Stalkerbook, rehashed
Ok, here we go: I freely admit, I spend more than a passing few minutes per day on Facebook. I joined the network for South the week it opened; since multi-networking was allowed I have both USA and Auburn, along with an international network thrown in. So yeah, I’m probably biased, or at the very least well along the road to happy-go-lucky indoctrination. I don’t care. It’s useful, it can be damned convenient locally, it’s an intriguing social-experiment-in-progress, and yes - it’s kind of fun too.
…but anyhow. I logged in this morning around 7:20 (no hardcore sign of addiction, incidently: I was early to an 8am class and had nothing better to do), and discovered: Stalkerbook 1.0, brand shiny new.
Or at least, that’s what everyone seems to be calling it (well, that, along with more colourful variations thereupon - you get the idea). I eavesdropped (shamelessly) upon not one, not three, but four conversations in hallways today — all related to “ohmigod, did you see what happened? It’s totally stalker now. I’m never getting on again!” Apparently, Facebook and the game this past weekend constitute the entirety of this campus’s conversational material.
So for those of you not ‘facebooked’, or otherwise out of the loop: read. Essentially, the Powers That Be have started implementing the inevitable, and they’re calling it all “News Feeds”. If your ex goes from being “in a relationship” to “single”, you now find out immediately — no more checking her profile whilst clinging vainly to hope five times a day. The next time your classmate updates something, you get more than a “Yo Mama has Updated In the Last Hour” message — it actually says, [gasp]: “Yo Mama has Updated her Class Schedule in the Last Hour”.
According to the voices I hear and the words I read today, the majority of folks seem to think this is a BAD BAD THING. Because first of all, it “enables stalking”. Um, so sorry. This information is already there, just slightly buried. If you don’t want your girlfriend to notice you posted 5 times to her best friend’s wall last night — methinks you have a slightly bigger problem. Second, albeit bringing up a distant rear: people are upset that feed details coming from “friends I’m not really friends with” will eclipse the more-important feeds. So, um, explain to me why you have those friends-but-not-really padding out your pseudo-myspace-buddy list in the first place? Ok, we know, it just looks so bloody cool to have xxx many friends. News: Prince William you ain’t.
Essentially, after the API was released, and all the controls for (much of) this data was released in the first place — it was only a matter of time before something like this was jury-rigged. This way, stalkers enquiring minds like myself are happy, and The Powers That Be control the “feeds”, and not some freelancing third party.
And dudes. You’re worried about stalking? You signed up for a social networking website. You willingly input information. If this is still a problem: try logging the hell off.
