Thursday, Facebook announced that it was going to allow the social networking website’s users to comment and vote on the terms of service (TOS) and policies, which was deemed as a great first step towards democratic social networking.

Facebook set up virtual Town Halls where users can cast their votes and share their input concerning the TOS draft that has been put forward by the company up until March 29.

Moreover, two new groups have been created on the website, the Proposed Facebook Principles group, which outlines Facebook’s rights and responsibilities, and the Proposed Statement of Rights and Responsibilities group, which deals with the issue of data ownership. The latter has given rise to many a heated debate, since at the beginning of February, Facebook’s terms of service were amended and a provision that read users had the ability to remove the information was deleted.

At that time, Facebook users became concerned when reading the altered terms, since they no longer informed what the social networking website was to do with the information posted after a user closed their account.

Moreover, the changes brought allowed Facebook to use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute the content posted on the website, according to the new deal.

Nevertheless, the proposed TOS draft now states that when a user signs up to Facebook, they give the website the permission to use, store, and share the content they choose to post on the network, adding that in case an account is deleted, the removed information could remain in backup copies, but it will not be made available to other Facebook members.