Facebook's first
ever public vote on privacy changes came to a close today. The result
was a landslide — nearly 87% of those voting preferred the existing
Facebook privacy terms
to the new terms first proposed this May. With such a mandate, you can
be sure that Facebook's privacy settings will stay the same, right? Well
... no, not quite.
Facebook had announced that the public decision would be binding if
30% of Facebook users took the time to vote and make their opinions
heard. What percentage of Facebook users participated in this poll? Why,
glad you asked — just 0.038%, about one in every 2,600 Facebook users.
Turnout was indeed abysmal, but to be fair, Facebook's 30% hurdle
guaranteed that the vote would be non-binding. After all, only 37.8% of
those who were of age to vote did so in the 2010 U.S. midterm elections.
And if people can't be bothered to vote for something as important as
control of the country, how can you expect a similar proportion to vote
on something as relatively obscure as a privacy policy, especially when a
large part of Facebook's user base is under 18?
There's no word yet whether Facebook will truly take the opinion of
the 0.038% into advisement. In the meantime, though, we'd strongly
suggest you take a moment to review your own privacy settings on the site.
Resource : Yahoo News
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