Facebook Proposes Updates to Facebook Site Governance Documents

Facebook has proposed a few updates to the two documents, which govern the Facebook website:

1. Facebook’s Data Use Policy, which explains how facebook collects and uses data when people use Facebook,

2. In addition, their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR), this explains the terms governing the use of Facebook services.

These updates provide detailed information about Facebook’s practices. They reflect changes to their products, and improve on how Facebook conducts the site governance process.

Improving the Site Governance Process:

Facebook has always asked for user feedback whenever it proposes changes to our governing policies. The company in 2009 launched its current site governance model, which gave users the unprecedented right to vote on site governance issues.

Taking into consideration the growth of both, the Facebook community – to over one billion users – and the company –, which is now publicly traded and accountable to regulators around the world, Facebook held its second global site governance vote in June, indicating that it would review the site governance process.

However, it was found that the voting mechanism triggers a specific number of comments, which actually resulted in a system that incentivized the quantity of comments over their quality. The process did not serve its original purpose.

Therefore, Facebook is proposing to restructure the site governance process by ending the voting component of the process in favor of a system that leads to feedback that is more meaningful and engaging.

Facebook mentioned, as always, it will carefully consider the users feedback before adopting any changes. It will also provide additional notification mechanisms, including email, for informing users of the changes. Facebook will continue to post significant changes to our Data Use Policy and SRR and provide a seven-day period for review and comment.

In the coming weeks, Facebook will roll out new ways of responding to user questions and comments about Facebook. These include:

• Ask the Chief Privacy Officer. Facebook will be launching a new feature on the Facebook and Privacy Page to let users submit questions about privacy to its Chief Privacy Officer of Policy, Erin Egan.
• Facebook Live Events. Erin Egan will host web casts on a regular basis to address comments and questions about privacy, safety and security.

Other Proposed Updates: The Data Use Policy also includes updates that provide more descriptions about Facebook’s practices and reflect changes to its products, including:

• New tools for managing your Facebook Messages – replacing the “Who can send you Facebook messages” setting with new filters for managing incoming messages.
• Changes to how Facebook refers to certain products, like instant personalization.
• Reminders about what is visible to other people on Facebook. For instance, when you hide things from your timeline, those posts are visible elsewhere, like in news feed, on other people’s timelines, or in search results.
• Tips on managing your timeline. For example, you can use tools on your timeline or activity log to delete your own posts, or you can ask someone else to delete a post in which you are tagged.

Given below are all the proposed changes. Facebook gives its users a chance to review and comment on these changes before adopting them them.

Users can leave any comments by 9:00 AM PST on November 28, 2012.

Once the comment period is over, Facebook will be hosting a Facebook Live where Erin Egan, our Chief Privacy Officer of Policy, will respond to the comments live.

• Proposed Statement of Rights and Responsibilities
• SRR Redline
• Proposed Data Use Policy
• Data Use Policy Redline