Facebook Increasingly Determined to Ruin the Only Fun Thing About Facebook: Stalking

By Katie J.M. Baker  |  September 24, 2012 | 10:00pm
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A few months ago, Facebook announced that it would start letting people know which group members view posts in groups, information that would, unacceptably, get in the way of innocent people trying to go about their normal lives — lives that obviously include cyber-stalking exes, former roommates and coworkers, and friends of friends they hope to one day sleep with.

Now, prompting a trillion cries of “whyyyyyyyyyyyy???” from cubicles around the globe, Facebook says it will begin showing a list of users’ searches on its “Activity Log.” We can only guess this has less to do with making you feel like an idiot for routinely searching for your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend’s private profile just to make sure it’s “still private” and more with competing with companies like Google, as Facebook says it processes about 1 billion search requests each day. But this doesn’t bode well for the cyber-stalkers and hate-readers of tomorrow. It doesn’t bode well at all.

Before you really start to freak out, Facebook wants you to remember that the log is only available to users:

Starting today, in addition to your other activity, you’ll be able to see the searches you’re making on Facebook. Just as you can choose to delete any of your posts, you can use the same inline control on Activity Log to remove any of your searches at any time. It’s important to remember that no one else can see your Activity Log, including your search activity.

Sure…FOR NOW. Plus, there was a rumor earlier today that Facebook accidentally published a ton of private messages from years past on users’ Timeline profiles. (The company says it’s false, but users who say their private messages have been publicly displayed disagree.) Rumor or otherwise, the scare is a timely reminder that Facebook knows a fuck-ton about you and your internet habits and can more or less do whatever it wants with a good amount of that information.

In other news, Mark Zuckerberg wants you to know that he didn’t think you sounded that drunk in the email you wrote to your hot TA back in 2007. But that you should probably stop looking at his profile pics 5 times a week.


New feature may eliminate ‘Facebook stalking’ [WTop]

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