Friday, February 27, 2009

Facebook invites users to help set policy


The article
"Facebook invites users to help set policy" talks about facebook and it's terms of service. Earlier this month it was made clear that Facebook had made changes to the terms of service in which started that Facebook had the ability  "to use, copy, publicly perform or display, distribute, modify, translate, and create derivative works of ... any content you post" until the member deletes the content or deletes their account. 
After the fact, many people became very upset. Some went as far deleting their account  and several were threatening to. Thousands of members joined groups against Facebooks new terms of service. In response, last week facebook announced that they were going back to the old terms of use policy on member information in the time being as they resolve the issue of the thousands of upset members. 
Currently, facebook has created a group online for people to give feedback in what they think. They will review the comments after March 29 and make their decisions from there.
CEO of Facebook, Mark Zucherberg stated, "Companies like ours need to develop new models of governance ... rather than simply reissue a new Terms of Use, the changes we're announcing today are designed to open up Facebook so that users can participate meaningfully in our policies and our future." 
When I first heard facebooks new terms of service, it defiantly got me thinking that I needed to either get rid of my information, or delete my facebook account. However, I think that changes that have come out  of this whole debacle have been overall positive. Letting the people have a say in the outcome makes the people who use facebook feel reassured. 

1 comment:

  1. Do you think lots of people then will participate in these new surveys and focus groups? Can you imagine situations where Facebook will still ignore the wishes of the people who are surveyed?

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