Meta’s $115B AI Bet Outpaces Its Privacy Disclosures; NLPC Proposal Seeks to Remedy

National Legal and Policy Center urges Meta Platforms shareholders to vote FOR Proposal Three on the 2026 proxy ballot. NLPC’s full exempt solicitation report makes the detailed case. Meta’s annual meeting is May 27, 2026, but shareholders can vote their proxies today¹ at www.proxyvote.com (you will need a control number or your account number).

Download the Full Report

The proposal, which NLPC sponsors, asks Meta to publish an annual report assessing the operational, financial, and public-welfare risks of unethical or improper external data usage in its artificial intelligence offerings — and the steps Meta takes to mitigate those risks.

Recent legal developments have made this disclosure urgent. In March 2026, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties after finding the Company misled users and enabled child sexual exploitation on its platforms. One day later, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google negligent for designing social-media products harmful to minors and awarded $6 million in damages. Both verdicts proceeded on a design-based theory of liability that narrows Section 230’s practical shield — and arrived as Meta integrates AI deeper into the same products at issue.² ³ ⁴

Meta’s AI investment compounds the risk. The Company has guided 2026 capital expenditures of $115–135 billion, nearly double 2025, much of it directed at AI infrastructure.⁵ In April 2026, Meta Superintelligence Labs released Muse Spark, the first model in a new proprietary series the Company markets as “personal superintelligence” rooted in “the relationships and context already at the center of your life.”⁶ Yet shareholders still have no board-level assessment of how data feeding those products is sourced, vetted, or governed.

Meta’s governance record makes that gap unacceptable. The Company paid a record €1.2 billion GDPR fine for illegally transferring EU user data to the United States and settled the Cambridge Analytica litigation for $725 million.⁷ ⁸ It then rewrote its privacy policy so an expansive range of user-generated images, videos, and text may be incorporated into AI training without users’ explicit, opt-in consent.⁹

Meta’s Board urges a vote against the Proposal, claiming existing privacy practices, disclosures, and committee oversight are enough. They are not. The Board’s own opposition statement admits that private chat content can be used for training when “the user or someone in the chat chooses to share those messages” — a structural consent loophole that sweeps every other participant’s words, photos, and context into Meta’s training pipelines without their individual consent.¹⁰

NLPC’s exempt solicitation report lays out the financial, legal, and competitive case in detail. Vote FOR Proposal Three at Meta’s May 27 annual meeting — proxies can be cast today at www.proxyvote.com (you will need a control number or your account number).

Download the Full Report

Endnotes

1. Notice of Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement, Meta Platforms, Inc., April 16, 2026. See https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000162828026025532/meta-20260416.htm.
2. “Jury orders Meta to pay $375 million in New Mexico trial over child exploitation, user safety claims,” Reuters, March 24, 2026. See https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/jury-orders-meta-pay-375-mln-new-mexico-lawsuit-over-child-sexual-exploitation-2026-03-24/.
3. “Meta, Google lose US case over social media harm to kids,” Reuters, March 25, 2026. See https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/jury-reaches-verdict-meta-google-trial-social-media-addiction-2026-03-25/.
4. “US jury verdicts against Meta, Google tee up fight over tech liability shield,” Reuters, March 26, 2026. See https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/us-jury-verdicts-against-meta-google-tee-up-fight-over-tech-liability-shield-2026-03-26/.
5. “Meta Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results,” Meta Platforms, Inc., January 29, 2026. See https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2026/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2025-Results/default.aspx.
6. “Introducing Muse Spark: MSL’s First Model, Purpose-Built to Prioritize People,” Meta, April 8, 2026. See https://about.fb.com/news/2026/04/introducing-muse-spark-meta-superintelligence-labs/.
7. “Meta Fined $1.3 Billion for Violating E.U. Data Privacy Rules,” New York Times, May 22, 2023. See https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/business/meta-facebook-eu-privacy-fine.html.
8. “Facebook parent Meta to settle Cambridge Analytica scandal case for $725 million,” Reuters, December 23, 2022. See https://www.reuters.com/legal/facebook-parent-meta-pay-725-mln-settle-lawsuit-relating-cambridge-analytica-2022-12-23/.
9. “DPC statement on Meta AI,” Data Protection Commission (Ireland), May 21, 2025. See https://www.dataprotection.ie/en/news-media/latest-news/dpc-statement-meta-ai.
10. Notice of Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement, Meta Platforms, Inc., April 16, 2026. See https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000162828026025532/meta-20260416.htm.

(Post references PX14A6G Notice of exempt solicitation)