Facebook's first ever public vote on privacy changes came to a close today. The result was a landslide — nearly 87% of those voting preferred the existing Facebook privacy terms to the new terms first proposed this May. With such a mandate, you can be sure that Facebook's privacy settings will stay the same, right? Well ... no, not quite.
Facebook had announced that the public decision would be binding if 30% of Facebook users took the time to vote and make their opinions heard. What percentage of Facebook users participated in this poll? Why, glad you asked — just 0.038%, about one in every 2,600 Facebook users.
Turnout was indeed abysmal, but to be fair, Facebook's 30% hurdle guaranteed that the vote would be non-binding. After all, only 37.8% of those who were of age to vote did so in the 2010 U.S. midterm elections. And if people can't be bothered to vote for something as important as control of the country, how can you expect a similar proportion to vote on something as relatively obscure as a privacy policy, especially when a large part of Facebook's user base is under 18?
There's no word yet whether Facebook will truly take the opinion of the 0.038% into advisement. In the meantime, though, we'd strongly suggest you take a moment to review your own privacy settingson the site.
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