Following an overwhelming privacy backlash as a result of changes introduced this week, Facebook said on Friday it has adopted new privacy controls.

Facebook will now allow users to directly control what information is shared with their friends about their activities on the network, reports Reuters. Newly introduced features this week - "News Feed" and "Mini-Feed" - immediately informed users what their friends were up to on the social network, resulting in tens of thousands of users crying foul.

Users can now directly control "who sees what information in News Feed and Mini-Feed…just as they requested," Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief executive of Facebook, said in a statement. "We really messed this one up. When we launched News Feed and Mini-Feed we were trying to provide you with a stream of information about your social world. Instead, we did a bad job of explaining what the new features were and an even worse job of giving you control of them," Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post.

"So we have been coding nonstop for two days to get you better privacy controls. This new privacy page will allow you to choose which types of stories go into your Mini-Feed and your friends' News Feeds, and it also lists the type of actions Facebook will never let any other person know about."