BBC story on the Facebook policy dispute is interesting from a policy perspective. First the chronology:
- Facebook publishes a change in terms regarding Facebook’s “ownership” of individual data published on the site
- Individuals protest via social network tools
- Organizations, mainly nonprofit groups focused on privacy issues, raise the stakes, threaten action via judicial and regulatory (FTC) venues
- Facebook withdraws proposed terms
- Facebook creates online group to discuss “Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities“
- Organizations withdraw their threatened legal/regulatory actions
And this happened within a week. Is this a new “governance” paradigm that can resolve societal issues within short periods of time, with little “old” government interference?
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