The world’s largest social network, Facebook, has floated plans to stop letting users vote on updates to the site’s privacy policy but will let users comment and give feedback on proposed changes to the policy. Facebook made their plans public on November 21 in a blog post that talked about developing a voting system that only turns on if enough people commented on a change. This means that mechanism will focus on the quantity rather than the quality of comments.
This method is being criticized because most people only leave one or two word comments to changes and do not go into details. The social network stated that it would still inform users about “significant changes” to its data use policy and user rights and responsibilities. Facebook still plans to keep the seven-day comment period and promises to take user feedback into their decision making process. Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice-president of communications mentions in the post that, “We will also provide additional notification mechanisms, including email, for informing you of those changes,” wrote Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice-president of communications, public policy and marketing, in the post.
Facebook started the practice of user voting in 2009 and many things have changes since that time. The company has gone public and has grown from 200 million users to 1 billion. At the time the privacy policy voting system was implemented the rules stated that votes would count only if 30% of all active Facebook users took part in polling. The last two times a vote was taken, the 30% threshold was not met and it is unlikely that 300 million people will vote in any other policy updates.
Another interesting proposed change to the privacy policy from Facebook relates to hidden pictures or content. The social network wants to make it clear that even if a user hides an image or post on their profile page they can appear in other areas like another user’s page.
Source: Financial Post
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