Facebook becomes the target of protest -- again

Two days without Facebook?

That's the plan hatched by millions of disgruntled Facebook users who are threatening to boycott the popular social networking site on Oct. 18 and 19.

The slogan of the boycott is "It's only ONE weekend, we can all do it!" And of course the organizers are using Facebook to spread the word. The Facebook protest page reads:

By 11:59 PM (in your region) on 17 October -- be sure to log off. Do not log back in no matter how tempting until 12:00 AM (in your region) 20 October.

On 20 October we all log back in and see if there has been a response of any kind. A blog, a post.... anything. If not, we repeat the process...

The protesters are unhappy about the site's new design and have gained quite a following. About 4 million or so have joined groups such as "I hate the new Facebook." (It's not clear how much overlap there is between the various groups.)

The "1,000,000 against the new Facebook layout" group, which is sponsoring the boycott, has already exceeded its own ambitions by netting more than 2.7 million members.

One of the group's leaders, Jessica Fishbein, a 37-year-old high school English teacher from Miami, says she hopes people can "break their addiction for the weekend."

"The members of our group want action," she said. "They want to take a stand to make a statement to show that we are still on Facebook, we are not leaving necessarily, but Facebook really needs to listen to our feedback and make some adjustments."

Boycotting Facebook won't send the same kind of powerful message that leaving Facebook would. But Facebook has "everyone between a rock and a hard place, and they know it," Fishbein said. "People are invested in Facebook. They have all their friends there. So they won't be quick to go."

Facebook owes quite a bit to its more than 100 million active users who have turned the site into one of the world's most heavily trafficked.

A Facebook spokeswoman issued the following statement: "We're flattered to have such passionate users provide feedback on the new site design, and we're pleased to see them sharing their views, which is what Facebook is all about. We are still working on the site and are committed to making Facebook better for all users."

She added that Facebook has been gathering feedback from users over the past several months, continues to monitor groups for feedback and has contacted some of the administrators of some of the larger protest groups.

To its credit, Facebook tried to get it right this time. It has faced large-scale protests in the past for launching the News Feed, an activity feed feature that users complained violated their privacy by broadcasting their every move to all their friends, and for creating an advertising feature that broadcast their purchases to all their friends. Facebook, of course, is a social network designed to broadcast what you're doing to friends. But users apparently feel there are limits and Facebook crossed them.

With the redesign, Facebook kept members informed of its plans months in advance and solicited their feedback. It unveiled the new design, which is supposed to reclaim the site's uncluttered, spartan aesthetic, in July but gave members time to get used to it before forcing them to switch to the new format a few weeks ago.

In a blog post last month, Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said "it's tempting to say that we should just support both designs, but this isn't as simple as it sounds. Supporting two versions is a huge amount of work for our small team, and it would mean that going forward we would have to build everything twice. If we did that then neither version would get our full attention."

"That said, Facebook is a work in progress," he said. "We constantly try to improve things and we understand that our work isn't perfect. Even if you're joining a group to express things you don't like about the new design, you're giving us important feedback and you're sharing your voice, which is what Facebook is all about."

Indeed, Facebook is a powerful vehicle to mobilize behind a cause. So, it's not surprising that Facebook has discovered that some of its best customers can quickly become its most vocal critics. And that dialogue is taking place on and off Facebook. Check the point/counterpoint here, for example.

In other news, Facebook next month plans to let former and current employees sell some of their shares even though the company is still private. Former and current employees can cash out 20% of their vested shares or up to $900,000, whichever is less. That's one way to pacify the troops in a moribund IPO market.

A Facebook spokeswoman e-mailed the following statement: "To provide employees with a financial cushion while we continue to build the company, Facebook has designed a one-time program to enable employees to realize some liquidity."

-- Jessica Guynn

Comments

[Eric]

I have not been on Facebook in five days. It's a major time burglar so I only go on when I have a free moment, which isn't very often. Facebook is fun to a point, but I can very easily think of other things I would rather do.

[Alan Browne]

Walled Garden's like Facebook will go the way of the dodo bird.

[WagonMonster]

Get a life people, seriously.

[bb]

myspace is better anyways. facebook is like a PC for 12 year old girls.

[lauren]

Why isn't there any Facebook link at the end of this article? I wanted to send this to all my FB friends so they could join in the protest! Please remedy this, LA Times!

[aych]

This is seriously absurd. Organized protesting for Facebook?? There are countless injustices, wars, genocides, inhumanities... Find a real cause, people!

[ben baldwin]

BB, i agree, myspace is better!!! facebook is so Blah

[AG]

This is the most ridiculous protest I've ever heard of. There is nothing wrong with the new Facebook. There is only something wrong with the people who hate it. They're just a bunch of whiny people who can't stand change. They are the same people who were angry when Facebook became new last time. It's funny how they want the old Facebook back when once upon a time, they wanted to get rid of it. Grow up already. This protest deserves no attention from the media.

[jon]

Excellent article ... it'll be interesting to see how well the coordinated protest goes.

Lauren, the Facebook group is at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=27233634858 and the event is at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=27853905911

jon

PS: AG, who gave *you* the authority to speak for the 5 to 10 million people in the various Facebook groups protesting this?

[stina]

omg this is such a silly thing to even waste a minute on. still I just read the whole article. and I´m also adding this comment. Gosh, you people, including me, are so committed to facebook even thogh we think it´s not worth crap. Everyone still care, I´ts so sad. Get a life. I know I well. or, at least for that weekend.

[Kassala]

Change is the only constant thing in life so we might as well get on or get out

[N]

3 Billion people are starving and those people whine about WHAT!?!!?!??

Seriously! Talk about selfishness and low IQ! It's unbelievable!!!!

Btw, I use facebook and I must say I don't mind the new layout! The reason why I started using facebook rather then Myspace is that facebook is way cleaner. To my disappointment, facebook eventually introduced applications. TONS of garbage was dumped (oh, pardon me, applications added "personality" to profiles) in the profiles of millions of people, making everything look messy and disorganized. I loved when they came up with the new design, which is clean and very organized, while still allowing for some creativity in the appropriate tab.

Now, don't get me wrong here. The new layout is not perfect. However, I would not waste my time whining about petty things. That shows me how little of a life people have those days. People MUST get everything handed to them those days in north america. Otherwise, why on earth would they waste so much time and effort on such ludicrous idiotic (for lack of better word) cause?

Exactly.

Regardless, I've wasted enough time on this. I have better things to do. Ta da!

[Kevin]

The problem with the facebook change is that it's a blatant violation of the classic if it's not broke, don't fix it saying. Facebook changed its layout for NO reason at all except they keep trying to outdo myspace and bring more people in. That's the reason people are angry, not because they're "afraid of change." Facebook ignored its users and changed their layout just for the $$. It's total crap.

[KD]

To all the people that think this "Organized protest" is bad, and bring up things such as "world hunger, war, and genocide." How many times have you protested anything that's not really that big of a deal. Your favorate sports team getting bad calls, you rant yell and scream, may even call up who-ever's in charge. When your favorate TV show kills off a HUGE character, people go balistic, and and spend time actually writing reviews and such. Do you know how hard it is to join a group titled "1,000,000 against the new facebook"? A friend sends you an invite, and you click accept, that's it. I'd say, a completely rough guess, that there may be 1000-3000 actual hard core campaigners for the group, and everyone else just hits accept, bla, and goes on about life. that's what I did, and that's what a lot of my friends did. I'm actually a member of 3 of em. took me bout 5 seconds to join, haven't been back to one of em since, until I heard about this one going to LA times. So lighten up.

I fail to see why people are crying about a free service...