The alterations removed being able to hide your list of friends from the general public, along with the users profile picture, name, gender, current city, the networks they belong to, and the groups they are apart of.
Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, brought upon these changes because he believes that everyone around the world should be open about their lives and actions, as well as the social networks need to monetize the service. In Zuckerbergs eyes, this was a reasonable and justifiable change, but there is not a rational justification when it came to the users of Facebook. The people in Iran who had trusted Facebook to advise and communicate to others were now scared for their lives. Authorities were now able to easily collect information and contacts from the pages to interrogate Green Movement activists that had been detained. Soon after the changes, Iranian users began to delete their accounts in fear that the same would happen to them. An anonymous commenter on the technology website ZDNet gave their side of the of the unsuspected change:.
A number of my friends in Iran are active student protesters of the government. They use Facebook extensively to organize protests and meetings, but they had no choice but to delete their Facebook accounts today. They are terrified that their once private lists of friends are now available to everyone that wants to know. When that everyone happens to include the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and members of the Basij militia, willing to kidnap, arrest, or murder to stifle dissent, the consequences seem just a bit more serious than those faced from silly pictures and status updates. I realize this may not be an issue for the vast majority of American Facebook users, but its just plain irresponsible to do this without first asking consent. (Bankston, 2009).
Although the commenter made the point that American Facebook users are not affected as badly by the change, there was a global outcry outside of Iran.
