In Online Social Club, Sharing Is the Point Until It Goes Too Far

"It's really creepy," said Jenny Myers, who graduated this year from American University and works in Washington. "I think it's absolutely ridiculous, putting people's information out there, even small things."

That might be a shift in thinking among 18-to-25-year-olds, said Larry Ponemon, chairman of the Ponemon Institute, a Michigan research firm that studies privacy. "On the one hand, they're complacent about posting photos but really active and protesting when their information gets posted in a news feed."

The news feed takes information that people might have buried in their profile page and automatically displays it on the homepages of people in their network. As the information is broadcast more widely, attention is called to changes that previously might have been seen only by people who hunted. That's where the new feature goes too far, many students said.

"It used to be so innocent and fun," said Susanne Tortola, a recent American University graduate who uses Facebook to keep in contact with friends.

Before the recent change, her information -- relationship status, notes her friends have posted and photos she kept -- was visible only to people who read her profile. But now that Facebook is actively promoting updated information, Tortola can no longer quietly make changes, such as eliminating people from her roster of friends. Facebook's new system blasts that information as if it were on the marquee outside a movie theater. "Facebook can use your information and distribute it however they want to now," Tortola said.

George Washington sophomore Rachel Lynch's roommates have joined the protest, and she has shied away from posting any notes on her friends' walls for fear that it would attract voyeurs. "It's a privacy line that should never be crossed."

Faced with many complaints, Facebook responded yesterday by posting its response on its official blog.

"Calm down. Breathe. We hear you," wrote Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chairman and chief executive.

"We're not oblivious of the Facebook groups popping up about this," Zuckerberg wrote of the protests. ". . . And we agree, stalking isn't cool; but being able to know what's going on in your friends' lives is. This is information people used to dig for on a daily basis, nicely reorganized and summarized so people can learn about the people they care about."

Facebook's site already provides privacy settings that allow users to control who sees what information, he said. At the strictest setting, information would not be circulated on the news feed; the news feed collects only information that people have already allowed to be visible on their pages.

Still, for George Washington senior Justin Persuitti, the mere prospect of unexpected disclosure made him conjure up unsettling scenarios: "You could have a girlfriend and be at a bar kissing another girl, and somebody could post [a cellphone photo] on your wall."