A More Perfect Unit

Who would have guessed Facebook could make its way into the classroom to talk about forms of government? Mark Milian, from this morning’s Los Angeles Times:

After outcry from just about every corner of the Web over Facebook’s controversial change to its terms of use, the company has hit the rewind button.

Facebook has reverted to the previous version of the terms – one that doesn’t include the disputed clause that granted the company permission to maintain user data indefinitely … The change came just a day after Zuckerberg’s unsatisfying response to privacy concerns.

Zuckerberg has compared the website to an actual country in the past … But the Palo Alto company has taken the state analogy to a new level. The “Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” is a group page that the company created to collect suggestions from users about its terms of service, which Facebook is calling its “governing document.”

“Given its importance, we need to make sure the terms reflect the principles and values of the people using the service,” the Facebook CEO wrote. “Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.”

It’s certainly comforting to know that the almighty rulers of the Facebook nation are looking to run the virtual country more like a democracy than a dictatorship.