The majority – or at least the majority of the few folks who voiced an opinion – will indeed rule. Facebook’s governance vote is over, and although its declared participation threshold wasn’t met, the social network is preparing to adopt the terms of service most voters favored.
Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s general counsel, announced on the corporate blog, “The final results are now being reviewed by an outside auditor, but the preliminary numbers indicate that approximately 74.4 percent of users who voted chose the proposed documents – the new Facebook Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities – over the existing Terms of Use.”
Ullyot also said that over 600,000 people participated. As we noted yesterday, the rules of the vote stated that 30 percent of Facebook’s active users needed to participate in order for the results to count, and this equaled 60 million individuals. So it’s almost odd to see Facebook moving forward with the new terms of service.
It may be that Mark Zuckerberg has gotten tired of setting off protests, though. Ullyot just wrote, “We are hopeful that there will be greater participation in future votes. In the meantime, we’re going to consider lowering the 30-percent threshold that the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities establishes for a user vote to be binding.”
And anyone who wants to stay in the terms of service loop can become a fan of the Facebook Site Governance Page to receive notifications about future discussions and votes.
