Haven’t we been through this before?

Today, Facebook announced an update to Facebook groups that displays exactly who has seen each post or comment on a post – complete with their name and the time at which they saw it.

“Starting today when you visit a group, you can view who’s seen each post. This way you can stay updated on the group’s activity. For example, in your soccer group you can post the new practice time and then see who got the update,” said Facebook in a blog post.

Good idea? Creepy?

Those who would choose “creepy” are probably the same people who think a similar Facebook feature is a bit intrusive. In June, Facebook began displaying “message seen” within chat boxes whenever you opened the message. For instance, if you sent me a message and I opened it up, you would see “Seen by Josh at 3:43 pm.” Message are marked as seen if the conversation is active as well as when the recipient checks their messages.

Many angry Facebook users were quick to point out possible situations where this new feature could be a huge pain in the ass. If you decide to ignore someone’s message, they’re going to know it. And even if you happen to have you chat box open but haven’t really read the message, you’re just going to look like an as*hole if you don’t respond.

Although this new groups feature may appear similar, it’s a bit different than the chat feature. I can see some real use to the groups feature – for instance for a group of friends scheduling a movie trip, or a bunch of classmates sharing details about a project they’re working on. Unlike the “post seen” feature in groups, I can’t really seen the benefit in the “message seen” feature in chat.

This is the second recent update Facebook has made to groups. Back in May, Facebook added file-sharing.