Networks
In shortfall: 2.2 billion people remained offline in 2025, with only 23 percent of people in low-income countries using the internet per ITU. A Meta-Gallup survey across 142 countries finds 24 percent of adults feel very or fairly lonely.
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
This dimension spans both digital connectivity and the social support people can count on, and corporate hands rest on each. Network build-out, handset prices and data tariffs are decided by listed telecom operators, tower companies and device makers. Their conduct is a necessary input to closing a divide in which device cost remains a leading barrier. GSMA finds an entry-level handset costs 24 percent of a woman's monthly income in low- and middle-income countries versus 12 percent of a man's. The social-connection side now traces to corporate product design in court. A California jury found in March 2026 that Instagram and YouTube were deliberately built to be addictive and held Meta and Google liable for harm to a young plaintiff. Meta reportedly settled the 29-state federal trial over features engineered to maximize minor engagement for up to roughly 17 billion dollars over ten years, with court-enforced teen safety defaults. If every listed operator priced for universal access and every platform designed for healthy connection rather than compulsive use, a large share of both shortfalls would move. Spectrum policy, universal-service funds and the family and community institutions that generate real social support remain outside corporate reach, though. Owners supply a necessary input on the infrastructure and design of human connection, and governments and communities must also act.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Global number of Internet users increases, but disparities deepen key digital divides (Facts and Figures 2025), International Telecommunication Union, 2025-11-17
- Almost a Quarter of the World Feels Lonely, Gallup (Meta-Gallup Global State of Social Connections), 2023-10-24
- Progress closing the mobile internet gender gap stalls in LMICs: GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report 2025, GSMA, 2025-05-14
- Jury finds Meta and Google negligent in social media harms trial, NPR, 2026-03-25
- 29 States Take Meta to Trial: First Federal Social-Media MDL Case Reaches a Jury, MDL Update, 2026-08-20
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Lead filer and organizer of successive shareholder proposals at Meta on child safety, running from reporting on the effectiveness of child safety practices to tying executive pay to child safety outcomes.
Its members filed the 2023 Meta proposal on the effectiveness of the company's online child safety practices.
Meta Shareholders to Vote on Child Safety Impacts Proposal, Investor Alliance for Human Rights, 2023
Publicized and supported the investor campaign asking Meta to report on the effectiveness of its online child safety practices.
Meta Shareholders to Vote on Child Safety Impacts Proposal, Investor Alliance for Human Rights, 2023
2 campaigns on record
Assess the feasibility of tying senior executive compensation to improvements in child safety.
With 13 faith-based and institutional investors holding $800 million in Meta stock
Result: not stated in source; the vote was scheduled for the 27 May 2026 annual meeting
Publish an annual report assessing the effectiveness of the company's online child safety practices.
With Adrian Dominican Sisters, Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic, Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, NJ, Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Result: not stated in source for 2023; a related 2022 proposal on online child sexual exploitation drew nearly 910 million shares, about 57 percent of the non-management-controlled vote
Meta Shareholders to Vote on Child Safety Impacts Proposal, Investor Alliance for Human Rights, 2023
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Doughnut Economics's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.