The collective Interwebz demands answers, changes and – ultimately – alternatives. For once, it’s not using Facebook to do it.

FB HQ held a reported all-staff meeting Thursday, but no one is talking about it. Mere hours prior, four NYU computer science nerds confirmed more than $100,000 in backing for an open, privacy-focused Facebook alternative. As of writing, they’re more than $134k in the honey for the project, named “Diaspora.”

Another code project, trending viral this morning, highlights the number of Facebook users exposing status updates to the world. FacebookSearch aggregates that data in fun (?), easy to use and admittedly creepy search of said updates.

Recommendations from the site include “playing hooky,” “rectal exam” and “stupid boss.” I also suggest “out of jail.”

As the creators note on their about page, there’s a growing discussion about the ethical and moral nature of such a search. The debate: The data – the updates – is already public, but the aggregation and subsequent access to the aggregated data is new. Some discussion contributors criticize the creators for not creating a proactive solution the problem, and instead creating a toy.

For the normal Facebook user, however, awareness of a problem is half the battle.

[via TechCrunch, props to Matt for the find]

Let’s review.

Out: “Fanning” pages
In: “Liking” Pages

Details from The Facebook Blog:

Feature certain connections: When you edit your profile, you can choose to feature some of your connections over others. You can drag and drop Pages above or below the fold to dictate which ones are most prominent when friends visit your profile. If you move a Page below the fold, your friends will still be able to see that connection if they click “See More” beside the field.

Out: Free-text statements of interests/likes
In: Automatic suggestions to existent pages for your likes/interests

Also from the blog:

Opt-in to new connections: When you next visit your profile page on Facebook, you’ll see a box appear that recommends Pages based on the interests and affiliations you’d previously added to your profile. You can then either connect to all these Pages—by clicking “Link All to My Profile”—or choose specific Pages. You can opt to only connect to some of those Pages by going to “Choose Pages Individually” and checking or unchecking specific Pages. Once you make your choice, any text you’d previously had for the current city, hometown, education and work, and likes and interests sections of your profile will be replaced by links to these Pages. [My formatting change] If you would still like to express yourself with free-form text, you can still use the “Bio” section of your profile. You also can also use features and applications like Notes, status updates or Photos to share more about yourself.

TechCrunch breaks down the changes, pointing to a possible privacy flaw in the new system:

One other thing to point out: historically users have been able to control who their activities and interests would show up for in their profile. They’re losing that ability today with the new changes, because Pages are considered publicly available information.

Privacy concerns aside, linking these terms to pages instead of search results seems like a logical change for the sake of page views. Yet, is “like” still too great of a commitment? It could futher discourage a collection of people for whom “fan” was way more than “just talking.”

Like, omigod, this is sure to cause some controversy!

We couldn’t leave it at just the video. While the Ball State Daily News (rightfully so) has an Gora-recognized obligation to objectivity and, moreover, a sense of dignity, we find ourselves far removed from such honors and giggling like a pack of school gossip girls on Twitter.

We’re not condoning sexual harassment. Notable here is the university’s unintentionally embarrassing overreaction, as even a group of students with no prior context are highlighting.

Behold: linkage.

• “He” – rather, the Butt-Slapper’s fictitious persona – is on Facebook.

• The “official” (wtf?) The Ball State Ass Slapper Facebook page is closing in on 10,000 fans.

• Entrepreneurs at  BSAS: Ass Slappin’ Since April, 7 2010 are selling shirts for $10 through PayPal, or $14.95 shipped.

• Take it for what it’s worth: In Jersey, they fist pump. In Indiana, we ass slap.

• A smaller opposition group, clearly unaware of netiquette, also has as page: WE OPPOSE MEMEBRS OF THE BALL STATE ASS SLAPPERS GROUP. IT IS NOT A JOKE!!!
  
• Some tipsters are trying to get some coverage via The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Forums
  
• When a Gawker Network site picks this up you know it’s in the limelight. Deadspin has a short recap, disclaimer and set of links. We’re on-task to outdo them though, don’t worry.

Did we miss one? Post it in the comments so we can add it.

Book Founder Mark Zuckerberg opened up his profile to the public to support the new privacy settings, even if it was rumored accidental. Just because he did doesn’t mean you’re as obligated; though we’d really appreciate it if you could leave those holiday party photos unlocked for just a few more days … We’ve never seen that done with a bottle of Jack and a ferret, either.

We digress. Welcome to the (surprisingly serious) Bewildered Society guide to protecting your Facebook privacy and digital identity. We’re breaking down the new settings to give you a better understanding of what the hell you should do if you’re trying to hide those questionable college photos from your soon-to-be-boss.

It’s likely you’ve already encountered the following options screen from Facebook this week:

At the previously linked story above explains, there is some concern for Facebook’s “recommended” settings in the above screen. The argument: It’s asking you to share more than you ever did while making it seem like you’re locking more down. Best bet here? Leave everything as “Old Settings” and manually tour the new privacy settings area yourself. You can access that new area from the Facebook navigation area under the “Settings” drop-down menu.

The new Facebook privacy tools are divided into 5 categories:

• Profile info
• Contact info
• Applications and external websites
• Searches
• Block list

We’ll examine the first 4 in detail.  The 5th is pretty self-explanatory, add anyone you want to keep away from your Facebook life to the list and as far as they’re considered, you aren’t even on Facebook.

It is worth your time to go through all of your privacy options, section by section, line by line.  The last thing you want to find out a year from now is that you’ve been inadvertently sharing the pictorial evidence of your 21st birthday with the world.

Profile Information

Decide who can view the basic information in your profile, such as your “about me”, your birthday, etc. You do this by clicking on the drop down menu on the right side of the screen.

Some interpretations of the above options:

• “Everyone” will share that particular information with essentially everyone on the internet.  Think carefully before choosing this option.
• “Friends and Networks” will share with everyone you’re friends with, AND everyone in all of your networks (your school, work, etc.) That’s still a wide web.
• “Friends of Friends” will share with everyone you’re friends with AND all of their friends.
• “Only Friends” shares with your peeps and your peeps alone.
• The “Custom” option allows you to select specific friends and/or specific networks to share the data with, as well as the opportunity to block certain people from this particular information.

Another vital component of the Profile Information section are photo albums settings.  The setting for photos and videos of you tagged by others works the same as the rest of the items.  The settings for photo albums that you have uploaded yourself are more complicated:

Clicking “edit settings” for Photo Albums takes you to a page which lists all of your albums individually.  For each album you can select who can view the photos using the same “everyone”, “my networks and friends”, etc. scheme explained above.

Again, you have the option of setting custom settings for each album.  The custom settings menu allows you to choose specifically who (if anyone) can view the photos either by individuals or entire networks.

Contact Information
This section works similarly to the Profile Information section, it lists individual contact information, and allows you select who can see each.  Again there is a “Custom” option that allows you to fine tune specifically who can or cannot view any particular information.

Applications and Websites

This section allows you to determine which Facebook applications and external websites are allowed to access what information in your profile, and what information they are allowed to publish to your newsfeed.  However tedious, it is worthwhile to examine every application and website one by one to make sure the settings are what you really want.

The applications and websites settings section is divided into 4 sections. 

“What You Share” will present you with a list of all the applications currently active with your profile, and you can go down that list and decide what each application can do.  This includes details like who can see that you have the application installed, whether it appears as a “tab” along the top of your profile, as well as what (if anything) it can publish to your newsfeed. An example of that window:

HERE’S A BIG ONE: “What Friends Can Share” lets you select what applications that your friends are using can access from your profile.  It is a long list of potential data, so think carefully. This may be the most underestimated tool in terms of importance.

Search Settings

The ability to kill your search-ability is not a brand new feature, but it’s something many users overlooked when it launched. As with the other privacy settings, this screen lets you choose who (everyone, friends, friends of friends, etc.) will be able to find you when they search your name or email address on Facebook. Additionally, you can decide whether you want your Facebook profile to appear in results when someone Googles your name.

[Dave Studinski contributed to this post.]

We live in divided times, and it probably won’t surprise you to learn that social networking trends are  just as divided along lines of education, income, and geography as the rest of the country.  A report from the folks over at Nielsen reveals that Facebook, with its Ivy League pedigree, is most popular among those who have, or are getting, a college education.  MySpace users, on the other hand, typically make less money and aren’t as well educated.  Likewise, Twitter is most popular among urban dwellers

Read more at Computer World

Zuck’s beast launched a new feature allowing users to tag friends and Facebook pages in its posts.

I’d write something more here, but you already left to go play with it yourself.

Among other things, the new version includes:

• New home page navigation
• Support for pages
• Ability to comment AND like a post
• Event RSVP and details
• Video uploading
• Complete photo editing

Check out the images here.

[via Steve Buttry, stats from Socialnomics]