New features on the popular social networking site Facebook sparked discussion about online privacy on college campuses nationwide Tuesday.

A “news feed” on the site’s homepage and “mini feed” on profile pages shows users the most recent actions of their online friends. These actions include new relationship statuses, newly updated photos and RSVPs to event invitations.

Early Tuesday morning, Facebook members from schools across the country, including GW, began creating groups on Facebook criticizing and defending the new changes.

One group, called “Students against Facebook News Feed,” had 414,004 members as of Wednesday night and features a link to an online petition signed by 61,196 people from schools nationwide.

Neil Sroka, a 2006 graduate who created a group opposing the Facebook changes, said the site’s new features have gone too far.

“It’s a great example of when social networking sites think of themselves as a program as opposed to a community.” Sroka, a former hatchet web editor, said. “They can’t push changes onto people.”

Senior Libby Ellsworth said easier access to information about members’ personal lives is not new.

“It’s a paradox,” Ellsworth said. “It feels invasive, but it’s really just putting out information that’s already there.”

On Wednesday morning, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg posted a message on his Facebook blog responding to the recent debate. “This is information people used to dig for on a daily basis, nicely reorganized and summarized so people can learn about the people they care about.”

According to Facebook, the site currently has about 9 million registered users. College and high school students use it to share pictures, send messages and create personalized profiles.