Proposed Facebook privacy policy changes have been rejected by Facebook users taking part in an official poll on the social networking site. However, Facebook has decided to ignore the results of vote due to ‘too few users made their wishes known’.
Last week, Facebook asked its users to weight in on the subject of data collection and privacy policies.
The poll asked for user guidance on proposed modifications from Our Policy, a group that had a clear agenda when it came to the social site’s DUP, including ensuring that data use would be opt-in as default, all uses of collected data to be made public, and all collected personal data to be made available to users in raw format within 40 days of request.
Explaining that it “listen[s] to feedback and [is] pleased that so many commentators have been so positive and supportive about this process,” Facebook put its own proposed amendments to its Data Use Policy up for a vote, allowing users to say whether or not the amendments should be put into place or abandoned.
Just 13% of voters supported Facebook’s proposed policy changes. However, the voter turnout of 342,600 came to just 0.1% of the number Facebook required to make the vote binding.
Facebook said it would accept the vote as binding if 30% of its 901 million active users voted.
The required worldwide turnout of more than 270 million users would have required a voting bloc equal to roughly 86% of the US population.
“A very very small minority of people that use Facebook voted, which was pretty disappointing from our point of view,” Facebook spokeswoman Jaime Schopflin said.
She noted that the changes were intended to clarify existing practices, in response to regulators in the United States and Europe.
“We’re realising that this is a process that doesn’t work. We are bound to our regulators, but at the same time we do really, really value user feedback. We need to find a way to combine both of those things.”
The company said it would consider the vote advisory if participation fell short of the required number.
In a statement on the Facebook Site Governance page, the company’s VP of Communications, Public Policy and Marketing, Elliot Schrage, wrote that “As stated in both governing documents and throughout this process, when less than 30% of all active registered users vote, the results are advisory. Today Facebook will adopt the proposed updates to our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Data Use Policy, which you can view by using the following links: SRR and Data Use Policy.”
“Despite our substantial outreach effort, the number of people who voted constituted such a small and unrepresentative percentage of our user community,” he continued, adding that “Given these efforts and the subsequent turnout, we plan to review this process to determine how to maximize our ability to promote user engagement and participation in our site governance process in the future.”
Read the official statement from Facebook on the governance page here.
