We Hate This: Facebook's New Couples Pages
As if it's not enough to post your relationship status on online for the entire internet to see, Facebook is taking things a step further, whether you want them to or not. Their latest privacy-invading feature, rolled out late last week, creates a special "couples" page for you and whomever you've listed as your partner in a relationship -- and Facebook has already set it all up for you, filling it with photos and conversations in which you've both been tagged.
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People aren't pleased.
"Horrible idea! I will never list my relationship status on Facebook for sure now," Andrea Bethard commented on the social media site.
"DISLIKE!" wrote April Geffre Irwin. "If I wanted a couples page, we should have created one together."
Related: Why You Should Defriend Your Ex on Facebook
Wondering what your relationship's new online shrine looks like? Click on Facebook.com/us. (Single? No worries. Facebook is sure that your probably just forgot to tell them, so if you click on the couples link you'll be invited to update your relationship status.)
The new couples pages are actually extensions of the current friendship pages that were rolled out more than two years ago, populated with existing content -- photos and conversations in which you were both already tagged, lists of mutual friends and things you've both already liked, all arranged in the "timeline" format. But what's bothering users is how insufferably cute the pages seem and, for some, how very invasive they can be, since you can't opt out of them or delete them.
"You cannot deactivate the pages, but you can control what you share on Facebook using the privacy settings for each post," Facebook's Jessie Baker told CNN. "The friendship page respects the privacy setting of each post. This means the person viewing the friendship page may see each post elsewhere on Facebook, like on either friend's timeline or in news feed. You can curate your friendship page by hiding stories you do not want to appear."
In other words, there's no way to post something on your own Facebook page and keep it off of your couples page at the same time.
While the couples page may be useful for joint announcements from the newly engaged or gushing hipsters who simply can't contain themselves, to users of a certain age and those in well-established relationships the idea of a special couples page seems kind of twee. (Also: Get off my lawn.)
"I know that founder Mark Zuckerberg recently got married to his long-time girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, but someone in Palo Alto has to stand up to this love-crazed social media guru and say enough is enough," writes Michael MacDonald at Canada.com, adding that Facebook has "finally devolved into a bad rom-com."
"How is the couple's page even a desirable feature in the first place?" asks Rebecca Pahle at The Mary Sue. "Why wouldn't Facebook make it something you can opt out of, or at the very least send affected users a message to let them know it's being created for them?"
What we want to know is: What happens if you break up? Does the page automatically go away, or does it continue to exist as some sort of bizarre electronic testament to your failed relationship? And what about all those teenagers and their constantly changing relationship statuses, real and fake? We'll let you know if anyone at Facebook gets back to us with answers. Until then, the only way to get rid of the page is to get a Facebook divorce -- i.e., changing your relationship status to "single" -- and obliterate any post in which you both appear.
"Selecting to 'hide' an object from your timeline or friendship page does not remove it from Facebook, and the object may show up in other places such as news feed," Baker says. "If you would like to remove a story you posted from Facebook altogether, you can do so by selecting delete post or untagging yourself from photos."
What do you think, Shine readers? Is this new Facebook feature cool or creepy?
