Bottom line: Facebook's shareholders are frustrated with how the company is being run and more specifically, who is in charge. Unfortunately for them, there's seemingly little they can do about it but that isn't stopping them from trying... or at the very least, letting their opinions be known.
As Bloomberg highlights, shareholders were in favor of change at last week's annual meeting. A proposal to restructure Facebook's voting process and do away with a special class of shares that give founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg much of his voting power was supported by nearly 82 percent of votes cast, excluding Zuckerberg's.
Facebook's founder owns a significant portion of special shares that come with 10 times the voting power of the average share. As such, he holds 57.7 percent of the overall voting power this year.
A proposal to replace Zuckerberg as chairman garnered 67 percent shareholder support - again, excluding Zuckerberg's votes. A separate proposal aimed at splitting up Zuckerberg's chairman and CEO roles captured 68 percent of shareholder votes.
Facebook shareholders are clearly fed up with the social network's repeated mishandling of user data and believe a change in power would help matters. Others, including co-founder Chris Hughes, are taking it a step further and feel it is time to break up the social media titan. But as long as Zuckerberg retains those powerful shares, not much is likely to change unless he wants it to.
Image credit: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Frederic Legrand - COMEO