Facebook asks for votes on changes to terms of use

CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that this was the ‘next step in opening our site governance to everyone who uses Facebook with our first user vote'. Users are permitted to vote on whether to opt for the new Facebook Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, or stay with the current Terms of Use.

Incorporating feedback from users and experts received during the 30-day comment period, the proposed changes will allow control for the user of their data and if a profile is deleted, the website will not hold on to it and 'content shared with others may remain until they delete it'.

Changes to these policies caused uproar in February, when Facebook declared posting user content to any part of the site granted the company the right to use, copy, publicly display and distribute user content.

Facebook said that if the new documents are approved, all future changes to the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities will go through the same process of notice and comment, and may be put to a vote if enough people comment.

"Even if these new proposed documents are defeated, we will still find ways to involve you in the governance process; however, this involvement will need to be explicitly stated in a future version of the Terms of Use", said the website.

Zuckerberg claimed that the vote will close at midnight PDT on April 23. He said: “We encourage you to participate and make your voice heard. For this vote and any future one, the results will be binding if at least 30 per cent of active Facebook users at the time that the vote was announced participate. An active user is someone who has logged in to the site in the past 30 days.” 

It was then forced to revert to its previous terms of use, after users complained that the new terms of service appeared to suggest that Facebook would retain personal data even if someone deleted their account.