In future, the Facebook has announced, proposals to change its terms of service will be circulated to users in order to get feedback. Some may go to a public vote, while it also said that its legal contract with Facebook addicts will be simplified into a "bill of rights and responsibilities". the social networking site has decided to stem off future criticism by putting some changes to public vote and asking users to sign simplified 'bill of rights'
"We're going to notify everyone who wants to be notified and give them time to comment," Mark Zuckerberg said. in a call with journalists earlier.
In the case that a proposed change draws a high volume of response, "we'll even put it up for a vote".
The move comes just a few days after an embarrassing climbdown, after changes to the site's terms of use led to outrage among many of the site's 175m users. The concerns, over a shift in wording that appeared to give Facebook perpetual ownership to every piece of data on the site, eventually led to Zuckerberg making a drastic U-turn.
Although executives at the site said they did not intend to offend or annoy users with the earlier changes, they recognised that data ownership was a sensitive issue for many people.
Facebook's vice president of communications and public policy, Eliot Schrage, said: "Because of the nature of the information our users share, we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard."
Facebook has suffered from backlashes before – when implementing its news feed or its controversial Beacon advertising system, for example. But this latest change effectively hopes to stem future controversies in the bud by putting part of the company's up for public approval (although Facebook will, of course, still control which issues are up for public discussion and vote)
Zuckerberg, who seemed stuck for words on a few occasions, said that although the announcement was precipitated by last week's farce, the changes had been discussed for a "long time".
"We're going to notify everyone who wants to be notified and give them time to comment," Mark Zuckerberg said. in a call with journalists earlier.
In the case that a proposed change draws a high volume of response, "we'll even put it up for a vote".
The move comes just a few days after an embarrassing climbdown, after changes to the site's terms of use led to outrage among many of the site's 175m users. The concerns, over a shift in wording that appeared to give Facebook perpetual ownership to every piece of data on the site, eventually led to Zuckerberg making a drastic U-turn.
Although executives at the site said they did not intend to offend or annoy users with the earlier changes, they recognised that data ownership was a sensitive issue for many people.
Facebook's vice president of communications and public policy, Eliot Schrage, said: "Because of the nature of the information our users share, we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard."
Facebook has suffered from backlashes before – when implementing its news feed or its controversial Beacon advertising system, for example. But this latest change effectively hopes to stem future controversies in the bud by putting part of the company's up for public approval (although Facebook will, of course, still control which issues are up for public discussion and vote)
Zuckerberg, who seemed stuck for words on a few occasions, said that although the announcement was precipitated by last week's farce, the changes had been discussed for a "long time".
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