The Collegian

Issue date: 9/12/06 Section: Detour

Media Credit: Courtesy of www.jeffiepan.com

Who would have known a change to a website's format could be so controversial? Lately it seems every conversation around school has related to facebook.com. In early September the popular college social database, facebook.com underwent several changes to its layout. Facebook.com is a web site where any college or high school student or alumnae can create a profile visible to members of his or her own school and anyone he or she approves as a friend.

The purpose of the site is to act as a directory for college students. More than 11 million students are now part of the network. The website makes it easier for students to connect with one another by joining groups, posting pictures and communicating through publicly posted comments called Wall posts and private messages. According to a survey compiled by New York University students, 85 percent of all college students at NYU have facebook.com profiles and 70 percent spend at least one hour a day on the facebook.com website.

Prior to the new alterations, basic information such as name, address, birthday, etc. were visible to others on facebook, but users could decide what other information they wanted friends to see. The controversy lay in the addition of a feature called "Mini Feed" to each user's profile.

On September 5, the "News Feed" feature was put into place. At that point, information that was previously hidden such as friend additions, relationship changes and any other additions to a profile were sent to every user on one's friend list. Many students were disappointed that their personal information was being distributed around the web site without their consent. Mandy Lung '09 commented, "It's creepy. Why do I need to know the second someone cancels a relationship?" Thomas Barksdale '10 [explained], "I don't care what person X and person Y are doing."

Other users were more concerned that the setup had become too confusing. "It was better the old way. It used to be simple. You only saw things on your home page that related to you," stated Bob Berry '08.

Hundreds of facebook.com groups were created in protest of the new features claiming they "encourage stalking." One of the disgruntled groups, "Students Against Facebook News Feed (Official Petition to Facebook)" created by University of Iowa students gathered up over 300,000 members in less than a day. Another group, "Facebook Users Against the News Feed and the Mini Feed" compiled over 50,000 signatures of protest to the new features.

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