Facebooks friends.....

First GigaOm, now TechCrunch - the big Silicon Valley blogs are lining up to apologise for Facebook:

Friday is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s 26th birthday. My guess is he’s won’t be enjoying it as much as he should, given that the top tech story of the day is a look at a private instant message exchange he supposedly had six or seven years ago at Harvard. The messages show a callous disregard for personal information added by early Facebook users. Given that Facebook is in one of its regularly scheduled privacy scuffles right now, the connection is just too juicy. The press has gone wild.

It’s completely out of hand, and it’s just another example of an online mob getting out of control. I’m embarrassed to see people I respect stopping one step short of calling for physical violence against Zuckerberg.

And I'm embarrassed to see Tech blogs I respect coming out in defence of systemic privacy abuse. As, it would appear, are a lot of their readers - 170 comments and rising, most pretty anti TC for defending FB.

Question is why........is this a new revenue stream for TechCrunch and GigaOm, we wonder?

Update - Henry Blodgett over at Silicon Alley Insider is also on the Facebook Friend Gig, arguing that going for mass public expouse is the only way:

Given this reality, Facebook could take one of two approaches:

- It could always ask permission first -- methodically testing changes, asking users what they want, and not doing anything users haven't explicitly approved of in advance.

- It could keep doing what it has always done: Make changes first and then see what happens.

The first approach would unquestionably produce smoother peaks and valleys for Facebook's PR. It would also likely be vastly worse for the company's business.

But then I was around in Web 1.0, and the best thing to do - in my opinion - when Mr Blodgett starts to promote something, is to keep your hands tightly around your wallet and run for the hills!

By the way, I see Stowe Boyd has done a similar exercise in calling out the apologists and Dana Boyd reaches a similar conclusion to what we did re regulation if it doesn't change..