In Case Study: Facebook Feeds and Networked Political Action, Fred Stutzman dissects the precise chronology of the Facebook user revolt and shows how the structure and dynamics of social network systems can accelerate the pace and expand the scope of such collective reaction:

Around midnight-1AM Eastern, Facebook mini-feeds were rolled out. Assorted LiveJournal users noticed and mentioned the service.

* http://apolloli.livejournal.com/9670.html - “Look at the new interface with feeds and mini feeds. I should really quit facebook and mind my own business more. Facebook is a cyber-drug!”
* http://under-pressure.livejournal.com/318712.html - “Facebook apparently decided a few hours ago to officially become stalkerbook; it now requires no effort whatsoever to track your friend or acquaintance’s every Internet move. Thanks, big brother. Thanks.”

As evidenced, initial reaction in the blogosphere was negative, with many users claiming invasion of privacy. A-list bloggers, on the other hand, generally gave the service a thumbs-up. Throughout the morning of the 5th, discontent amongst users grew, with a number of users forming groups against the Facebook feeds.

Sometime during the morning of the 5th, Ben Parr, a junior at Northwestern University, created a group entitled “Students Against Facebook News Feed (Official Petition to Facebook).” In interviews (1,2), Ben states that he created the group, told a few friends, and went to lunch. When Ben returned from lunch, the group had grown to over 13,000 users.

Two main factors influenced the rapid expansion of the Students Against Facebook News Feed (SAFNF) group. First, the Facebook feed product was introduced poorly, causing discontent within the Facebook from the very beginning. The product was an invasive change that affected privacy expectations in the site. Furthermore, users were not prepared for the change in advance, nor were they able to opt-out of the service.

The second factor was an artifactual element of the Facebook feeds. The general purpose of the Facebook feed product is to inform the cohort of actions taken by a Facebook users. Common actions include writing on a wall, editing profile information, or joining or leaving groups. When a user logs in to Facebook, they were immediately presented with the last actions of their friend network.

On the morning of the 5th, Ben Parr’s friends saw that he created a group in the Facebook. They joined his group to show solidarity with his feelings about Facebook feeds. When they did join the group, that action was recorded on their news feeds, and thereby broadcast out to their entire friend network. As the average collegiate Facebook user has hundreds of friends, this action of solidarity in joining SAFNF became a living, viral advertisement for the SAFNF group. Each time someone who had a friend that joined SAFNF logged in, they were presented with a message alerting them to their friend’s intentions. As sentiment went pervasively negative against feeds, more people joined SAFNF, thereby virally spreading the group.