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Facebook To Eliminate Voting On Privacy Changes 52

Posted by timothy from the three-sheep-and-a-wolf dept.
Orome1 writes "Facebook has announced some proposed updates to their Data Use Policy (how user data is collected and used) and their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (explains the terms governing use of their services). These updates include new tools for managing Facebook Messages, changes to how they refer to certain products, tips on managing one's timelines, and reminders about what's visible to other people on Facebook. Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice president of communications, public policy, and marketing, said: '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,' he explained. '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.'"
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Facebook To Eliminate Voting On Privacy Changes More

Facebook To Eliminate Voting On Privacy Changes

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  • Translation: whatever the various government surveillance agencies tell us to do.

    • Translation: whatever the various government surveillance agencies tell us to do.

      Well, it will end up being whatever they want to do, with some inputs from governments to be sure they're handing over our information.

  • Democracy is doomed... (Score:4, Funny)

    by lucm ( 889690 ) on Thursday November 22, 2012 @12:27PM (#42066977)

    How can a crowd make a good decision: half of the voters are more stupid than the average.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rmstar ( 114746 )

      How can a crowd make a good decision: half of the voters are more stupid than the average.

      Sorry to sabotage your joke, but that would be the median. If you have ten users, all of about the same moderate level of intelligence, and one really dumb, then 90% are above average.

      This being facebook, of course, 90% is below average.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lucm ( 889690 )

        How can a crowd make a good decision: half of the voters are more stupid than the average.

        Sorry to sabotage your joke, but that would be the median. If you have ten users, all of about the same moderate level of intelligence, and one really dumb, then 90% are above average.

        This being facebook, of course, 90% is below average.

        I was under the impression that the IQ of a large population is roughly calculated according to a normal distribution (basically a bell curve with a mean of 100), in which case half of the people are indeed below average, which is why a lot of IQ test results are given as a percentile rather than an arbitrary value. If the metric was wealth, height or any other value that is not relative to the group than your interpretation would be correct.

        Now if anybody that subscribes to the efficient market hypothesis

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sFurbo ( 1361249 )
        Sorry to sabotage your sabotage of the joke, but average is not synonymous with mean. The average can be any measure of central tendency. As it is not clear the the mean of stupidity makes sense, but stupidity can be ordered, "average stupidity" would probably be "median stupidity" (or it could be the mode, if several people can be equally stupid).

  • They didn't like the results ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark$ide ( 732508 ) on Thursday November 22, 2012 @12:27PM (#42066981) Journal
    ... so they cancelled the poll.

    I didn't like their privacy system so I cancelled my FB account.

    • ... so they cancelled the poll.

      I didn't like their privacy system so I cancelled my FB account.

      You won't be getting an invite to my party then

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Mitreya ( 579078 )

      They didn't like the results ... ... so they cancelled the poll.

      But they didn't have to do anything (polling is not done by an independent agency), so why worry about poll results? More likely they found that poll participation resulted in better user awareness of just how bad FB privacy policy is.

      Funny how every change FB makes is for improving user feedback and privacy. Even two opposite changes manage qualify as an improvement in their PR speak.

  • Voting? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Thursday November 22, 2012 @12:31PM (#42067009) Journal

    So the only people that should be allowed to "vote" are people that can contribute "quality" comments? Are they saying that having a large number of people vote is a bad thing, and they would prefer that fewer people vote but have a larger say because their comments are higher "quality"?

    You know, if FB had a dislike button to go along with the like button, then they would have an *actual* mechanism that could be used for voting.

    • > if FB had a dislike button to go along with the like button, then they would have an *actual* mechanism that could be used for voting.

      Exactly. Pretending or ignoring a completely contrary perspective doesn't make it go away! Sometimes the "other guy" has something interesting / insightful to say. Don't shoot the messenger just because you don't like the message.

      FaceBook is like a little immature child "Nah, Nah, Nah, I can't hear you!"

      Guess what, I can't hear you FaceBook until you grow the fuck up

  • Voting (Score:3)

    by guttentag ( 313541 ) on Thursday November 22, 2012 @12:35PM (#42067029) Journal
    Stands on soap box
    I vote we keep the voting system! What do you mean I can't vote on it?
  • First they get rid of your privacy, then they get rid of voting on privacy, what's next?
  • I've no idea what they are talking about. Must be because I deleted by FB a while ago.
  • Okay, this is perhaps stating the obvious, but recently, facebook seems to be making such a bewildering set of changes which trample your privacy, that it's impossible to keep track of what's going on. Take FB messages -- without any notification that I was aware of, it started telling people whether I'd read their messages or not. Then it stopped doing this (as far as I can tell), but kept doing it for group messages. Then it started telling me where people were located when they were messaging me. Inc

  • I actually need Facebook for scheduling events and informing people in several FB groups about them. It's great for that. And a lot of the people in those groups are just happy enough with it that they'd need a really good reason to change. So to an extent, I'm stuck. However, I have certainly felt no obligation to be truthful with Facebook about my age or any other "facts" in my profile. My friends know what's real and what isn't. Nobody else needs to know.

    Facebook has been so dickish toward its u

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geek ( 5680 )

      Why is Google+ not it? I use it, all it needs is people to move. That is a problem every site will face with the masses too ignorant and/or lazy to leave Facebook. The only thing Google+ is missing is the ability to post on other peoples walls but putting a + before their name on your own wall accomplishes the same thing.

      Google+ is amazing but for whatever reason, people just refuse to leave Facebook because they don't give a rats ass about their privacy. Hell most people don't even grasp what privacy is an

      • C'mon if G+ had more users do you really believe they wouldn't behave this way ?

      • I've got a Google+ account, and I use it with my more geekish friends. It hasn't caught on in the wider community I deal with, though, in spite of my efforts.

        My life would be a lot easier if I could move a total of about 3,000 people over to Google+ and get them to spend the minimal amount of time it takes to get comfortable with it. As far as I'm concerned, the interface beats the crap out of Facebook, and the communications tools are superior.

  • >>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.'

    Therefore, we're proposing to end the voting component of the process in favour of a system that leads to us being able to get more cash

  • I honestly have no idea what they are talking about. I admit I'm not a big Facebook user, but I enter some times a week and never saw such voting.

    Can someone clarify?, is this a US only thing?

  • Meh (Score:2)

    by jonr ( 1130 )

    Care-o-meter: barely moving.

    I'll just keep on using adblock, such a first world anarchist...

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