Facebook is one of the most popular websites in the world, with more than 150 million active users. The site quickly introduced a new “Bill of Rights”, and is allowing the site’s users to comment and vote on the new wording of the Terms of Service.

As CNN noted, Facebook, and we quote, “granted itself permanent rights to users’ photos, wall posts and other information, even after a user closed an account.”

Thousands of angry users either cancelled their accounts in protest.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was quick to point out that users reminded the company that they feel a real sense of ownership over Facebook itself, and just the information that they share over the site.

Facebook was quick to clarify their position, which eased a lot of minds. Here is an excerpt from that statement:

“We are not claiming and have never claimed ownership of material that users upload. The new Terms were clarified to be more consistent with the behavior of the site. That is, if you send a message to another user (or post to their wall, etc…), that content might not be removed by Facebook if you delete your account (but can be deleted by your friend).

The note goes on to say that any limitations that a user puts on display of the uploaded content are respected by Facebook.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has also posted a more philosophical response on the Facebook blog saying that while the new Terms of Service were “overly formal”, and that the company is encouraging user input for a new Terms of Service. In essence, they admit as new features are introduced, mistakes will be made, because companies like Facebook are new.

“Rather than simply reissue a new Terms of Use, the changes we’re announcing today are designed to open up Facebook so that users can participate meaningfully in our policies and our future,” said Zuckerberg, referring to how the company is now accepting input into a new Terms of Use.

In 2006, Facebook launched the News Feed, which is a key part of the Facebook site now, but it caused a great deal of uproar when it was introduced, since users can see what a friend’s friends are up to. Users came to accept the feature, though.

Many websites use user information for marketing purposes, including Facebook. For example, if you make it known to the site that you’re single, you will see a lot of singles ads. Websites across the internet use such methods.

A golden rule of thumb seems to be that people shouldn’t post anything to the internet that they want kept private or that could embarrass them, including pictures, video, and personal information. Sites like Facebook make it a lot harder for just anybody to find your information, but for sites like MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter, anyone can access it.

It’s important for users of sites and companies like Facebook to continue to make it known what they feel is acceptable for a Terms of Service. This will remind companies not to get power hungry, and that, overall, the success of such sites solely depends on how they treat their users and customers, and their content.

Originally posted 2009-03-02 01:33:17. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

from left to right: Allan Wilson, teacher and writer; Bridget Pastoor, MLA Lethbridge East; and Dr. David Swann, Leader of the Alberta Libera Party.

Dr. David Swann, who has led the Alberta Liberal Party since December of 2008, after Kevin Taft resigned, wants to make it perfectly clear that his party’s mission is to renew itself by reaching out to young people, end voter apathy, make the environment a much larger focus, and renew Canada’s democracy.

Swann has spent over three decades in the field of medicine, and admits jumping from medicine to politics has been ‘really interesting’. Swann says both medicine and politics are essentially about the same thing, creating healthy communities. He says it’s been a ‘fun transition’.

He wants to increase the involvement in Canadian politics, starting with getting people back to the polls at election time.

“It’s a challenging time for the party. You know, we only had a 40 per cent turnout in the polls last year. Our vote dropped, and our membership has dropped to 6,000, our peak membership was in the ‘90s when we had 100,000. A tremendous amount of work needs to be done, I’ve called for a renewal process within the party,” says Swann.

Dr. Swann is scared that we’re losing democracy in our province, and is determined to do something about it by creating ways for people to have a say on issues that concern them.

“That’s why I’m in politics, I’m afraid we’re losing our democracy in this province.  This is 37 years of increasing entitlement, power broking, and self-serving that seems to be a tighter and tighter connection with the corporate community and making decisions in short-term interests of private enterprise, not public interest, for the long term, which is what I’m about,” explains Dr. Swann.

One of the key ways Dr. Swann and his Liberal Party are using to connect with young people is by using the web services they use, such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, keeping a blog, and producing a podcast on Swann’s website, which is http://www.davidswann.ca/.

“[We’re] using web based interaction to hear from people about what they think about the Liberal party,” says Dr. Swann.

For the first time in Alberta history, the Conservative government will be running under a deficit of more then $1 billion. Swann says this is because of a lack of responsible spending, and that the provincial government wasn’t saving during the past decade, when it had oil and gas surpluses of nearly $10 billion per year.

“We’ve spent [all of the] oil wealth coming out of the ground in the last 15 years. The Heritage Fund is worth less then it was when Peter Lougheed left office.”

“We should have been saving during that boom time, because by spending, we caused such an inflation. Housing, costs went sky high, we had everyone wanting to come here because the economy was doing so well, that’s when we should have been saving,” explains Swann.

Dr. Swann says the best way to stimulate the economy is to move away from non renewable resources.

“We need to move away from this fixation on fossil fuels. It’s not only unsustainable, because of the non-renewable resources, it’s unsustainable because we’re killing our climate.  We can tax carbon and give tax incentives for retrofitting your home, for using a high-energy furnace, [and] for using public transit.”

“It’s a lack of imagination, lack of commitment. The [Conservative government is] so tied in tight with the oil industry that they can’t back out,” says Swann.

A lack of affordable housing is a huge issue. Dr. Swann says that the way to solve the housing crisis is to slow down the population growth that has been encouraged in recent years.

“Slowing down the growth would be one thing. That would make less inflation, more affordable housing. We have to, federal, provincial, municipal, develop a longer term plan. We have the largest homeless population in the country in Calgary,” says Dr. Swann.

Dr. Swann blames the growth of the oil sands in respect to our current environmental and economic threats. He says that because of the inflation, the oil sands themselves are in trouble.

“We’ve allowed the oil sands to grow as fast as they’ve wanted to grow without respect to environmental, social, or even the economic threat that we’ve created. Because we’ve increased the level of inflation, we’ve now threatened the oil industry itself,” says Dr. Swann.

Dr. Swann also explains that the government needs to invest more in green technology, and give more incentives.

“If you’re going to invest in a real legacy for future generations, if you’re going to give more incentives for green technology, like solar and wind, geothermal, giving money to create energy efficient buildings. That’s a good investment. We know [the cost of] fossil fuels are going to go higher and higher,” emphasizes Swann.

Swann says the current provincial government isn’t doing enough to monitor or enforce environmental protection.

“They denied climate change up until three years ago. It’s not a priority for this government, to educate people on the greening of their lifestyle, or how to reduce their carbon footprint. That’s where the environment department needs more resources.”

A common complaint among young people and many Canadians is that the level of rhetoric in the legislature needs to be toned down, since seeing our leaders screaming and yelling at each other is hardly inspiring, nor conducive to meaningful conversations.

“My goal is very simple, I want to attract people to politics. I don’t want to repulse them. I think what you called apathy is really repulsion. They don’t like who we are, they don’t like what we do. I want to attract people to politics. If we’re going to attract, we have to act in a responsible, mature, respectful way,” says Dr. Swann.

Last semester, students were quoted saying they would really appreciate it if politicians would come to their workplaces, and our schools, to speak directly to people, many saying it might change their vote if that happened.

“Definitely. I would love to see that. I want more younger people involved. This is your future we’re playing with,” says Dr. Swann.

Originally posted 2009-03-17 01:34:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter