Fighting Facebook: Should they nix the news feed?

by Jess Lipowski

These MSU students were among the thousands who found Facebook's design changes revealed more to visitors than they may have planned. The company has since modified its interface to allow users some additional privacy choices. Did they do enough? Check out the forum to add your views

Facebook is trying to recover from the outrage its users expressed a little more than a week ago when members awoke to find all their recent activity posted on their home page as a new news feed.  Mark Zuckerberg, a Facebook representative dealing with the resulting protests, said that the company did not kill the news food outright.  Instead the company now allows users to decide the amount of privacy they would like to have and who can see their updates.

Once students saw this new design layout, they took immediate action.  Groups were formed with titles such as “We want the old Facebook back,” “People who hate the Facebook facelift” and “Students against Facebook news feed.”  As many as 42,000 members joined together attempting to persuade Zuckerberg to remove the feature.

News feed reported every action that the user performed, including friend requests, status updates and information updates.  One thing many students did not like was that there were no options to change those that could view these action updates.

“I didn't feel as secure as I normally would have with the old design of Facebook,” said Joe Tekelly, a sophomore in Education and Hispanic Cultural Studies.  “I hope the changes will help restore [my] confidence in the Web site.”

Nick Mordowanec, a freshman Journalism major, said it felt like stalking someone.  “No one needs to know all that stuff.  It’s creepy,” he said. 

To appease the protestors, Mark Zuckerberg sent out a mass letter to every Facebook user.  The company now allows the user to edit their own privacy settings to decide who can view their news feed.  According to Mordowanec, many are still outraged that it is not entirely gone and feel that this half-step is just an attempt to placate them.

“It needs to be changed,” said Jon Collins, a junior Psychology major.  “It needs to be removed completely.”    

On the other hand, many students considered it a victory that they made Zuckerberg allow privacy settings.  “It’s nice to see that user uproar is actually taken into account,” said Michael Babbish, a freshman Anthropology major.  “It allowed expansion of the Web site while taking into account the user's concerns.”

News feed, no matter the disapproval and objections, is still around.  “[Zuckerberg] likes the idea,” said Mordowanec.  “That’s why it’s still around but with special features.  He’s just using his powers to his advantage.”

According to Collins, they just need to leave it alone.  “Why keep adding all these features when everyone loves it enough already?”