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Women's Rights Group Protests Facebook's All-Male Board

A group of women's rights activists are descending on Facebook's New York offices, today, to deliver what it says is an online petition from 53,000 people that demands Facebook add a woman to its board of directors before the company goes public.

In its petition, UltraViolet says that 58 percent of Facebook users are women, yet "despite the fact that women are responsible for most of Facebook's revenue and activity there currently is not a single woman on their board."

Mashable, a website that covers news in the social media space, spoke to Nita Chaudhary, the co-founder of Ultraviolet.

"This is a company that's growing off the backs of women, who are the future of social networks and the tech industry," Chaudhary told Mashable. "And they're about to go public with an all-white, all-male board, and that's just wrong."

The blog All Facebook, which covers the social network, reports that while it's true that the company's board is all-male, one of its most visible executives, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, is a woman.

Facebook is, of course, in the middle of machinations for an initial public offering. The first shares of the company are expected to go on sale in the next couple of months.

We've reached out to Facebook for comment. We'll add their response once we get it.

Shelby Knox is tweeting the event. And you can follow the latest using the hashtag #fbprotest.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.