Facebook Gives Power to the People

Facebook has announced that henceforth users will have a say in company policies, simply by commenting and voting on them before they are implemented on the social networking site. On Thursday, founder Mark Zuckerberg reassured Facebook users that they own their information, not the site, and that steps will be taken to insure that privacy, ownership and sharing policies will be determined democratically by the community.

Facebook has had problems in the past with streaming and sharing music between users, having been obliged to ban the Project Playlist widget and their own “Facebook Music” service. Though no reference to these policies has been made by the site’s operators, people might be able to exert pressure on the company to allow self-owned music to be shared, and even strike deals with labels à la Myspace.

The mechanics of the new democratical process are as follows: if more than 7,000 users comment on any proposed change, it would go to a vote. If more than 30 percent of active users vote, the proposal would be binding to Facebook. Based on the site’s current size, that would signify nearly 53 million people.

“As people share more information on services like Facebook, a new relationship is created between Internet companies and the people they serve,” Zuckerberg said in a statement.

So what if users vote to be able to share music? Will the major labels step in, as usual? Right now the biggest concern is personal information, but soon enough, other sharing policies will come up, and could be grounds for a battle between the people and the industry. Could Facebook be pressured into deals with the major labels? Or vice-versa?

Photo via audiodictum1.files.wordpress.com
Source: AP