
Users protest over 'creepy' Facebook update (2006) - heartbeats
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/07/facebook_update_controversy/
======
ideonexus
One part of this still infuriates me and restricts my behavior on the platform
(which I barely interact with anymore): showing my friends what I click like
on if it's a public post. I've had politically-impassioned relatives attack me
for liking candidates they don't like or if I comment on a public post and
Facebook points my comment out to them.

It also works the other way too. I really didn't need to know that my friend's
septuagenarian father liked a video titled, "Booty-Jiggling Showdown."

So there are aspects of this we've come to accept, but I think most people
have also modified their interactions with platforms like this to protect
themselves.

~~~
antihero
My word, I remember years back when I didn't realise that this was a thing,
and it took my mate showing me his feed filled with me liking a whole load of
random sexy filth pages. I remember commenting wondering if my mum could see
all the shit I'd liked, to which she responded "yep.". Absolutely mortified
mate.

~~~
ben_w
That is exactly why I ended up leaving Twitter. As soon as Twitter started
showing me everything my friend marked with a “like” (Favourite? Star?), I
started seeing explicit examples of my friends’ kinks.

~~~
Cyph0n
Rule 1 of social networks: use a different account for NSFW content.

~~~
pjc50
.. which doesn't help unless you tell all your friends to do that as well, and
unfollow those that don't.

(I've managed to kill the bringing of other's likes into my feed somehow,
which keeps it usable)

------
haunter
Does anyone remember that FB feature when you were able to cross search
people? "Men between 20 and 30 who likes football and lives in NYC"

It was available for a few months, I don't remember exactly. That was around
2011-12. That was the craziest thing I've ever seen

~~~
typon
It was available from March 2013 to June 2019:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Graph_Search](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Graph_Search)

~~~
graeme
They dramatically reduced it after a few months however.

------
ropiwqefjnpoa
"Calm. down. breathe. We hear you," site founder Zuckerberg wrote in a message
responding to the protests.

They heard, they just didn't care. Condescending as well.

~~~
aklemm
That's infuriating.

------
01CGAT
This was probably the beginning of the end of Facebook, at least for me. I
started interacting with Facebook much less and started to forget about it,
because I didn't want everybody to see how addicted I was to Facebook. The
same happened with Instagram when everybody was able to see what I was liking.
This is turned off now, but the damage was already done, I became too paranoid
to get addicted to social media again. I'm clean now for almost 2 years, thank
you.

------
mleaf
Haha, Zuck telling everyone to calm down and breathe. How 2006 of him.

------
kdtsh
There’s a recent WIRED article [0] where this is discussed in some depth. I
wasn’t a Facebook user at the time, but it’s interesting how everyone was
against this and then ... wasn’t. Facebook called their users’ bluff and won.
This really was the beginning of Facebook’s culture of doing whatever the hell
they want and weathering the storm when users push back, because most of the
time, users will come to accept it, even come to love it. I can’t imagine
Facebook without a timeline anymore, and I kind of hate that.

[0] [https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-lost-
no...](https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-lost-notebook/)

------
nerdponx
_The introduction of new features on social network site Facebook has sparked
a backlash from users. Design changes to the site violate user privacy and
ought to be scrapped, according to disgruntled users who have launched a
series of impromptu protests. One protest site is calling for users to boycott
Facebook on 13 September in opposition against a feature called News Feed,
which critics argue is a Godsend for stalkers._

------
gitgud
I remember when the "News Feed" came out. Everyone (including myself) was
outraged and demanded the _Old Facebook_ be restored. There were petition
groups "5 million likes and they'll bring back the old Facebook!!"... but it
didn't matter and people got used to it.

You can imagine the same outrage if they changed _Hacker News_ over night...

~~~
padthai
I am not 100% sure that people got over it. Facebook lost me over changes to
their feed:

1\. Linear to non-linear

2\. You need to pay to reach all your subscribers.

3\. News, ads, noise in general.

I think is very common for free apps to reduce the user experience quality
after they reach a certain size. Quora lost me in a similar way.

------
IshKebab
Would have been more interesting to link to complaints about the Friends API.

Check out this post for example:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9454734](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9454734)

