14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is revising its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, basically its terms of service, as well as its Data Use Policy, what was previously known as the privacy policy. There's nothing particularly surprising about that, but Facebook is not just dumping a new document on its users, it's actually asking people to vote on the changes.
Granted, the decision to have it put to a vote wasn't entirely its own, it was pushed by some "privacy activists" but the end the result is the same.
Users now have a week to decide whether Facebook should adopt the new documents or stick to the old ones. The vote seems like a good idea, but like any vote ever, its relevancy depends on how informed the voters are.
Judging by how many people read terms of service documents, Facebook is going to have a tough time getting that many people to make an informed decision.
Which, may not seem such a bad thing to an unscrupulous company, but the result of the vote may actually go against Facebook, as users will vote to keep the old documents out of some unfounded, paranoid fear that Facebook is "evil."
Luckily, or unluckily, depending on where you stand, Facebook's vote has a rather large threshold to be valid, specifically, it needs 30 percent of users, that's 270 million people, to vote, one way or another, for the vote to even count.
If they decide they like the new documents, they are adopted, if they don't, the old ones are kept. But if the 30 percent threshold is not met, the vote takes an "advisory" role, i.e. Facebook will take it into consideration, but it will make its own decision anyway.
Users have until June 8th on 9am PST to cast their vote. If you're going to do it, you should probably read the documentation available before voting in either way.
