Facebook has announced the inevitable addition of "groups", whereby users can sort their friends into different groups, so only certain comments/statuses/photos etc. are available to certain groups.
Mark Zuckerberg summarises the problem:
"There are some things you are comfortable saying to all your friends at once but a lot of things you only want to share with your close co-workers or your family and there just hasn't been a great way to do that until now."
This blog has discussed the social problems created by Facebook in the past. In the real world we automatically filter what we say and share with different friends, family, colleagues - so it makes sense that Facebook would include that feature, to further replicate the way we interact in the real world and avoid a variety of social faux pas.
Guardian article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/07/facebook-groups
BBC News article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11486427
