Facebook Changes Provoke Uproar Among Users

coastal984 writes, "Facebook, the college (and now, high school and professional) networking site, launched changes to their web site this morning, provoking a massive and immediate response, and not the one the company had hoped for. Hundreds of protest 'Groups' formed, the largest of which have over 10,000 members, and sites like this student portal sprang up to pour scorn on the recent changes. The biggest gripe is the new "News Feed" on every page that tracks recent changes, activities, and comments made by everyone the user is connected to, such as a change in a user's relationship status." These details were all public previously, but it was only through intentional browsing that they would be discovered. In the words of one user, "Stalking is supposed to be hard."

Yeah, stalking IS supposed to be hard

[Anonymous Coward]

They're taking all of the sport out of it.

Re:Yeah, stalking IS supposed to be hard

[glittalogik]

Back in the old days, you had to get someone's surname, phone number, a directory and a mp book before you could even get started. Fun times, fun times...

Stalking is supposed to be hard?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like my victims easy... but maybe that's just me. I'm not in it for the rewards, just the sweet treat at the end.

I almost failed a class today because of this

[pHatidic]

I am in an oral communications class where we have to give How To speeches. My topic was "How to stalk people on facebook." I was going to cover the FBStalker firefox extension, as well as using the computer a person last logged in from to see who has been visiting your profile (using a link to a personal homepage with webstats). Then I woke up this morning and I see Facebook completely changed itself to obsolete the first half of my presentation and break the ability to do the second half. Thank god we ran out of time, or else I'd have been just standing there with nothing to say.

difference between "privates" and not so...

[Anonymous Coward]

"However, it shows things that you might not really feel like broadcasting to the world, even if you don't feel like it needs to be a secret."

I'm dating my left hand.

kids today

[macadamia_harold]

In the words of one user, "Stalking is supposed to be hard."

So it's gotten to the point now where even stalking is automated. Kids today have it so easy. When I was their age, I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid for breakfast, work twenty-nine hours a day down at the mill, and pay the mill owner for permission to come to work. When we got home, our Dad would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

ironic...

[ff3j]

from the feed...

6 of your friends joined the group This New Facebook Is Creepy. 9:49pm
6 of your friends joined the group the "news feed" on facebook is creepy and i hate it. 9:11pm
* joined the group People Against the Face Book News Feed. 6:38pm
* joined the group Facebook: Data Mining Since 2004. 5:14pm
* and * joined the group Facebook Sucks Now. 3:46pm

Re:Yeah, stalking IS supposed to be hard

[modecx]

Dont forget the binoculars and a good tree to hide in

An' boy, I tell you what, we had to plant the gawdern tree 'an wait thirty years, all the while nurtirn 'an prunin' it all sneaky like 'fer we could even think about salkin'

Re:Yeah, stalking IS supposed to be hard

[johansalk]

I'll explain. Public means parents in this context. It's OK for every college girl and guy in the .edu world to know what you did in that party, drunken threesome and all, but Mom and Dad should have a hard time at finding out.

Re:Yeah, stalking IS supposed to be hard

[1u3hr]

Try explaining to your girlfriend why you won't set your profile to read "in a relationship" with her. I'll give you a hint: as much sense as your argument makes, all she is going to hear is "I'm not that important to you."

Get a tattoo instead. At least you can get rid of that if you really want to.

Then again, I guess most people here would never have that problem

I'm married. With a kid. So I can't back out of that by changing a web profile.

Re:Yeah, stalking IS supposed to be hard

[plague3106]

And yes, we do not want our breakups made public. Don't criticize what you don't understand.

Then don't fucking use facebook. Jesus christ. When did all the intelligence leave our country?