The CAP News Facebook page, early adopters of the new Mulligan button
Facebook Introduces New 'Mulligan' Button
PALO ALTO, Calif. (CAP) - Bowing to pressure from its half-billion user base, Facebook has begun rolling out a series of new changes including a much-anticipated Mulligan button that lets people completely undo stupid or otherwise regretful actions they take on the social networking site.
"Listen, I'm not gonna blow smoke about how our users are the smartest, blah blah blah," CEO Mark Zuckerberg told CAP News. "The fact is, people are morons, they say and do dumb things, and then they blame Facebook. And frankly, I'm sick of that shit.
"It's not my fault you friended your daughter without realizing she can go back and read all your status updates that you'd never in a million years say in front of her," Zuckerberg noted. "Or that crap you posted about your boss on your coworker's wall without bothering to check that your coworker is actually friends with your boss.
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"But I'm a good guy, so I'll fix it for you," Zuckerberg added. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting with a group of advertisers who want to throw money at me."
According to a Facebook press release about the new function, users will be allowed to click the Mulligan button once per day on a status update, comment or wall post as long as it was made during that calendar day. Not only will the button delete the post and all related comments from your wall and your friends' news feeds, but it will also erase it from their memories as well.
When asked how the site would actually remove the memory of an action from ever having happened, Zuckerberg snapped, "You let us worry about the technology. These aren't the droids you're looking for."
Zuckerberg did confirm that the one thing the new button can't do is give users back all the hours they waste on the site itself, saying "that's a feature, not a bug."
Facebook developers had originally planned to only offer the Mulligan button to high school and college students, figuring that anyone over the age of 30 would actually take the time to re-read what they typed and consider the consequences before clicking Share. However, research determined that idiocy does not discriminate based on age, so the functionality was opened to all users.
"This is a lot better than Google's solution of changing your name every time you do something embarassing," said CAP News technology consultant Ronald Wayne. "I just posted on my ex-wife's wall that she's a lying sailor slut whorebag who makes manipulative bitches look like angels and then after she saw it and blasted me a new one, I Mulliganed her sorry ass.
"Now she has no idea, and I feel great," Wayne added. "Although, I could see the potential for misuse here."
Facebook privacy advocates have already come out against the new button, noting that there's no way to opt out of its functionality.
"Actually, we're very excited about it," said ACLU spokesman Harry Wellsburg. "Don't get me wrong - we hate it. But it's always great to have something new to bitch about, especially when we get bored with fighting about that Places thing."
The new Mulligan button will begin appearing for subsets of users over the next week, with the goal of having it available to everyone inside of a month.
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After a long, arduous morning going at it with your ex, you've likely worked up quite the appetite. Now fortified with eight essential feelings of guilt and remorse, too!
FROM THE VAULT
August 30, 2007
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