Corporate Integrity Project

NLPC seeks to promote integrity in corporate governance, including honesty and fair play in relationships with shareholders, employees, business partners and customers. In doing so, NLPC places special emphasis on:

* Asserting that the social responsibility of the corporation is to defend and advance the interests of the people who own the company, the shareholders. True responsibility is fidelity to one’s own mission, not someone else’s, or someone else’s political agenda.

* Exposing the seeking of influence on public officials by corporations, which is the inevitable result of high levels of government spending and intervention in the marketplace.

* Combating practices that undermine the free enterprise system, including philanthropic giving to groups hostile to a free economy.

Are Big Tech Executives Abetting Doxxing?

Posted on June 10, 2019June 10, 2019 by Carl Horowitz

One of the more noxious aspects of anti-Trump radicalism is the growing practice of obtaining private information on public figures for the purpose of mobilizing large-scale harassment campaigns against them. The practice is known as “doxxing.” It’s highly illegal. Yet it thrives largely because of tacit encouragement from social media sites. That raises a couple of questions: Are social media companies willfully enabling such behavior? And if not, are they at least taking steps to discourage it? So far, their action has been underwhelming.

Doxxers tend to be a self-righteous lot, possessed of moral indignation against supposed perpetrators of injustice. They also are prone to viewing themselves as above the law. Case in point: Jackson Cosko, age 27, a former Senate staffer arrested last October for posting home addresses, phone numbers and other personal information about five senators, including Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, whom he claimed … Read More ➡

Moralizing CEOs Exert Pressure Over Guns and Abortion Laws

Posted on June 7, 2019 by Paul Chesser

The trend for corporations to use their leverage to exert influence on divisive public policies escalated last week, with the potential of driving off a significant segment of their customer and investor base, in the name of self-styled “corporate social responsibility.”

In the higher-profile examples, tech-entertainment studios Disney, Netflix, WarnerMedia and a few others threatened to remove productions from the state of Georgia, because of a recently-passed pro-life law that prevents the abortion of any unborn child in which a heartbeat has been detected.

In another example, business software giant Salesforce announced it would not allow businesses that use its product to sell certain types of guns.

So now corporate social responsibility has come down decisively in favor of the view that a beating heart is not evidence of the presence of life, that would be worthy of preservation. And it also means that the ability for mature, … Read More ➡

Corporate America Gets Behind Deceptively Named ‘Equality Act’

Posted on June 4, 2019 by Paul Chesser

Much of corporate America is once again banding together to attack the social construct of the nation and many of its liberties, all in the name of conferring special rights and privileges upon individuals who don’t accept or acknowledge the gender they were born with.

The occasion this time was to get behind the “Equality Act,” which the Democrat-controlled U.S. House recently passed. The misnamed legislation purports to enact law that prohibits “anti-Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer (LGBTQ) discrimination,” but in practice would put the kibosh on almost all other rights and freedoms Americans possess –including speech, association, privacy, and property rights. Most of what the law would do is bastardize the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by adding “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” discrimination protections.

The “Equality Act” would produce draconian outcomes, including (list compiled by staff of Rep. Vicki … Read More ➡

Facebook Criticized for Lack of Ideological Diversity at Annual Meeting

Posted on May 30, 2019May 31, 2019 by NLPC Staff

Here are remarks of NLPC Chairman Peter Flaherty at the Facebook annual meeting today in Menlo Park, California in support of NLPC shareholder proposal on workplace diversity:

In response to this proposal promoting ideological diversity, the Company claims that “diversity of ideas is core to our business,” but then goes on cite initiatives that make the company less diverse, not more.

Like the fact that the company publishes data on the ethnicity and gender of the its workforce. Is it not racist and sexist to attribute certain thoughts and ideas to individuals based on their gender or race? Do all African-Americans think alike? How about all women?

Facebook huffs that “we do not collect data on the political ideology of our employees,” as if this would be somehow intrusive.

I’d suggest that it is a lot less intrusive than quizzing employees on the genetic makeup of … Read More ➡

Facebook Opposes Shareholder Proposal on Ideological Diversity

Posted on May 28, 2019May 31, 2019 by Peter Flaherty

In another indication that the company is biased against conservatives and libertarians, Facebook opposes a shareholder proposal that promotes ideological and political diversity in its workforce. Sponsored by the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), the resolution will be considered at the Facebook annual meeting on Thursday, May 30 in Menlo Park, California.

Facebook’s opposing statement doesn’t directly address the issue raised by the resolution and instead describes programs that make the workforce even more Left-wing and are based on group identity. According to NLPC Chairman Peter Flaherty, who will present the resolution, “Once again, Zuckerberg is giving the back of his hand to legitimate concerns about the bias problem at Facebook.”

NLPC’s resolution and supporting statement is below. Facebook’s statement of opposition appears on page 69 of the proxy, which can be viewed here.

WORKFORCE DIVERSITY

WHEREAS:

In 2016, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote, … Read More ➡

Bezos’ ‘Hypocrisy’ Criticized at Amazon Annual Meeting on Sexual Harassment Shareholder Proposal

Posted on May 22, 2019May 22, 2019 by NLPC Staff

NLPC Chairman Peter Flaherty delivered these remarks today in support of the group’s shareholder resolution on sexual harassment at the Amazon annual meeting in Seattle:

I CAN’T FIGURE OUT WHY MR. BEZOS OPPOSES THIS RESOLUTION TO COMBAT SEXUAL HARASSMENT. AFTER ALL, HE IS THE GREAT PROGRESSIVE AND ENLIGHTENED PUBLISHER OF THE WASHINGTON POST.

MAYBE HE OPPOSES IT FOR THE SAME REASON WE FILED IT. IT ‘S REALLY ABOUT HYPOCRISY.

BEZOS CLAIMS HE IS THE VICTIM OF SEXUAL BLACKMAIL, BUT I GUESS ONLY PROGRESSIVES CAN BE BLACKMAILED.

A LEXIS NEXIS SEARCH OF THE WASHINGTON POST FOR ARTICLES CONTAINING THE NAMES “MICHAEL AVENATTI” AND “STORMY DANIELS” YIELDS 513 RESULTS. IF YOU ADD IN THE SEARCH TERM OF “BLACKMAIL,” YOU GET 24 STORIES. BUT I COULDN’T FIND ONE IN WHICH THE TERM “BLACKMAIL” WAS USED IN REFERENCE TO WHAT AVENATTI WAS DOING TO DONALD TRUMP.

TRUMP’S ELECTION TOOK MANY IN THIS ROOM BY … Read More ➡

Yet Another Study Reveals Bias in Google’s News Search

Posted on May 16, 2019May 16, 2019 by Paul Chesser

The evidence that verifies allegations of Google’s search bias against conservative resources continues to accumulate.

Two researchers, Daniel Trielli and Nicholas Diakopoulos at the Computational Journalism Lab at Northwestern University, examined results from a large sample size they extracted from Google News in November 2017. They searched on 200 current news terms of the time (such as “Colin Kaepernick” and “tax reform”) and accumulated 6,302 links to articles shown in the search engine’s “Top Stories” box – the most desirable outcome for Web publishers, to gain traffic from curious readers.

The results: Only 20 news organizations’ sites were represented in more than half of “Top Stories,” according to Diakopoulos’s explanation in the Columbia Journalism Review, and 86 percent of article impressions in those results came from just the top 20 percent of sources.

According to the study’s findings, CNN received nearly 11 percent of … Read More ➡

Is Tim Cook Above it All, or Just Arrogant?

Posted on May 15, 2019 by Peter Flaherty

Apple CEO Tim Cook claimed recently that he and his company do not engage in the dirty business of “politics” but only “policy.” He is supposedly above it all, guided instead by doing “what’s right.”

Cook acknowledges that some may not like his “policy” decisions, but that he thinks they admire Apple’s leadership for sticking to their principles. He added that the company only weighs in where it has a “legitimate position or lens on the issue,” like climate change, education, immigration, and transgender restroom policies.

“I think people appreciate that, even when they do disagree,” he said, explaining his beliefs about the role of business in public issues. “We do them out of believing deeply that they’re right and we do have a unique lens. We focus on the policy, not the politics.”

Cook has a self-serving definition of “politics.” It apparently does not include … Read More ➡

More Evidence That Google CEO Pichai May Have Lied to Congress

Posted on April 12, 2019 by Paul Chesser

If it wasn’t already obvious that Google CEO Sundar Pichai lied to Congress in December about its censorship practices, more leaked information from inside the company should make it clear now.

Documents given to The Daily Caller show the Internet gatekeeper maintains a manually controlled blacklist against conservative websites that determines how and where their content appears in search results. The censorship is intended to filter out of top results content that runs afoul of Google’s “good neighbor” and “misrepresentation” policies.

“The deceptive_news domain blacklist is going to be used by many search features to filter problematic sites that violate the good neighbor and misrepresentation policies,” the leaked document says, later adding:

“The beginning of the workflow starts when a website is placed on a watchlist which is used for monitoring of sites to determine if they violate the Good Neighbor Policy. This watchlist is … Read More ➡

Senator Crapo Hits Big Banks for Playing Politics

Posted on April 9, 2019 by Paul Chesser

The Left has tried to sway businesses’ behavior to comply with their public policy goals through shareholder activism, and used the cudgel of law enforcement and regulation to choke off funding for businesses it disfavors, but now signs are showing from elected conservatives that they’ve had enough.

Much in the way organized progressives have attacked Fox News’ advertisers to deter them from supporting programs they disagree with politically, so also have they pressured banks and other financial institutions to persuade them to stop lending money, or providing everyday money management services, to legal businesses they oppose – think gun dealers, payday lenders, and precious metals merchants.

At the end of March, Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho – who chairs the Senate Banking Committee – notified eight major banks that he expected them to not succumb to the demands of political agitators.

“Banks serve customers who are geographically and … Read More ➡