Today Mark Zuckerberg announced the start of voting for Facebook’s updated terms of service. The new program was launched in response to the terms of service backlash that started a couple of months ago following a Consumerist blog post about Facebook’s ridiculous content ownership terms. While the uproar generated a huge response, Facebook has generated little buzz about the voting process. The initial groups created to spark conversation about the updated terms only attracted around 10,000 members each.
In order for the vote to stick, “at least 30 percent of active Facebook users” must vote. That means around 60 million people will have to vote in the next week. So what are the odds of 60 million users voting? Pretty low. The largest application on Facebook, LivingSocial, currently has over 21 million monthly active users and it took them one month to get to that point.
Over 3 times the number of users on LivingSocial will have to vote. As of the time of this post “more than 5335 people have voted” according to the news feed story that was generated when I voted. The biggest winner from this vote appears to be Wildfire Promotion builder who assisted in developing the application. Wildfire also received a link from Mark Zuckerberg’s blog post.
If Facebook can drive 60 million people to the application this will most definitely be a remarkable feat. Given the viral nature of the new application, there is a good chance that millions of users will vote, but the only question at this point is how many. This is the first time that there has ever been a vote for a site’s terms of service.
While many may view this vote as mundane, if Facebook is truly able to attract 60 million users to the application in one week, Facebook may want to consider naming their site “The Republic of Facebook”. Will you be voting on the updated terms?
![[Inside Social Apps 2012]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/ISA2012_336x100_F_RegisterNow.gif)
![[AllFacebook Stats: Facebook Analytics for Your Business]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/stpro_allfacebookstats.gif)
![[How can Facebook change your business?]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/FMB_A_MAY2011_336x100_F.gif)
I had a hard time voting, after they put the link on the homepage for everyone to vote on the app crawled to a halt and kept timing out. I will try again tomorrow.
Comment by Facebook User — April 16, 2009 @ 12:44 pm
I voted. I enjoyed reading their feedback. The updated policies, especially section 2, are much clearer. I really appreciate facebook’s openness with the whole process.
Comment by Eric Godfrey — April 16, 2009 @ 4:41 pm
This whole process has been a sham. I am a PhD student with the University of Cambridge, and I worked with colleagues and the Open Rights Group, at Facebook’s request, to write a report on the new terms:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~jcb82/2009-03-29-facebook-comments.pdf
They did not respond to any of our comments or include them in the ‘revised terms.’ In fact, looking at the textual difference, they didn’t make any substantiative changes, only re-worded some things. There is no evidence that users have had any involvement in this process.
Furthermore the voting process is guaranteed not to hit the quorum, especially with the lack of promotion. Please don’t be fooled by the appearance of democracy.
Comment by Joseph Bonneau — April 16, 2009 @ 6:52 pm
Hi Joseph, I don't agree with you regarding Facebook's promotion. I heard that Facebook is going to display a banner on every user's home page about the voting.
Comment by Roty Ru — April 16, 2009 @ 10:07 pm
@Joseph: Thanks for the information.
What I generally miss (maybe because I didn't research thoroughly) is the helping hands of parties, pressure groups and media one has in "real-world" elections and referendums (even if this vote is a scam or mere facade). It is hard to find summaries, suggestions, opinions, pros and cons.
You cannot expect Millions of users reading the entire suggested texts (as they would not with bills, party statements etc.).
If Facebook cannot provide a collection of links to these kind of resources on the voting page, maybe you guys from AllFacebook could?
Comment by steph — April 17, 2009 @ 7:40 am
this was a waist of time @ facebook
Comment by Facebook User — April 17, 2009 @ 8:22 am
I voted!!
Wow, amazing that Facebook would make the number SO high in order for the revised TOS to prevail. 30% of 200 million? Surely that number is much lower because it's 30% of users who registered before Feb 26 and who have logged in in the last 30 days.
In any case, I'm doing my bit for the Republic of Facebook now too: http://whyfacebook.com/2009/04/17/facebook-cast-y...
Cheers,
@marismith
Comment by Mari Smith — April 17, 2009 @ 12:45 pm