Shortly after moving to Philadelphia, I was invited to speak at the 2019 Facebook Annual Shareholder Meeting in Menlo Park, California. At the time I was working as a National Distrbrituted Organzier with Bend the Arc.

I represented a coalition of advocacy groups including the consumer-rights group Sum of Us, progressive Jewish group Bend the Arc, and racial justice group Color Of Change. I spoke in front of the Facebook board CEO Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg VP of global affairs and communications at Facebook urging them to take responsibility for their role in fostering a digital community which radicalizes white nationalists and right wing extremists towards violence. I agure that Facebook needs to be broken up, restructured, and held accountable for the devastation it wroughts on communities like mine.

I spoke with Ryan Deto of the Pittsburgh City Paper about it in Why a former Pittsburgh organizer confronted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last month. The action received notable coverage from Mashable, Business Insider, The Telegraph, Reuters, and Le'Monde.

Zuckerberg refused to respond to a shareholder's question on why he would agree to create an independent board chair while restating his view that regulators should set the rules for companies around privacy and content, reported Reuters. /VCG Photo

My speech lasted twice as long as my allotted time as a kind of dare to be cut off. I was not. Instead, you can hear David Kling's apology following my address. My mic was cut when I inquired further about what Facebook planned to do to make right their tremendous failure.

Facebook Is Out Of Control

Nikil Saval