The Day Facebook Died

I lost three friends to the great Facebook massacre of ’06.

It was a rough day all around.

I woke up that fateful Tuesday with the curious sensation that I was being watched. Of course, I’m always being watched, but this was a different type of being watched. This was not the usual spying courtesy of the INS surveillance van that has lingered for weeks in front of my apartment, but rather, an entirely different sort of being spied on.

My every move was being carefully scrutinized, I felt. I bid a hearty good morning to one of my roommates. I stole my usual 20 dolares from my other roommate’s wallet. I called my parole officer. I thought about an old girlfriend. You know, the usual.

Later, I learned that every single one of my moves was being watched and recorded by one Mr. Mark Zuckerberg.

I imagine that if you put Facebook in charge of cracking Al-Qaeda, the War on Terror would be over like that.

Imagine my horror, nay, consternation, when I later sat down and logged onto Facebook. The home page blared at me. Peter was now friends with Paul. Peter was no longer in a relationship with Mary. Paul was in an open relationship with Mary. Peter was no longer friends with Paul.

Every new friend, every development, every move, every wall post was now consolidated in one easily accessible and wholly transparent page. What once started up as a yearbook was now a running diary of the lives of every one of your friends —

Wait a minute. If I can see what my friends are doing, then that means that my friends can see what I’m doing!

Noooooooooo!

Panicked, I went to my own page. And there it was, my own personal “Mini-Feed,” listing every little secret damn thing I have ever done on Facebook. Since last week.

This was appalling. I was simultaneously flummoxed, flustered and flabbergasted. I must have looked like a Picasso masterpiece. It’s tracking me, I thought. Like a hunter. Like a quick and able hunter who knows no peer.

What exactly is going on? Do we really have an inherent and burning need to know that our friend Milton has just added Kenny G as a favorite artist? Or that Mildred dropped knitting as an activity?

Let’s get one thing straight. It isn’t as though this information was not available on Facebook before. People can’t cry out over an invasion of privacy because, well, Facebook is the antithesis of privacy. If you don’t want others to know you enjoy bubble baths, then don’t post it. It’s that simple.

But the New Facebook is too … well, creepy. By consolidating the actions of every single one of your friends into one constantly updated, easily viewed page, it just makes too much information visible. Sure, the information is there anyway, but is readily apparent to only the most diligent of stalkers, not to the population at large.

I don’t need to know that Betty wrote on Veronica’s wall. I don’t need to know that Rosalyn left the Calvin and Hobbes group. And I really, really don’t need to know that umpteen girls have poked my little brother. Would you like to know the same about your little sister? What if Facebook shows you that she poked an ex-con who is frozen as he sees a third strike come right down the pipe? Would you sleep easy then?

The scariest thing was a horror story reported to me by a friend. A guy and a girl had updated their profiles to declare that they were in a relationship with each other. Facebook put it on the news-feed. But then it went even farther. It somehow dug up a photo that included both of them and, without their intervention, posted it next to the news blurb about their relationship.

That’s going a bit far, no?

Reactions to the New Facebook ran the gamut from appalled to disgusted to fearful to angry. One design editor, the lovely Emily Meyer, said, “It’s creepy. It makes it too easy to stalk.” Our other design editor, the equally lovely Claire Ganley, was originally “speechless,” and then realized with horror, “What if they say whose profile you’ve visited?” She’s got a point. There must be a counter somewhere of whose profiles you visit and how many times you do so. Should this information be made public, the general consensus seems to say, transfers to other colleges would be pursued immediately.

People were so angry and creeped out by the New Facebook, several people actually deactivated their accounts. We lost many good men that day, including the irascible Tim Kuhls. Thus, the great Facebook massacre began. Across this land, friends began disappearing. Like privacy and introspection, they pulled a Dodo and went missing, flying out of Facebook’s range.

So. What do we do?

The most important thing is not to panic. Let’s not be rash here, people. We must keep our composure. We all boarded the great frigate Facebook together, and I’ll be damned if I have people jumping ship. Do not quit on Facebook. We must stay the course. We must keep our composure!

See, I think Facebook, in its limited capacity, is a good thing. It’s like something of a perpetual yearbook, letting you know what old friends are up to, what new mishaps they have encountered, who works were, who grew a porn ’stache and other things of that nature. It works especially well to keep in touch and in contact with each other. In fact, we’ll all probably appreciate it more once we graduate and saunter on our individual ways. I like Facebook. I want to keep it. Its current incarnation might be too sketchy and make people uncomfortable, but people still shouldn’t drop Facebook.

Because, just as easily as the news-feed was created, the news-feed can go away.

Ironically, the news feed is what gives me hope. Starting on Tuesday, it has been flooded by reports of each and every single one of my friends joining one group or another, each opposing the New Facebook. “Mark Zuckerberg is going too far!” “The mini-feed is evil and must be stopped.” The list is endless. Ironically, the news feed has galvanized the opposition and helped organize massive protests. The stalking, if popular sentiment is an indicator, will stop soon.

We can take Facebook back from the stalkers, one day at a time. Join a group. Write Zuckerberg. Threaten to deactivate. Maybe then, Facebook will go back to what it once was: a great way not to do your homework.

Carlos Maycotte is The Sun’s Associate Editor. He can be contacted at cam98@cornell.edu [1]. Tequila Sunrise appears Thursdays.