Apathetic voters lose the right to vote on Facebook
The Facebook polls closed Monday afternoon and even though the social network had its largest turnout ever, too few members cast ballots to have a say in the policy changes the company has proposed.Nearly nine out of every ten who voted were against the proposed changes, but only a reported 668,000 actually voted — a tiny fraction of Facebook’s one billion plus users.The company requires that 30 percent of Facebook users participate for a vote to count. While the company has held two other elections, not one has ever met that threshold.One of the proposed changes in this latest vote was taking away Facebook users’ right to vote on future changes. The company says it has plans to give users other ways to weigh in on policy changes like question-and-answer forums on its website or webchats with the company’s chief privacy officer.Among the other proposals that users voted on: whether Facebook can loosen restrictions on who can message you on Facebook and whether it can share information with its affiliates, including popular photo-sharing service Instagram.