Facebook.com sparks huge backlash from users


There is a growing campaign among the users of facebook.com to get the site owners to reverse the changes made to the site a few days ago, in particular, to remove the "News Feed" and "Mini Feed" features that were added. These features are widely seen as an invasion of privacy.

When you login to facebook.com now you are presented with a "News Feed" that itemizes new information about all your "friends". It tells you who they have newly added as friends. It tells you what facebook groups they have newly joined. It reports any newly updated "status" info they have added to their profile. It tells you what new "events" they have created. It shows you any new profile pictures. It tells you what new messages have been posted on each of your friends walls. In short, it reports new info about your friends in these categories: network, relationships, groups, events, photos, profile edits, notes, walls, friends, status, and discussions.

All of this information is already available to users about each of their friends, but it's not all gathered together in one convenient list as the new "News Feed" and "Mini Feed" features provide. And they not only put all this info in one place, they display it to you as soon as you login. So you're not going to miss it.

Users are creating groups with names like "Students against Facebook News Feed" and "Facebook has become a Gross Violation of My Privacy". Online petitions have been created and one of them already has over 106,000 signatures. There is also a call for a boycott of Facebook on September 12.

The protest is getting national news coverage. The Washington Post is reporting that "Within hours [of the new features release on Monday], online protest groups were formed and thousands of people had joined." "Many students said that they think it is fine to use technology to give outsiders a window into their lives and thoughts but that Facebook's new policy of broadcasting every update about their lives to other users is trespassing on the bounds of their privacy."

Posted: Thursday - September 07, 2006 at 02:42 AM          

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