Popular student networking Web site Facebook underwent a facelift Tuesday, drawing criticism from thousands of students nationwide because of its added features.
The two in question are aptly titled mini-feed and news feed. The news feed is integrated on each Facebook user’s homepage, detailing events that occurred within that individual’s network of friends. For example, if someone breaks up with someone else or leaves a group, the news feed carries it. The mini-feed contains a history of changes the individual user actually carried out, a backlog of every wall quote and profile change.
Several students on campus say they feel the changes reveal information that is too private to share with others.
“They put all your business out there,” freshman biological sciences major Jamara Dunn said. “I think they make too many changes to [the site].”
Freshman graphic design major Jonathan Prudhomme said he doesn’t like the mini-feed feature in particular.
“I don’t want people knowing everywhere I’ve been and who I’ve been talking to,” Prudhomme said. “I don’t want my girlfriend to get on there and say, ‘Look at all these girls you’re talking to.’ I don’t want to have to worry about that.”
Brandon Archer, a junior from Amory, said he changed his profile several times as a joke because he knew his friends would see the news feed.
“I’ve recently gotten married on [the Web site] just to mess with people,” he said.
Archer said he thinks the changes are convenient but could come with some consequences.
“They could promote stalker activity,” he said. “It’s too detailed. Having an update about what your friends are doing is good to a degree, but having it tell you when someone comments on a friend’s photo is just silly.”
“We know that many of you are not immediate fans and have found [the new additions] overwhelming and cluttered,” Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg wrote in his latest blog entry, “Other people are concerned that non-friends can see too much about them. And we agree, stalking isn’t cool, but being able to know what’s going on in your friends’ lives is.”
Zuckerberg also talked about several groups appearing on the networking site within hours of the changes, with titles ranging from “That’s Enough, Facebook” to “Students against Facebook News Feed.” The latter group bills itself as the official petition group to get the new features removed and has amassed more than 680,000 members in three days.
The group’s description states that the company went too far with its members’ profiles, which number almost 10 million.
“We want to feel just a little bit of privacy … news feed is just too creepy, too stalker-esque, and a feature that has to go.”
One protest site that sprung up shortly after the new changes were implemented is organizing a boycott on Sept. 12.
For information about the upcoming protest, visit the Web site daywithoutfacebook.blogspot.com.