Having Trouble Voting On Facebook’s New Site Governance Policy? You’re Not Alone

(Facebook on Firefox)

(Facebook on Firefox)

Yesterday we urged you to vote on Facebook’s new site governance policy before the deadline ends on Dec. 10, as important privacy policies and the very right to vote on such changes hang in the balance. While writing that story, I was unable to vote using Chrome and instead got an error code repeatedly, but figured it was just some pesky problem I was alone in having. Not so, as many of our readers have chimed in with similar tales of being unable to vote.

So far it seems to be affecting multiple browsers, including Chrome and Firefox. Notes Consumerist reader Roger: “Works in IE, but who actually uses IE anymore?”

Sean wrote in to say he’d been trying to vote using his cell phone, with no luck:

I don’t know if this is just a problem with my phone (no other connection problems whatsoever), but I tried to use my cell’s internet connection to cast my vote in this Site Governance issue, and when I select the option to continue using the existing rules/documents, it closes my mobile browser entirely. I don’t know if it’s an issue with Facebook’s coding itself (like they’d ever admit that) or if the page is actually coded to close if that option’s selected, but it’s worth noting that the way this vote is set up currently, at least one Facebook user is unable to get their voice heard.

Brandon was foiled in Firefox and sent in the above screen shot, adding: “They say they want votes but it seems that this is the only part of the site that doesn’t work at all.”

We reached out to Facebook to see if it was aware of the issues, and if so, if anything was being done to correct the problem. A spokesperson told Consumerist via email:

We’ve heard a few reports of technical issues with the voting app. As with anything operating at this scale, there may be some issues but we work hard to identify and correct them as they’re brought to our attention.

We’ve also asked if there’s any plan to extend the voting period, as time has already been lost for some users to vote amidst these technical issues. We’ll report back if we hear any more news on that topic, and in the meantime send any problems you might be having with voting to tips@consumerist.com.

Facebook site governance [Facebook]

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