Facebook T&Cs vote falls 299.5 million short of quorum
Brief experiment in social democracy snuffed
Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery
Facebook's three-year experiment with user democracy now looks doomed, with a vote over the social network's new terms and conditions coming just under 299,500,000 votes short of the total needed to block the changes.
The proposed changes will eliminate the current user voting system, which was established in 2009 as a token gesture to those annoyed at Facebook's high-handed attitude to T&C changes, in addition to allowing greater data sharing with affiliates like Instagram.
After a week of voting, 589,141 users went against the changes, with just 79,731 in favor.
Facebook has said it would recognize the votes as binding only if a third of the total user base – currently around a billion profiles, a fair few of which are fake – actually votes, so this is well short of the quorum needed to block the move. The final decision on the changes now rests with Facebook's management.
Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) told El Reg that the vote, while not binding, should still make Facebook's management stop and think.
The turnout makes it the largest vote in Facebook's history – over double that of the last vote in June – and nearly 90 per cent of those who cast their ballot were opposed to the new changes, he said.
This is how democracy dies
"EPIC's view is that the Facebook users who participated in the vote made clear that Facebook should withdraw the proposed changes," Rotenberg said.
Under the scheme put forward by Facebook, user issues will now be addressed in a regular webcast by its chief privacy officer, Erin Egan. User issues to be discussed will be chosen at Facebook's discretion, but the company has said it is also planning to introduce new user feedback tools to replace direct voting.
"While Facebook says it plans to 'incorporate suggestions into creating new tools that enhance communication on Facebook about privacy and governance,' Facebook consistently dodges specifics and continues to push for an end to the democratic, user-based voting process," said Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs.org, in an emailed statement.
"The current system requires a ridiculous 1/3 of all Facebook users to vote, an implausible number that is so hard to reach that it has no practical impact on Facebook's decision-making. Even so, Mark Zuckerberg isn't content with his near-dictatorial powers over users, and is trying to get rid of even this most token gesture towards democracy." ®
COMMENTS
The invite WAS available...
It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
RIP Douglas.
I don't even remember *seeing* an invite to vote for anything. Surely it's only democracy if you let the punters know the vote is actually happening.
Silent Majority
I don't even remember *seeing* an invite to vote for anything. Surely it's only democracy if you let the punters know the vote is actually happening.
I sent links to a number of avid Facebook users, and my notice was the first they'd heard of it. Like Fred Flintstone (above) suggests, this was a clever use of the dead user accounts. I think this whole thing was better publicised among those of us who don't use Facebook.
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Top 10 SIEM implementer’s checklist
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
