Is Facebook scared of Twitter? Definitely. It’s why they tried to buy them back in November last year and it’s why they’re now looking at implementing an Everyone button in order to try and compete with the microblogging service.

Currently when Facebook users update their status or post messages they are published to only those people who have been selected to receive updates in the user’s privacy settings. Facebook are planning to change this so as everytime a message is posted or a user’s status is updated the user will have the option of selecting who their content will be available to.

Facebook are hoping that if enough people click the everyone option, then they could build a real-time news stream a la Twitter.

Knowing how sensitive Facebook users can be, expect numerous protest groups to be set up in the near future.

(via Tech Crunch)