Facebook Draws Up a Bill of Rights
The social network promises to let users vote on changes to its terms of service in the future.
Erica Naone 02/26/2009
- 1 Comment
Last week's scandal over Facebook's updated terms of service produced a big reaction from the social network today: Facebook is now promising to let users comment on all changes to policy and, in some cases, vote on them. It all came about after Facebook changed its terms of service to allow the company to retain user content even after an account is terminated. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post that the changes were simply meant to reflect what was already happening.
When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created--one in the person's sent messages box and the other in their friend's inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear.
However, this didn't satisfy users who worried about granting Facebook a never-ending license to their data. So today, Facebook announced 10 guiding principles and a Statement of Rights and Responsibilities for community review. Facebook says that the latter document, which is six pages long and written to be accessible to the average person, reaffirms "that users, not Facebook, own the content they share through Facebook services and that Facebook's permission to use that content expires when users delete the content or terminate their accounts." The company also promised to start a "user council" that would have input in policy decisions.
In a press conference, Zuckerberg said that recent events, as well as controversies over other Facebook updates such as the News Feed (which broadcasts information about users to friends) and Beacon (an advertising campaign that published certain user purchases), had caused the company to rethink how it makes changes that affect the Facebook community.
"This is all about us trusting our users," Zuckerberg said, promising that the changes make it so that Facebook can't just put new terms of service in place without warning. Facebook notes, however, that it still reserves control over the timing of products and how they are rolled out.
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1 Comment
Not sure I understand the controversy
I think Facebook's response to the terms of service controversy seems admirable. It certainly might help avoid future controversies.
However, I must admit, I did not really understand why people were so upset in the first place. Granted, I don't agree to give my online service providers, like Facebook, unlimited access to my data even after I discontinue using their services. But I didn't get the sense that was what Facebook was ever purposing.
In my opinion, when someone (person A) sends an email to another person (person B), comments on person B's photos, blogs or Wall posts, then the comments or emails then becomes person B's "property". Therefore, if person A deletes their Facebook account I don't think all the comments and emails they sent should also be deleted. I believe this is what Facebook intended by clarifying their policy.
Either way, I think their new approach of consulting their users is the way to go.
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