Concerns have surfaced about recently added Facebook features known as the News Feed and Mini-Feed.
For many students Facebook has become part of a daily routine. Facebook is a popular online community where students can connect, but the new concern is over whether or not the News and Mini-Feeds make too much information available to the public.
The feeds, added on Sept. 5, allow users to view the headlines of other people’s lives, including when someone updated, what they updated, who they added as a friend and when they ended or began their relationships.
For some these feeds seem to straddle the line between “what you should know” and “none-ya-business.”
Since Sept. 5 over 1,000 groups have been created about the issue. Opinions range from disgust to support. One group, the Students against Facebook News Feed, states, “We want to feel just a little bit of privacy, even if it’s on Facebook. News Feed is just too creepy, too stalker-esque, and a feature that has to go.” This group, a self-proclaimed Official Petition to Facebook, boasts nearly 600,000 members. It is not alone in its feelings against the new features.
Many ETSU students express a similar dislike. Darren Caldwell dubbed the Web site “Creepbook.” The resentment is based on a feeling of declining security. “There have been an abundance of warnings circulating recently about giving too much information on Facebook,” Taylor Hartley told the East Tennessean. “Now, all of the sudden, Facebook itself is giving out users’ private information. The fact that others on Facebook can track what I’ve been doing on the site seems to be … an invasion of my privacy.”
There are others who support the new features of Facebook. One group, the Students For the Facebook News Feed, said, “The News Feed has streamlined Facebook, allowing one page to show you everything that has happened recently.”
Senior Hannah Abel had no problem with the new features. “I think that people who are complaining about the News Feed on Facebook are those who put up too much information on their Facebook in the first place. I am a very active Facebook member . however, I know my limits when it comes to personal stuff.”
The Facebook Official Blog adds another side to the coin. “News Feed and Mini-Feed are a different way of looking at the news about your friends, but they do not give out information that wasn’t already visible,” Ruchi Sanghvion of Facebook posted on Sept. 5, “Your privacy settings remain the same – the people who couldn’t see your info. before still can’t see it now.”
The response by Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, was to increase privacy settings available with the News and Mini-Feeds. On Sept. 8, an open letter to Facebook stated, “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 goes on to say, “I want to thank all of you who have written in and created groups and protested. Even though I wish I hadn’t made so many of you angry, I am glad we got to hear you. And I am also glad that News Feed highlighted all these groups so people could find them and share their opinions with each other as well.”
For more information, visit www.facebook.com.

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