Facebook: No more voting, but we're still listening

It's official. The independent auditor Facebook hired to double-check its latest vote has confirmed the vote count, and Facebook's new user polices go into effect today.

In addition to adding language that lets Facebook share your data with affiliates, like Instagram, and providing clarification on how it uses your data for advertising, the new policy also does away with the voting practice entirely.

While it's all over for voting, Facebook said it still wants to hear from users.

"We hope you'll stay vocal and involved," Elliot Schrage, Facebook's VP of communications, said in a blog post today.

Of the 668,872 people who voted, more than 80 percent of them wanted to keep the old policies in place. But Facebook's policy has been that unless 30 percent of the Facebook population votes on an issue, the votes don't count.

Schrage wrote that there would be other ways for people to give Facebook feedback.

"We understand that many of you feel strongly about maintaining the participatory nature of our site governance process. We do too. We believe that having a meaningful dialogue with our community through our notice and comment process is core to that effort moving forward. We also plan to explore and implement new, innovative, and effective ways to enhance this process in order to maximize user engagement," he wrote.

Historically, Facebook has not had a high turnout of voters. The social network said it tried its best to get out the vote this time around -- sending e-mails and letting voters promote the vote to their Timelines -- but it didn't take long for disgruntled users to slam Facebook over the process.

Some of the users commenting on Schrage's post complained that the e-mails never made it to them, while others said the e-mailed link didn't work. Of course, there were plenty who were just plain unhappy about the results.

"Overwhelming vote against change IGNORED," wrote one user.