Facebook uproar hits national news

[Tchocky]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...532225,00.html

Inside the Backlash Against Facebook
Users of the popular site are angry about a new feature and are organizing their protest—on Facebook

Generation Facebook is taking action — against Facebook. On Tuesday morning the popular social networking site unrolled a new feature dubbed the "News Feed" that allows users to track their friends' Facebook movements by the minute. For many of Facebook's 8-million plus student users, it was too much. Within 24 hours, hundreds of thousands of students nationwide organized themselves to protest the new feature. Ironically, they're using Facebook to do it.

The feature in question appears on the user's home page and looks like a glitzy laundry list. It chronicles every action a user's friends have recently taken on Facebook. These in-fucking-clude the mundane: Sally befriended Joan, the boring: Tim now likes The Daily Show, and the juicy: John and Beth broke up. And in case it matters, each action is time-stamped to the minute.

By its nature, News Feed is intrusive and that's what upsets students. It's one thing to casually check out a friend's updated profile between classes. It's another to be unwillingly inundated with each friend's latest Facebook antics. The News Feed does not have an off switch, although users can block or limit non-friends from seeing their profiles, which feed directly into the News Feed. At the very least, the aggrieved students want the option of a News Feed off-switch. Some want Facebook to do away with it completely.

Since Tuesday, a handful of anti-News Feed groups have sprung up on Facebook. The largest has 284,000 members and is called "Students Against Facebook News Feed (Official Petition to Facebook)." The group was created yesterday morning by Ben Parr, a junior at Northwestern University, who was disgusted to find the News Feed when he logged into Facebook. With a meeting to get to, Parr quickly created a group, told a few friends about it and left his computer. When he came back a few hours later, the membership was at 13,000 and the numbers climbed steadily throughout the day, reaching 100,000 at 2:00 a.m — at which point Parr called it a night.

He isn't certain why his is the most successful anti-News Feed groups. "It's might be that mine was one of the first groups," said Parr, 21. "That, and my group acts as a petition directly to Facebook." in-fucking-cluded on Parr's group is a link to Facebook's customer support page where users can email Facebook administrators directly. Parr also linked to a formal online petition which asks Facebook to either remove or modify the News Feed. It currently has more than 28,000 signatures.

Several college newspapers also picked up the story this morning. Headlines in-fucking-clude "Facebook is watching you," "Furious with Facebook" and "Facebook fumbles with changes."

Despite what may be Gen Y's first official revolution, Facebook is holding firm. Yesterday afternoon, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted an entry to Facebook's blog titled "Calm Down. Breathe. We Hear You." Zuckerberg acknowledged that many users are not "immediate fans and have found them overwhelming and cluttered. Other people are concerned that non-friends can see too much about them." He did not announce any changes to the News Feed, but rather reiterated Facebook's privacy features and promoted the News Feed as a cool way to "know what's going on in your friends' lives."

Like it or not, Facebook's face may be changing for good. The social networking site, which was originally an exclusive web site for college students, has expanded to in-fucking-clude high school students and corporations. Sponsors now spend thousands to advertise on the site and politicians are also tapping into Facebook. For Zuckerberg, the News Feed allows Facebook users to better keep up with each other. "All the most interesting stuff that's going on is presented to you," Zuckerberg told TIME recently. "The analogy would be instead of an encyclopedia, it's now news. We're emphasizing what's going on now."

That level of intimacy may be too intense for even today's college students, many of whom have infamously posted pictures on Facebook of underage drinking and drug use. Or it could be something much simpler than an alleged invasion of privacy. "Every action I take on Facebook is now time stamped," says Erik Ornitz, 18, a Brown student who formed his own anti-News Feed group. "It's a little strange because everyone will now know that at 10 o'clock I updated my Facebook profile and that I wasn't in class." Regardless of its intentions, one thing is for sure. Gen Y has unexpectedly found a way to organize.

One person on Facebook actually made a remark about how the people who actualy enjoy the new feature come from prestigious schools, while those who don't seem to come from crap colleges, which set off a nasty debate on the Facebook petition group message board.

Change, in this case, isn't good.

[Orenthal James]

i dont mind the new facebook

[tear stained glass]

the biggest problem with the feed is that it makes it much more difficult to waste time on facebook. perhaps that explains why those from prestigious schools like it.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Orenthal James

i dont mind the new facebook

Why?

Just curious, not looking to flame.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by tear stained glass

the biggest problem with the feed is that it makes it much more difficult to waste time on facebook. perhaps that explains why those from prestigious schools like it.

Although I still am opposed to the changes, putting them in this light makes it seem quite funny. Joke's on all you Facebook slackers!

I guess this means I'll be wasting more time here.

[Orenthal James]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

Why?

Just curious, not looking to flame.

nothing about it really bothers me. i guess it does take away some of the fun of just browsing, but i really like how easy it is to see shit now.

[mxzombie]

i agree with o.j. i don't see what the big deal is. people are making everything that's on that news feed public in the first place by putting it up on their profiles

[Luke de Spa]

i'm thinking of unrolling a new feature in this thread, if you know what i mean

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Luke de Spa

i'm thinking of unrolling a new feature in this thread, if you know what i mean

*cymbal crash*

[Esty]

Hey Tchocky you piece of shit, why can't I send you pm's?

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Esty

Hey Tchocky you piece of shit, why can't I send you pm's?

Because I shut 'em off.

[Esty]

Thats stupid. I've been wanting to send you some tiger auto cards for your little brother for a while. They're my extras. If you want them, pm me your address.

[obscured01]

I don't like how you can't look at other people from other schools. I understand why they've got it like that, but I still find it annoying.

myspace > facebook.

[PkPhuoko]

I dont like how it says everything your friends did that day

Pkay added a pic

Pkay took a shit, it had a piece of corn in it

Pkay's Corn Laced Terd is now friends with the toilet

etc etc etc

[the]

i hate facebook. now it sucks even more.

[the]

stalkerbook

[neopryn]

yeah it sucks. thankfully i don't have any friends so it doesn't effect me

[Toby]

attn: mariner.
who is courtney. nigga!

[Mariner]

wouldn't YOU like to know big boy

[Mariner]

AND NOW WITH FACEBOOK NEWS FEED, YOU CAN (probably figure it out)!

[Shapan]

the new facebook is terrible. the group is nearing 700,000 now.

i liked the old facebook that was around a year ago, i hope all the complaints influence a change to how it was back then.

[Nate the Grate]

I was opposed to them adding pictures, but that's actually been their best feature now, so maybe this will turn out okay. the thing it had going for it was that it looked so much neater than places like myspace, so it seemed kinda legit. now it's just flooded with information like every other blog crap place.

[spa ced]

thank god i stopped caring about facebook a while back. it's exciting for the first few days and then it sucks.

[murgle]

I don't check Facebook enough to even care about it.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Esty

Thats stupid. I've been wanting to send you some tiger auto cards for your little brother for a while. They're my extras. If you want them, pm me your address.

Ah...



Uno momento, por favor.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by obscured01

I don't like how you can't look at other people from other schools. I understand why they've got it like that, but I still find it annoying.

myspace > facebook.

MySpace is Facebook for little kids.