Survey Uncovers Apathy for Facebook Governance

In an attempt to appease its critics by feigning democracy, Facebook gave users a week to vote on a set of governing documents for the site. The results are in and... survey says... no one actually cares all that much about Facebook's Terms of Service.

About a week ago, in keeping a promise to give users the opportunity to help govern the site, Facebook put two sets of its terms up for a vote: the September 2008 version, and a revised set of terms based on user feedback.

The voting closed yesterday, and, after all was said and done, the Facebook terms were voted on by a whopping 0.32 percent of the Facebook population, or 600,000 users. (Facebook claims a population of over 200 million.) Out of that barely half of a percentage who voted, 74.4 percent cast their vote for the revised set of terms.

According to the rules originally proposed by Facebook, the site was not going to abide by the vote unless at least 30 percent of its user base bothered to participate. "Facebook has an international user base, and we didn't want a vocal minority to be driving any decisions," Facebook spokesperson Barry Schnitt told Internet Evolution in March of the decision to require 30 percent.

Well it looks like that's exactly what is happening. Going against its own word, Facebook is respecting the vote of the 0.3 percent who weighed in and considering throwing out the 30 percent rule.

According to a Facebook blog:

We'd hoped to have a bigger turnout for this inaugural vote, but it is important to keep in mind that this vote was a first for users just like it was a first for Facebook. 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.

Ugh. Facebook. Can we say missed opportunity?

Facebook has every right to govern its site however it wants. From a business standpoint, requiring 30 percent of its users to vote was smart, as it set Facebook up for an opportunity to take power back from its whiny users once they proved to be apathetic.

Instead, rather than sticking to its guns, Facebook has backtracked on the 30 percent requirement. Perhaps this was an attempt to avoid further media backlash, which would have surely pinned Facebook as evil for not catering to the 600,000 users who bothered to participate.

But maybe it's time Facebook stops pandering to its every critic and focuses on building a business.

Apart from shining light on Facebook's weakness, this whole experiment just proves how little the majority of Web users actually care about activism. We're all very good at complaining, pointing fingers, going stark raving mad in 140 characters or less. But when it comes down to actually doing something, well, we just can't be bothered.

? Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution