Holding democracy by all its virtues is not a simple task - at least not for a multibillion dollar company and definitely not for a company with more than a billion user base.
Yes, Facebook is rewriting its approach on users' right to vote on privacy policy changes. Claiming it has outgrown the old model, Facebook is proposing a new model on its governance structure whereby it will remove the option of letting people vote on policy changes.
According to the current system, the voting mechanism gets activated only if a proposed change gets over 7,000 comments. If 30 percent of all active users vote for or against the policy change, their decision will be binding.
"When we held our second global site governance vote in June, we indicated that we would review our site governance process in light of the growth of both our community - to over one billion users - and our company - which is now publicly traded and accountable to regulators around the world. Our intention was to make sure the process still served its original purpose," the company said in a blog post.
Now the social networking giant is looking at replacing this system with a system that solicits high-quality feedback instead of just votes.
"We found that the voting mechanism, which is triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a system that incentivized the quantity of comments over their quality. Therefore, we're proposing to end the voting component of the process in favor of a system that leads to more meaningful feedback and engagement," the post said.
Facebook said it will continue informing the users of any data use policy changes or any changes of its statement of user rights and responsibilities. It has proposed a seven-day comment period to take a final call on the new policy change. "We will also provide additional notification mechanisms, including email, for informing you of those changes. In the coming weeks, we will roll out new ways of responding to your questions and comments about Facebook," Elliot Schrage, Vice President, Communications, Public Policy and Marketing wrote in the blog post.
Facebook said it will launch a new feature where users can shoot questions on privacy to its Chief Privacy Officer of Policy, Erin Egan who will host webcasts on a regular basis to address the user comments and questions about privacy, safety and security.
