When you log into Facebook today, your “home” page is going to look a little different - again. This time, at the top you’ll find an apology from Mark Zuckerberg; I encourage you to read through it.

The gist of it is - you now have more privacy controls over your News Feed, and it comes in the form of being able to choose which things you do that will show up on other people’s News Feed. While you can’t change everything yet (they coded these new privacy settings from scratch in what, 4 days?), you do have more control now, and it should help quell the storm of Facebook naysayers. The new privacy page for News Feed and Mini-Feed also lists things that will never be published on a Feed, and I think you should check that list out before crying foul at Facebook.

Personally, I removed wall posts. I think others seeing what I write on other people’s walls everyday is a little much. However, I left everything else. I think it’s interesting to see when people add new photos, or when someone comments on a photo, or when someone adds something to a list of favorites, or when one (or more) of my friends joins a group, etc. Facebook has always been about community, about having a community of your friends, and I think that these kinds of updates on and about my community are wonderful.

I would encourage you to not just uncheck everything on the News Feed Privacy list because you’re unhappy with Facebook. Mark is right in that these controls should have been there from the beginning, but don’t kill the system just because they did it wrong from the start. He admitted the other day that this is a new feature, and as such it’s still early in development - new settings for Facebook are constantly popping up, and it’s only a matter of time before we have more feature-complete settings for News Feed and Mini-Feed.

So, with all that said, go check out the new privacy settings for News Feed and Mini-Feed, and keep in mind that your friends, if they really are your friends, probably do care about your life, and would (at least in general) like to know what you’re up to.