news cycle surrounding Cambridge Analytica.
And we've been told that to expect Some of the releases of that audit in the next month or so or sometime this summer. Sadly, I think the experiences of users of color on the platform haven't improved. And whatever recommendations emerge from the audit will be difficult to implement without the leadership that centers civil rights. So my question to you all is, will Facebook commit to hiring a civil rights position that's placed within the C suite with real authority to implement the recommendations that emerge from this audit. And I know as much as this has been a project for you, Sheryl, I would love to also hear from Mark.
Yes. So I'm going to answer just because we're in time. Mark is fully supportive of this and we obviously do everything we do together. We do have an audit going on. They put out their first report in The second one will come in June.
We have a C suite Chief Diversity Officer, who's here, Maxine, you can wave. And she's been instrumental in This work. And what you'll see in those audits is we are releasing both their recommendations and the actions we've taken to adhere to their recommendations. Our first audit report focused really on voter suppression because that was a prior issue coming up to the election and the next one will focus on content and other issues. And this is something that's incredibly important to me and Mark and all of us is our platform being used not being used for hate And being used to protect civil rights.
We know this work is ongoing. We know the people who are trying to go against people's civil rights will continue To find new ways to do that work. And so our commitment will be a very ongoing one, including, sea level staffing, which we've
All right. I'll take this side. Thanks. Hi, my name
is Johnny Mathias and I'm with Color of Change, the largest online racial justice force in the nation. And how we came to begin engaging with Facebook and part of the process was that one of our members had their personal information Revealed in a private Facebook group, of white supremacists for the action she was taking against the veteran statues in Georgia and people were showing up at her house. And luckily she was able to get in touch with us and we were unable to get in touch with you all and the information eventually came down and the Perhaps it's been ended. When I met her the other day for the first time 4 years later, she said that our actions saved for life. And what I'm wondering is with the shift that you indicated, Mr.
Zuckerberg, to a more private Facebook, When we've been working on the last several years to deal with the very public Facebook through the audit process and otherwise, how will the safety of Black users And other users still be maintained in a way and would that content come down in your new private vision of Facebook?
Yes. I mean the content policies, I don't think are different across the different apps and services that we have. I think one of the areas that I've tried to be upfront that I think is going to be quite challenging in this Digital equivalent of the living room is, we're providing world class, the strongest security and privacy protections that we which means that, we're committed to making our messaging products, fully end to end encrypted, which means that we are not Even our services are not going to see the content as it flows through, which, on the one hand is extremely Strong for privacy and preventing hackers or governments or different folks from being able to access your information in ways that you might not want. But it does make it a little bit harder for us to do the content moderation work that we do in some of the more public spaces. And it It doesn't eliminate all the tools, right?
A lot of what we do, is not just based on, for kind of systemic issues like what you're talking about or for Things around election interference. The most important tools are not necessarily just looking at the content, it's looking at Clusters of activity and being able to identify, hey, these 100 accounts or 200 accounts, They're not behaving like real people would, right? They look like bots or some kind of spoofed activity. So you can find that even without looking at the content and then wipe that out from the networks. And by the way, one of the advantages of the current setup that we have as a company is that we can find bad actors who are using Facebook or Instagram in the more open settings.
And then if their accounts are linked To accounts that are doing different things that we might not even be able to see in WhatsApp, or our messaging products, we'll be able to take down their accounts there as well. So I mean, Some of the questions here have been talking about what is the advantage of having these services together from a safety perspective. There definitely is one. But This is something that we're going to continue needing to work on to make sure that we get the balance right and that we build, the safety tools that are as strong as they need to be in a fully encrypted It's not going to be an easy problem. And some of the tools that we've had historically, we're not going to have in the future, but we're committed to working on this and working with law enforcement and governments and folks around the world to
do as best as we can at this.
All right. We're almost at time. We're going Two more questions. One from this side, one from this side.
Hi. My name is Brandy Collins Dexter. I'm a resident of Baltimore, Maryland. In 2016, local resident, Corinne Gaines, broadcast on Facebook Live her standoff with Baltimore County Police, a department with a long history of police corruption. She filmed the encounter because she feared for her life.
At the request of police, Facebook cut her live stream and she was gunned down in front of her 5 year old Cody. My org, in addition to many people, have demanded answers and we've not gotten any. I'm glad that we have an appeal process now, but obviously you can't appeal that. I'm wondering if in the next phase of the audit, you'd be willing to publicly clarify your position on collaboration with law enforcement. Are you willing to notify users
I think we can certainly I'd be more open if that's something we should be helpful in our cooperation with law enforcement. Colin Stretch, the General Counsel, is confirming that. We try and be very open about all the interactions that we have with law enforcement. As Mark has explained, that's evolving Anyway now as we move to a fully encrypted messaging service, but without knowing precisely what data you're after, I don't think I can give you a more precise answer than that.
Thank you.
All right, great. Last question over here. I know there's 2 more people. We don't have enough time. I know there's 2 more people in line.
If you did not get to ask your question, please feel free to write it down and provide it to one of our volunteers or email it to investorfb.com and we will work to get you an answer. And here's the last question over here.
Hi. My name is Rick Shen. I'm a Facebook shareholder and also a high-tech executive here in the Valley. My question is actually about you talked about the forthcoming products for Facebook in the next 5 to 10 years. And there's been reports about Facebook developing their own cryptocurrency Based on blockchain, Polycom Global Chain, perhaps, I want to get your perspective on your thoughts on How you see such a cryptocurrency would operate in terms of the regulations?
Are they going to be similar to how financial institutions are being regulated today? Or do you see that will be a different mechanism or platform that it will be done? And also, maybe you can share a little bit about some of the concepts about this Platform of cryptocurrency, whether this can be used not just for exchanging of monetization, but also maybe as a
way to build credit for people in
the masses that may not have credit today.
Yes. So we have been public that we're working on an effort here and thinking through what we should do. We haven't gotten to the point yet where we've announced what we're doing. We're still working through a bunch of important parts of this, and hopefully, we'll have more to share on that soon. Overall, though, this connects to the privacy focused Social platform vision that I talked about in the intro and that has been one of the themes today, because part of the theory of In our lives, we have in our town squares and our living rooms and you want to we just like we've built up around Facebook and Instagram, a platform for a lot of different ways that you'd want to interact with a lot of people.
We think that there needs to be a platform where people can interact with in all the ways they'd want to privately as well. And certainly payments and commerce specifically are Some of the most important and sensitive private interactions that we have. And one of the things that we're committed to Thinking through how we can do really well and deliver for the billions of people who use our products around the world is how we can deliver Not just messaging and small group communication, but other types of private interactions as well. And payments and commerce certainly is going to be an important part of that as So that's kind of the frame and how I think about this. And hopefully, we'll have more to share on that specific project at some point in the near future.
All right. That concludes the Q and A session. Thank you for attending Facebook's Annual Meeting of Stockholders.