“Thanks to a privacy brouhaha in 2009, Zuck had pledged that any future changes to the data policy would be voted—voted!—on by users. So when we gave up trying to squeeze money from the rock of Facebook-only data, and expanded radically the usage of data by the Ads team, it was necessary to hold a referendum. Yes, really. Digital democracy, citizens of Facebook-land! And so in late 2011 Facebook held an election. Among the measures up for voting was . . . abolishing elections forever. Democracy could opt to commit suicide. Asking people about changes to data policy is like asking about changes to the IRS tax code: the policy in question is a big, hairy beast nobody really understands, and by default people want to keep the status quo rather than think about some uncertain future change. Fortunately for Facebook, one of the original stipulations in the offer of democracy stated that 30 percent of the user base had to participate in order for the result to be binding. By 2011, Facebook’s user base was over a billion, which meant about 300 million people—almost three times the number of voters in the most recent US presidential election—needed to participate. We needn’t have worried. The adoption of the new policy lost by a landslide: 90 percent of voters were against the new data policy that Facebook needed to survive. But . . . almost nobody voted. Not even close to 30 percent of users. As such, the voting result was “taken under advisementâ€â€”by which we mean “ignored.†And be grateful we did; Facebook would be in trouble right now otherwise, as the company-saving products that launched later would have been impossible under the old data policy. Garcia Martinez, Antonio. Chaos Monkeys (p. 327). Harper Paperbacks. Kindle Edition. Garcia Martinez, Antonio. Chaos Monkeys (p. 326). Harper Paperbacks. Kindle Edition. Garcia Martinez, Antonio. Chaos Monkeys (p. 326). Harper Paperbacks. Kindle Edition. Garcia Martinez, Antonio. Chaos Monkeys (p. 326). Harper Paperbacks. Kindle Edition. ”
