Last
week the largest social network in the world announced its proposal for
new Data Use Policy. More than 3 years ago, the company introduced a
voting system, which enabled users to vote on data usage and privacy
policies. While the first vote allowed the network members to vote for
the proposal, the second one took place this past June. Actually, the
results were surprising: only .038% of the users wanted to get involved.
In the meantime, the third and – most likely – final vote is still to come. The policy changes would allow the company to make further changes without informing the users. While those .038% that voted may be unhappy with such result, Facebook has an explanation to this. The giant points out that the things aren’t that easily explained: the matter is that before introducing any changes, the company’s threshold is of 30%, which is a rather high number taking into account its unprecedented user base.
Moreover, lots of the users are not even aware of how their personal information is being used. For instance, Facebook is entitled to a non-exclusive license to use any IP content the users posted as long as it is hosted on its servers, i.e., until it is deleted from everywhere on Facebook. The suggested changes have already received over 12.000 comments, all pointing to disagreement, but this number is obviously far from the 30%. This dangerous line is about to be crossed, particularly given that the policies of the network are closely “monitored” by both the government and privacy interest outfits. Everyone is pointing out that the implications on over a billion people might be catastrophic. Users are wondering why Facebook couldn’t insert the post about voting onto everybody’s wall if it wanted people to vote. At least, they could make it an advertisement or a splash screen when logging in – this is very easy to do for such a giant, which does whatever it wants to its own website. The experts come to a conclusion that Facebook simply doesn’t really care. In other words, the democracy theater was only a way to show the members apathy for something that lots of people probably didn’t even know or care about in order to eventually “strip” said privilege later.
In the meantime, the third and – most likely – final vote is still to come. The policy changes would allow the company to make further changes without informing the users. While those .038% that voted may be unhappy with such result, Facebook has an explanation to this. The giant points out that the things aren’t that easily explained: the matter is that before introducing any changes, the company’s threshold is of 30%, which is a rather high number taking into account its unprecedented user base.
Moreover, lots of the users are not even aware of how their personal information is being used. For instance, Facebook is entitled to a non-exclusive license to use any IP content the users posted as long as it is hosted on its servers, i.e., until it is deleted from everywhere on Facebook. The suggested changes have already received over 12.000 comments, all pointing to disagreement, but this number is obviously far from the 30%. This dangerous line is about to be crossed, particularly given that the policies of the network are closely “monitored” by both the government and privacy interest outfits. Everyone is pointing out that the implications on over a billion people might be catastrophic. Users are wondering why Facebook couldn’t insert the post about voting onto everybody’s wall if it wanted people to vote. At least, they could make it an advertisement or a splash screen when logging in – this is very easy to do for such a giant, which does whatever it wants to its own website. The experts come to a conclusion that Facebook simply doesn’t really care. In other words, the democracy theater was only a way to show the members apathy for something that lots of people probably didn’t even know or care about in order to eventually “strip” said privilege later.
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