Facebook knows they made a mistake

Facebook seems to have realized that they went overboard with their recent “Terms of Use” changes and has decided to revert back to their previous version.

According to Mark Zuckerberg (their CEO & Founder) they have acknowledged and took ownership of this mistake. His exact words were (quoted from FB blog):

A lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective of the rights we need to provide this service to you.

and he goes on to say…

It’s difficult terrain to navigate and we’re going to make some missteps, but as the leading service for sharing information we take these issues and our responsibility to help resolve them very seriously.

Realizing how bad of a PR move this was, Facebook is even changing the process used to update their “Terms of Use” and would now like to hear from its users and have them contribute.

In his today’s post, Mark Zuckerberg says:

More than 175 million people use Facebook. If it were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world. Our terms aren’t just a document that protect our rights; it’s the governing document for how the service is used by everyone across the world. Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service.

Further in that post he invites all who want to provide input to do so in the newly created group, Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.

Overall, considering their sneaky TOS update this is the best move they could have made at this time. Ackowledging the made an error in judgement and working openly towards correcting it is what will make this become a thing of the past fairly quickly.

The only question I have at this time is who selected the photo for this newly created group? If you circle the center part of the photo (see below), what does it remind you of? Anyone?

Update (@ 2:07 PM EST): Some half hour or so after posting this, they have changed their photo to the one you see now on their group page.