Lets call for an Election on who thinks Facebook is a joke?!

Let’s go one step back. The past few weeks I have been researching and eventually started writing my dissertation. The topic of my dissertation is on online privacy and the affect the cookie law, also known as the ‘EC Directive 2011′, has on customers. So after all my research, and a constant eye open for a change in company privacy policies and so forth that, I believe I should have come across information about this election. If you have written a dissertation you would know how much research and time it takes and it’s all you think about for some months, that and how you hate people who post ‘lovely’ photos of themselves on the beach on Facebook. So yes, I was on Facebook a lot, trying to keep myself sane, every 5 minutes.

The Election was whether Facebook should keep its existing Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR) and Data Use Policy or change it to the updated version which was introduced in May this year. According to statistics, only 0.038% of users voted, of which mostly voted to keep the existing policy.

S0, why did only 0.038% vote? Facebook needed more than 30% of Facebook users to vote for the ‘best’ privacy policy to be implemented. 30% of users would mean 300 million users – to put it into perspective that would mean all America would need to vote in one week, by June 8^th 2012.

If Facebook really wanted the public to vote I am sure they would be able to figure a way out of grabbing the public’s attention, just as all their silly apps and adverts do. Then again if not enough people vote then they will choose which privacy policy to use. How convenient for them. How can they say that they tried to ask users what they thought? They surely used the word ‘tried’ very loosely.
My opinion: Facebook plan every move that they do, in every step of the way, and this was a blatant mistake. As a loyal user (especially in this desperate time), I believe that they should redo the election and ensure that when users login they are immediately notified of the changes. I am sure Facebook could figure a way of informing users that they have a choice and that we are important to them.