Facebook quietly held a vote on a new privacy policy last week, and the results are in: not enough users voted for it to count.
Never mind that those who did vote were overwhelmingly against the new policy, which, like Google AdWords, would let the company show users ads on external sites based on their likes.
Just under 300,000 people—an overwhelming 87% of those who voted—were against the change. But considering 900 million people use the site, that was a tiny fraction of Facebook’s required 30% participation for users’ votes to count.
On Facebook’s official announcement that the company is proceeding with the new policy, most users expressed shock that there was a vote to being with, and frustration that they were too late.
“Facebook should have sent a notice via FB messages AND an email to each & every user with a subject title that highlighted the fact there was a vote. I knew nothing about this & I’m a pretty engaged & proactive user,” wrote Lorraine McGuinniety.
“You do an excellent job of telling us after the fact. I completely believe that if you really wanted us to know before-hand, we would have,” added Laurel Gardiner Bracewell.
Still, Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s Vice President of Communications, Public Policy and Marketing, wrote that he thought Facebook had done enough to inform users, calling the company’s efforts to get out the vote “significant.” The only specific example official statements from the company cite, however, is a post in Facebook’s news section.
“We received a great deal of positive feedback about these changes from our regulators and the many other stakeholders,” he added.
Photo by Muffet