Facebook alteration draws collegiate ire; stirs major political protest of our generation

By Tricia DeMeno
Collegian Reporter
September 13, 2006

The morning of Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2006, started like any other Tuesday, but, as I logged onto Facebook, I discovered, to my horror, a new “news feed” feature had been added. Gasp! I now had an up-to-date record of what everyone I ever “friended” ever did on Facebook, EVER…well, at least in the last 48 hours.

Overly detailed? Sure. Useless? Without question. A major social injustice that required immediate action? Not quite.

According to CNN.com, shortly after Facebook introduced this feature, over 500,000 people signed an online petition to rid Facebook of the news feed. Even after Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg created a way for users to disable the feature, a website still pushed for “A Day Without Facebook,” scheduled to take place on Sept. 12. At first I wrote this protest off as one crazy guy somewhere getting all up in arms over a Facebook feature. Surely no educated person would waste their energy with such a trivial matter, but as I sat eating my lunch on the day the feed was fixed, I overheard a number of people, including friends of mine, discuss how they too would boycott Facebook on the 12th.

It was at that very moment that I realized what a disappointment our generation is. As the sons and daughters of a generation of tank stoppers, bra burners and frankly, people who believed in something worthwhile, I expected more from us – from myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not insulting Facebook. In fact I’m an avid Facebook user. Nothing gives me more joy than perusing the outlandish photos of classmates and friends. However, is the right to stalk the cute kid in your religion class something that requires a mass boycott? As thousands of college students nationwide threw a collective hissy-fit over Facebook, a war is being fought in the Middle East, over 400,000 Darfurians have been the victims of genocide in Sudan and North Korea is building even more nuclear weapons for their arsenal.

Do we just not care about these horrific global issues, or have they proven to be all too terrifying to address altogether? I understand that it is much easier to fight Facebook and make a change – no matter how insignificant – than it is to battle international crimes against humanity; however, by throwing our anger into a Facebook boycott we are wasting the time of a powerful resource: us.

Maybe it’s time that we protest something that’s worth the fight. I know I will, but not right now. I have new picture comments.

demenot1@lasalle.edu