Facebook wins Zimbabwe election on T&Cs
Oh, well done chaps!
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Facebook is claiming a victory in a vote to decide on changes to its terms and conditions, even though only 0.03 per cent of users voted on changes.
A big row broke out in February when Facebook tried to change its terms and conditions to give the company licenses over all content posted on the site for ever. Outrage from users meant the conditions were changed back.
The company then wrote two sets of T&Cs and said it would accept the users' decision as final. Or at least it would if at least 30 per cent of active users voted. With 200m users this would require 60m votes in favour. Given minimal publicity this seemed unlikely to happen.
Simon Davies of Privacy International promised to eat his shorts if that target was reached, but the world has now been spared from such a spectacle.
Jonathan Anderson, a researcher at Cambridge University, said: "It's their assumption of the language of democracy that I really object to. People had the choice between terms written by Facebook... or terms written by Facebook. It has successfully defused criticism by using no more than words. It is very disappointing that so much of the mainstream and technology press seem to have just swallowed this whole and parroted Facebook's claims."
Anderson is currently working on the useability of privacy controls and is writing a paper proposing a new architecture for social networking sites with privacy controls. He said he would really have liked to see Facebook assume real responsibility for its users' data and do more to protect them from dodgy applications. ®
COMMENTS
re: Facebook Epitaph
"We though our users were stupid."
To be fair they do have evidence (I mean more evidence than that sentence)..
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/14/facebook_twitter_users_dunces_amoral/
Given how anyone I know that uses Facebook uses Facebook why would they care if they are
granting perpetual rights for Facebook to use the copyright
material they have swiped from somewhere else and posted.
0.03% sounds like about the right proportion of Facebook users who have posted
anything that is
a) Original
b) Worth looking at
Not Zimbabwe!
"....only 0.03 per cent of users voted...."
To be truly like Zimbabwe, they'd have sent armed thugs round to the houses of the other 99.07% to get 'em to vote and vote the right way.
Thats got to be embarassing ...
0.03% surely that has got to be embarrassing for anyone seeking a vague appearance of approval by public vote.
Still, give the likes of facebook users the vote and we'll be back to cavorting druids, death by stoning and dung for dinner.
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