this took it from the equivalent of putting something funny on your dorm room to announcing it on a billboard
hardly.
to use your analogy, it's more like taking something funny you put on the door of your dorm room and moving it to a bulletin board in the lobby. assuming, like most dorms, you need a key to even get into the building, visibility is still limited to everyone in the dorm. nothing has changed there. the only difference is in prominence; people can see it as they walk into the building without having to walk past everyone's individual door.
in the case of facebook, access to the information is the same as it always was: any of your friends may view the information. the only difference is in prominence; people can see it as they log into the site without having to browse to everyone's individual profile.
Actually, you can hide the change after the fact. Facebook allows you to hide single actions from all news feeds. To use your example, you would merely hide the two relevant actions: the one saying you were in a relationship and the one saying you were no longer in a relationship. The data is still there, tucked away in Facebook's database (as I suspect it always has,) but no longer is it visible through you friends' news feeds.
You keep saying Facebook is publicly broadcasting your information, but it's not. It's privately broadcasting it. It's telling the very people to whom you've already granted explicit access to the information and no one else. Whether or not you like this broadcasting is another issue, but it's important that we keep in mind that Facebook is not releasing information to parties otherwise not already privy to it.
Slashdot Mirror
hardly.
to use your analogy, it's more like taking something funny you put on the door of your dorm room and moving it to a bulletin board in the lobby. assuming, like most dorms, you need a key to even get into the building, visibility is still limited to everyone in the dorm. nothing has changed there. the only difference is in prominence; people can see it as they walk into the building without having to walk past everyone's individual door.
in the case of facebook, access to the information is the same as it always was: any of your friends may view the information. the only difference is in prominence; people can see it as they log into the site without having to browse to everyone's individual profile.
Actually, you can hide the change after the fact. Facebook allows you to hide single actions from all news feeds. To use your example, you would merely hide the two relevant actions: the one saying you were in a relationship and the one saying you were no longer in a relationship. The data is still there, tucked away in Facebook's database (as I suspect it always has,) but no longer is it visible through you friends' news feeds.
You keep saying Facebook is publicly broadcasting your information, but it's not. It's privately broadcasting it. It's telling the very people to whom you've already granted explicit access to the information and no one else. Whether or not you like this broadcasting is another issue, but it's important that we keep in mind that Facebook is not releasing information to parties otherwise not already privy to it.