Where else to protest about facebook than on facebook?

I just came across an interesting phenomenon. I have been following the revolt against facebook’s new interface for a few months. I can’t say my social networking experience dates back as far as many others, but I’ve been hanging around in this space for a few years now and one of the things web2.0 appears to give users is the ability to contribute to their environment, creating a sense of community.  Basically, users have a voice, and as the recent facaebook interface saga illustrates, that voice can sometimes be critical of or attempt to disrupt the platform on which it lives.

The general story goes that facebook’s original interface which disappeared midway through the year was more user friendly and easier to find information on, then facebook trialled a new interface, users didn’t appear to like it, they were forced to adopt it anyway (should they wish to continue using facebook that is) to cries of dismay and protest. There has been many a protest group spring up on facebook criticising the new interface, and some even showing users how to get back to the “old facebook” (I cannot attest to whether these work as I’ve never bothered to try).

Now there’s a new protest about the new facebook called the “THE FACEBOOK BLACKOUT” (yes, all in caps – these guys are annngggrrry).  However, unlike the groups mentioned above, this protest is an event, suggesting that facebookers don’t go online on the 15th of December to show their dislike of the new interface (there’s a link to the event here, but you must be logged in to facebook to access it). A show of power from the users so to speak. What I find so interesting about this phenomenon is that people are using the platform they dislike to protest about changes to it. It makes me wonder whether the protesting users have a greater sense of entitlement that facebook believes they do, or why indeed they are still using facebook if they hate is so much.  Is it something deeper?

Therein lies the power of facebook. Despite its unpopular new interface, it is big, people have put so much effort into building networks on it, educational institutions and businesses are increasingly involved, it brings other networking tools together (e.g. flickr and twitter can both feed into it)… and finally, it is actually growing (myspace is the only real network larger, but it’s growth rates are nothing near facebook’s). While we may jump up and down and protest about the new interface, we are still joining it and using it – there’s still something alluring about it. We are still using it.  We are free to network on whichever site we choose, it doesn’t have to be facebook, but it commonly is. So when we want to protest about facebook, where better to do it than… on facebook? Protests or not, it’s still the place to be after all these months with the new interface, that much is clear. Although the irony of the protest is still killing me