Facebook Yields to Angry Users
The mob has spoken and the leaders have responded. Facebookers can now opt out of sharing their information over News Feeds and Mini-feeds.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg writes on the Facebook Blog:
…We have been coding nonstop for two days to get you better privacy controls. This new privacy page will allow you to choose which types of stories go into your Mini-Feed and your friends’ News Feeds, and it also lists the type of actions Facebook will never let any other person know about.
Zuckerberg starts his post by acknowledging that Facebook "really messed this one up," by not explaining as thoroughly as possible how the feeds work and how users can control them.
Now, users will be able to decide what they're sharing over feeds and what they're sharing with other users in their profiles.
In a nice move, Zuckerberg also thanks all of the users who wrote e-mails, joined protest groups and signed petitions, saying "I am glad we got to hear you." And just how vocal was the protest? I found this intriguing stat on the Students Against Facebook News Feed group at Fred Stutzman's Unit Structures: "The group has grown to almost 700,000 users, representing almost 8% of Facebook's total user base. If the equivalent happened in MySpace, the group would have grown to 8 million people. In two days."
And that's just one group!
Previously:
