Watching change happen often makes us think we can affect or even effect it. The Obama psychology, environmentalist campaigns, and protest against Stony Brook tuition hikes all invoke the power of individual initiative in righting a perceived wrong. The internet, a truly democratic medium, has allowed for and advocated this mentality, often without users being completely conscious of it. With Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg proves that social precepts and preconceptions are arbitrary, highlighting the way that his website is making “friends” out of everyone from peers and family to employers and favorite celebrities. And strangely enough, we feel devoted not just to the people whom we contact, but to the familiar blue and white home screen bearing their images as well. “This is a technology that has inherently generated community, and it has gotten to the point where members of that community feel not only vested but empowered to challenge the company,” notes S. Shyam Sundar, a media researcher. At what point does all the self-determination become counterproductive? As Facebook’s recent legal maneuvers indicate, Zuckerberg and his associates are administrators and business owners, albiet benevolent, approachable ones. Despite their noble, pedestrian ideologies, they are aware that they deserve to profit from the burgeoning success of their efforts and that they must make a profit if they want to continue to exist. Do we have a say in Facebook’s future and can we fairly claim to deserve one?

“It’s not a democracy,” Chris Cox, Facebook’s product director, protested last month to the New York Times. Facebook’s recent actions have spoken both for and against this statement.

Two months ago, Facebook arguably infringed on users’ management rights over their personal information with an updated and controversial Terms of Service agreement. The outrage caused was spread through Facebook’s own technology; although Consumer Reports first commented on the change, it was through Facebook groups and wall posts that people really became aware of the ominous changes. In light of the ensuing uproar, Facebook administrators offered a revised version, this time for a vote. The result of last week’s vote was positive, but not on the scale that Zuckerberg and his associates had hoped. While 75 percent of voters agreed to the new Rights and Responsibilities document, fewer than one percent of Facebook’s 200 million users actually voted rather than the anticpated 30 percent. The new policy is binding regardless of the regrettably low turnout, as Facebook’s legal chief mentioned in a statement. Having caused the uproar in the first place, why did so many users fail to vote? Has the novelty of protecting our rights already worn off? It’s possible that fewer people are using Facebook due to irksome new design and disgust with the vilified procedures. It’s likely that people don’t want to feel obliged to take their “social networking” this seriously. It’s disturbing to think that the scandal may have wrought a permanent change in our faith in internet activism. Regardless of current or future voter turnout, many democratic principles outlined in the new Facebook Principles and Statements of Rights and Responsibilities are here to stay. Use of your personal information for commercial purposes will continue to be an active topic for discussion. Opting in or out of advertising programs is an anticipated option. “We are here to build an Internet medium for communicating and we think we have enough perspective to do that and be caretakers of that vision,” Cox continued. The idea and practice of “communicating,” as Cox describes it, is changing constantly and consistently. With so many “friends” spread over so many networks, and with everything ultimately published online, what kind of information is still “personal?” In some ways, we are already advertising ourselves on our Facebook pages; to our friends, colleagues, future employers, and future associates.

So just how ludicrous should we find what Facebook tried to do two months ago, bearing in mind that administrators will probably attempt to do the same in the future? We’ve protested the changes, but also demand that Facebook suit the purposes of its evolving clientele and, naturally, their respective marketing opportunities. Many of the intercessions on our personal preferences, from Google, Amazon, Ebay, Skpe, and more, are done in the name of greater customization. Isn’t the use of personal information to further advertising campaigns a natural result of the personas that we build up on these internet profiles in the first place? To stay useful, does Facebook need to commercialize?

And if advertising, invasion of privacy, and new design elements became an integral part of all social networking, from email to Facebook to Twitter, are we independent enough of it to really say we would quit?