With the massive backlash that took place following the Consumerist article about Facebook’s temporarily modified terms of service (which was eventually set back to the original terms), you would have thought more people cared about how the new terms would be written. It’s clear that the majority of users only care once Facebook crosses the line but until they do, most users could care less about the terms.
Facebook took the extra step of promoting the new “Facebook Town Hall: Proposed Facebook Principles” group on the homepage of the site yet less than 10,00 people have joined. The other Facebook Town Hall for the “Proposed Statement of Rights & Responsibilities” has just over 9,000 members. With over 180 million users, the current response to the new terms is not substantial by any means.
If the response continues to remain this low, there is a good chance that users will have very little of an effect on the new terms. It’s an unprecedented decision for Facebook to make the new terms open for public dialogue but at the end of the day maybe all users wanted to hear was clarification from Mark Zuckerberg about Facebook not owning our data.
The new policy may end up not receiving a lot of attention beyond the buzz that it received from the press over the last couple weeks but there is no doubt that this is part of a larger movement. Mark Zuckerberg emphasized that the company is working toward a more open Facebook and that this is just another step along the way.
Whether or not users care about this continuing opening trend has yet to be seen but it’s clear that Facebook will proceed to open while adapting as required through feedback from users.
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I think people probably just feel that rewriting the T&Cs is Facebook's job, not theirs. It's not rocket science for an outfit like Facebook to be able to write the terms with the user in mind. Kudos to them for trying, but I think it would be a mistake to interpret the lack of response as indifference.
Comment by Dave Rattigan — March 1, 2009 @ 11:45 am
Anyway, as someone just pointed out to me, who says 10,000 is a low response?
Comment by Dave Rattigan — March 1, 2009 @ 11:49 am
I'm an avid Facebook user and care about new updates and developments, but I can honestly say that I don't really care about this whole terms-gate thing. What's it to me how Facebook uses my crappy, overexposed, blurry photos from some party I went to last week? I think most Facebook users agree with me on that one.
Comment by Mimzy — March 1, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
Mimzy: "What’s it to me how Facebook uses my crappy, overexposed, blurry photos from some party I went to last week?"
Well said.
Comment by Eric Godfrey — March 1, 2009 @ 12:28 pm
I had a conversation about Facebook's use of personal data this morning with an architect and two doctors. Everyone agreed that Facebook appears to go out of its way to hide privacy options, default all privacy options to the opposite of what users want, and confuse users so much that Facebook is allowed to use their information in public contexts without their knowledge. One example was embarassing photos that others took and tagged them in, which of course sent notifications to their coworkers; they spent an hour figuring out how to stop that. Another example was the surprise that a Google search for their name found a Facebook page even though strangers *within* Facebook aren't allowed to see the same information; another hour spent finding the hidden option to reenable privacy. All three are about to delete their accounts.
They didn't know about the terms issue and they see the TOS issue as meaningless when Facebook's standards regarding user choice and privacy are of such low quality (their opinion as well as mine). That explains why us 4 haven't bothered looking at the terms draft.
Comment by Ted Howard — March 1, 2009 @ 1:02 pm
I agree with Dave: I don't think the percentage of users that have signed up for the group has anything to do with how many people care. I care a lot about how facebook uses my content, but I don't have enough time in my day to hang around giving facebook advice about their legal terms & conditions. I am glad to see they're aware of the issue and they're asking their users for help. I will gladly wait and see what they come up with. I'm guessing it will be pretty good because I think they learned their lesson after the last T&C fiasco.
If they got 10,000 people to sign up in the group–that's a good-sized user group! Most user researchers would LOVE to have that many people to talk to.
Comment by Ann — March 1, 2009 @ 1:54 pm
You only need a few watchdogs to monitor the t&cs and call attention to negative changes. 10,000 seems like plenty to me.
Comment by John — March 2, 2009 @ 4:32 am
Interesting, though I think not necessarily surprising. I think many people like to react on "issues" but don't want to necessarily have to spend time on a ongoing basis on it. Now I wonder if we are seeing the birth of some sort of representative democracy on FB? A (relatively) small number of people would represent the mass of users, they state their positions, we vote for them. They work (for free?) on the details with FB and maybe we get a popular vote on the final guideline(s).
Comment by Vicente Silveira — March 2, 2009 @ 10:45 am
This issue is more significant than some of you seem to realize. I remember an incident a couple years ago where someone actually saw her own photo used in an advertisement without her permission. Here, a company was profiting from her image without her consent, not paying her anything for their gains, and worse, her image was being used in the advertisement in a negative way (i.e., she was being put down). I don't think you would want this to happen to you.
Comment by Allan — March 2, 2009 @ 10:50 am
This doesn't surprise me at all. People are willing to yell and scream but when it comes time to actually do something, there is a void of response. Sounds like the way folks are with civic participation and the government.
Comment by Justin Thorp — March 3, 2009 @ 6:05 am
They only care about what they see (the facebook look changes), not what is buried beneath mountains of text most of them won’t even read.
Apathy? Clearly, but only until someone moves a box from the profile then you’ll get thirty groups raging about the change.
Comment by Facebook User — March 3, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
I care about these things.
But I don't have time to care about every little thing that happens in my life. Big capitalism has come to a point that basically everyone is trying to fuck with everyone.
I care about what I eat, I read the ingredients, but then I read in the papers that in Italy appels are handled with toxic products and that's ok.
So: I can't keep up! There is only 1 me and millions of corporations out there.
The government should take care of my privacy and health.
You allfacebook.com are focused on facebook. But have you read the terms of:
- Windows
- The browser you are using
- Your internet connection supplier
- …
It would take a lifetime to read all those things, so basically you give up after a few times.
Comment by Tim — March 5, 2009 @ 7:17 am