Facebook Flap: Round-up of Student Media Coverage
A selection of student commentary and coverage of the Facebook controversy
By Graham Webster
Updated Wednesday September 6, 2006, at 2:02 p.m. EDT
The Facebook Feeds controversy continues to heat up today. As I write this, the main anti-Feeds Facebook group is passing 210,000 members. Google News shows that CampusProgress.org was the first to delve into the story (yeah, we’re proud of that—the link), but when our story went live, dozens of other journalists were at work on their stories, and hundreds of bloggers were registering their opinions online.
While the “adult” media are still mostly asleep at the switch, articles and editorials appearing in student outlets in at least a dozen states. Here are some highlights:
- The Crimson White at the University of Alabama summed up many people’s opinions in an editorial today: “Please don’t get us wrong—we love Facebook, probably more than we should. But these new changes give us the creeps.”
- The Daily Trojan at the University of Southern California took a longer view in its editorial:
Stories and newspaper articles about employers Facebooking potential hires abound.
But beyond this lies a simple issue of privacy: How much of your most personal information do you want accessible to anyone who goes, or went, to USC?
Just how much of our lives do we want available to anyone and everyone, whether they’re a trusted friend or a very real stalker we’ve never met?
And why do we have such a compulsion to share every minute detail of our intimate lives with anyone who will listen?
These are all important questions that likely won’t fade in the internet age. And their answers are worth exploring – even if it takes Facebook’s redesign to sound the alarm.
- The Minnesota Daily at the University of Minnesota put it simply: “Facebook.com has just become 100 percent creepier.” It also saw a warning for students: “This takes Facebook stalking to an entirely new level. This also brings Internet privacy issues to a tangible level for students. As Internet users learn about increasing amounts of tracking their service providers can perform, now students can actually see themselves being tracked.”
- The Iowa State (University) Daily did some interviews with students on the street. Among the responses to their question, “What do you think of the Facebook changes?” Sophomore Elizabeth Urbatsch said, “It’s just more complicated now.” Jacob Frieberg, also a sophomore, wasn’t as put out as everyone else: “It’s all right to see what people are up to. You can see people’s status, and it makes friendship more effective,” he said. Drew Garrison, a junior, had mixed feelings: “I was surprised, but I enjoyed it because you have everything in front of you at first,” he said. “But some of it was too much information.” For freshman Andrea Naylor, it was TMI. “I don’t like it. It’s dumb. It told me someone sent a note to someone else, and I don’t need to know that,” she said.
- Some other links: diamondbackonline.com at the University of Maryland | Northern Star at Northern Illinois University | The Baylor (University) Lariat | Indiana (University) Daily Student | The Collegiate Times at Virginia Tech
- We’ll come back with more as the story develops.
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Comments
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Here is a live counter of the number of people who have joined the “Students against Facebook News Feed” group on Facebook….. 300,000 and climbing
— Steve - Sep 6, 05:28 PM - #Our site was featured oh http://www.slashdot.org for several hours as a link and has received over 40,000 visitors in under 24 hours.
Privacy First.
— Bobby Durrette - Sep 6, 07:42 PM - #http://www.middlesell.com/stopitfacebook.php
— Bobby Durrette - Sep 6, 07:43 PM - #I don’t see what the problem is. If you are on facebook and someone wants to stalk you they can find the mini-feed info on their own. This is no big deal. I don’t know what you all though facebook was for anyway if it wasn’t for this.
— Cassandra - Sep 7, 05:06 PM - #for this i mean….15 seconds (minutes) of fame through local networks. In the information age there is no room for 15 min per person, it is seconds, for now.
— Cassandra - Sep 7, 05:07 PM - #