Facebook Wants You To Vote On Policy That Wouldn’t Let You Vote On Future Policies

The Zuck is listening.

The Zuck is listening.

Facebook is at it again, this time asking its users to vote on some new changes to its data use policy and statement of rights and responsibilities. The kind of stuff that you might ignore, if you didn’t know that allowing the changes would mean you can’t vote on policy changes in the future. Users have until Dec. 10 at 3 p.m. ET to vote, and so far most people aren’t in favor of the changes. Surprising.

On the Facebook Governance voting page about 6,000 users had voted in favor of the new policy, while a whopping 65,000 were having none of it. It’ll take 30% of all active users to prevent the changes proposed by Facebook — and if turnout is lower than that “the vote will be advisory.”

A successful vote for Facebook would end the current “site governance process,” which would be the death knell of future user votes on policy changes. That could open the door to a whole slew of things we’re sure people wouldn’t want to agree to.

Oh, but there’s more! A provision is included that permits Facebook to share your information with affiliates, claiming such an action is no big deal. After all, says Facebook, it “is standard in the industry and promotes the efficient and effective use of the services Facebook and its affiliates provide.” Well, if it’s standard it must be good, right? That’s up to you.

If you want to be heard, get on over there by next week and chime in, or forever (and really, it’ll be forever) hold your peace.

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