Peter A Clarke

In Facebook criticised over decision to stop public privacy votes the BBC reports on the likely change by Facebook to its policy of allowing users to vote on changes to its data privacy policy.

The basis of the story is an email from Facebook on Wednesday 21 November 2012 which provides:

Today we are proposing some updates to two documents which govern our site: our Data Use Policy, which explains how we collect and use data when people use Facebook, and our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR), which explains the terms governing the use of our services. These updates provide more detailed information about our practices, reflect changes to our products, and improve how we conduct our site governance process.

 Improving the Site Governance Process: Our goal has always been to find ways to effectively engage your views when we propose changes to our governing policies. That commitment guided our decision in 2009 to launch an unprecedented process for user feedback. When we held our second global site governance vote in June, we indicated that we would review our site governance process in light of the growth of both our community – to over one billion users – and our company – which is now publicly traded and accountable to regulators around the world. Our intention was to make sure the process still served its original purpose.

 As a result of this review, we are proposing to restructure our site governance process. We deeply value the feedback we receive from you during our comment period. In the past, your substantive feedback has led to changes to the proposals we made. However, we found that the voting mechanism, which is triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a system that incentivized the quantity of comments over their quality.  Therefore, we’re proposing to end the voting component of the process in favor of a system that leads to more meaningful feedback and engagement.

 We will continue to post significant changes to our Data Use Policy and SRR and provide a seven-day period for review and comment. As always, we will carefully consider your feedback before adopting any changes. We will also provide additional notification mechanisms, including email, for informing you of those changes. In the coming weeks, we will roll out new ways of responding to your questions and comments about Facebook. These include:

• Ask the Chief Privacy Officer. We’ll be launching a new feature on our Facebook and Privacy Page to let you submit questions about privacy to our Chief Privacy Officer of Policy, Erin Egan.
• Facebook Live Events. Erin Egan will host webcasts on a regular basis to address your comments and questions about privacy, safety and security.

Other Proposed Updates: The Data Use Policy also includes updates that provide more descriptions about our practices and reflect changes to our products, including:

• New tools for managing your Facebook Messages – replacing the “Who can send you Facebook messages” setting with new filters for managing incoming messages.
• Changes to how we refer to certain products, like instant personalization.
• Reminders about what’s visible to other people on Facebook. For instance, when you hide things from your timeline, those posts are visible elsewhere, like in news feed, on other people’s timelines, or in search results.
• Tips on managing your timeline. For example, you can use tools on your timeline or activity log to delete your own posts, or you can ask someone else to delete a post in which you’re tagged.

 We encourage you to read through all the proposed changes using the links below. Additionally, to view a document that highlights the changes, please view the “tracked changes” English version. You have a chance to review and comment on these changes before we adopt them. Please leave any comments by 9:00 AM PST on November 28, 2012.

 Once the comment period is over, we will be hosting a Facebook Live where Erin Egan, our Chief Privacy Officer of Policy, will respond to your comments live. Please like or follow the Site Governance Page for more details.

 Thank you again for continuing to be a part of this process and helping us shape the Facebook community.

The BBC story provides:

Facebook is set to remove the ability for users to vote on changes to its data privacy policy, in a move that has angered campaigners.

In an email to all members, Facebook said it wanted a “more meaningful” way for users to give feedback.

The site has also proposed combining information across its other services, such as photo-sharing app Instagram.

Facebook said a vote into the changes could take place, but more than 300m users would need to participate.

Under the site’s rules, votes have an effect only if 30% of the user base has taken part. The site recently announced its one billionth sign-up.

A campaign opposing the changes and calling for more transparency has been launched.

The Our-Policy.org website is urging users to comment on the announcement in order to trigger a user vote on Facebook’s plans.

Under current rules, if there are 7,000 comments on an issue it will be voted upon. At the time of writing, 3,000 members had commented.

‘Accountable’

In explaining the changes, Facebook said it was looking for ways to more “effectively engage” with its users over changes to the network.

“That commitment guided our decision in 2009 to launch an unprecedented process for user feedback,” wrote Elliot Schrage, a vice-president of communications.

“When we held our second global site governance vote in June, we indicated that we would review our site governance process in light of the growth of both our community – to over one billion users – and our company, which is now publicly traded and accountable to regulators around the world.”

Mr Schrage said the review of the procedure highlighted issues which required a restructuring of the feedback process.

“We found that the voting mechanism, which is triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a system that incentivised the quantity of comments over their quality.

“Therefore, we’re proposing to end the voting component of the process in favour of a system that leads to more meaningful feedback and engagement.”

Data merge

The new proposals also outlined details of Facebook’s plans to combine information across various services it owns.

This could potentially include Instagram, the photo-sharing app which the social network acquired for £440m ($700m) earlier this year. As well as a vast library of user-uploaded photographs, Instagram also holds location data on its users – a highly valuable resource.

The Reuters news agency has speculated that Facebook intended to unify user data profiles in a way similar to Google’s controversial policy changes which took place earlier this year.

The move made it easier for Google to serve targeted advertising to its users.

The search giant was heavily criticised by EU data regulators, and told that it must do more to explain to users how their information was being used.

Facebook has told the BBC that there are currently no plans to merge its services in this way – but did not rule it out from happening in the future.

Aside from the privacy-related changes, Facebook also told users it plans to:

• Add new tools for filtering incoming messages, in response to user complaints that messages from friends were being lost in the “Other” folder.
• Give better indicators of where posts can be viewed – and by whom.
• Offer more guidance on managing profiles, including how to request deletion of posts a user has been “tagged” in by a friend.

As part of a lengthy list of demands, the Our Policy website criticises the proposal as being too vague.

“We want Facebook to use clear and understandable language,” the group says.

“We oppose that Facebook is using ‘like’, ‘may’ or ‘could’ instead of clear statements. This makes it impossible to clearly know what we consent to.”