Dear Facebook; No, I do not want to know every time someone becomes friends with someone else!

And no, I do not want my friends to know every time I friend someone, become a fan, or join a group. It’s no more their business than it is mine to know what they’re doing.

Am I the only one who’s getting sick and tired of a Facebook news feed that looks like the screen shot below?

You know what this is exactly like? It’s like going to a huge party and having someone grab you after every conversation, telling you that, “Sue and Mike just became friends with John”, and “Jason and Jennifer just started playing Monopoly” and “Bob, Sue, Chris and Justin are attending church” and “Pat, Tom, Jeff and Erin just joined Green Peace” and “Jason and Christy are big Beyonce fans” and…

We used to have the option of turning off notifications that would show up on our friend’s feeds but Facebook deleted that option in December when they changed their privacy policy and exposed all of us to the world without our permission. I want that option back and you should too and you should be demanding it back along with me.

Edit: I’ve started using a very nice little Firefox add-on called Better Facebook that eliminates the who friended who notifications from my news feed which alleviates one problem, but until Facebook gives us back control of who we allow to see what we’re doing I think I’m going to stop updating my personal Facebook page and stick to my fan page.

You can get the Firefox add-on, Better Facebook, here. I recommend the GreaseMonkey version.