Three protests later, Facebook finally gets the community involved

Over the past three years, Facebook has weathered three user protests. Today they decided to do something new by having their users play a role in determining new policies.

Here's a recap of those protests:

In September 2006 Facebook launched News Feed (probably everyone's favorite feature today and arguably what made Facebook addictive). The problem was that Facebook launched News Feed without getting their community involved and without clearly announcing a way to opt out.

Then in November 2007, Facebook launched Beacon. Beacon sent messages to users’ friends about what they were buying on certain websites. The problem was that users could not easily opt out. Users protested and Facebook changed the feature by requiring permission with every purchase.

Then last week Facebook's user policy came under fire for claiming to own all user assets (photos, content, etc.) forever, even after a user deleted their account. They have since reversed that due to user protest.

Finally, today Facebook invited all users to participate in future policy changes.


It's a lesson to all of us who are involved in building and hosting social media and communities. We must get our community members involved, early and often.

Bravo to Facebook for finally get their community of users involved. My only questions is, what took them so long?