Facebook intends to adopt two new governing documents following a four-day vote on the documents that was open to all Facebook users. Preliminary results indicate that approximately 74.4 percent of Facebook users who voted support the new documents. More than 600,000 users voted on the new Facebook Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, according to a blog post by Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s general counsel.
User Backlash
The new Facebook Principles and the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities were developed to calm a user revolt over a change to Facebook’s Terms of Service in February. The backlash came after the Consumerist Website published a blog alleging the now-defunct TOS gave Facebook complete control over user-contributed data, such as photos and videos, even if a user deleted her or his account and left the service.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg tried to confront those allegations by explaining the site’s rationale for the new TOS, but quickly backtracked after the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) threatened to launch a federal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over the new TOS. Facebook then reverted to its old TOS before presenting the two new governing documents to Facebook users for a 30-day review period. The review process ended on March 29 and the vote on the new documents began on April 20 and closed after four days of voting on Thursday morning at 11:59 AM PDT.
Third-party support
Despite the low voter turnout, Ullyot believes the documents satisfy the privacy concerns raised in February. Ullyot also said the new governing documents have wide support of “informed third parties” and previous critics of Facebook’s old TOS, including the Consumerist; Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society; and Julius Harper and Anne Kathrine Petteroe, co-founders of the Facebook group People Against the New Terms of Service, which Ullyot calls “the first and largest Facebook group against the previous change to the terms.” Harper and Petteroe now oversee the group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsbilities along with three Facebook employees, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
EPIC Battle
EPIC has not released a statement on Facebook’s decision to adopt the two governing documents, and the advocacy group was not available for comment at the time of this writing. When Facebook announced in February that it would introduce the two governing documents, EPIC executive director Mark Rotenberg said EPIC supported “the effort to establish a ‘principles’ and also a statement of rights and responsibilities.”
Any future changes to Facebook’s new governing documents will require a process of ratification with periods of notification, public comments followed by a member-wide vote.