Banned From Facebook? It's All in the Fine Print

22.04.2009
Facebook's taken plenty of flak over its policies lately. The company's this February led to a , a , and ultimately, a decision to let the community help.

Buried in the mix, though, one group of users fears another change in Facebook's terms could prove to be even more troublesome -- a change that, by a casual interpretation, appears to ban large subsets of people from using the service.

Suzie McCarthy introduces herself as a nerd. An NYU grad student studying comparative politics, McCarthy is passionate about international relations. That's why, when she looked carefully through Facebook's proposed new policies, McCarthy found herself doing a double-take.

"The new Facebook governance policy is not simply about privacy," she says. "Facebook has dramatically increased the amount of restrictions as to who can use the site."

The restrictions to which McCarthy refers come in clause 4.3 of Facebook's new "" document, one of two revised files being . The section, not present in the , states: