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Facebook Breaks Major Websites With Redirection Bug

Posted by Soulskill on from the now-we're-tripping-on-virtual-power-cords dept.

johnsnails writes "Some of the biggest news sites in the world disappeared yesterday when Facebook took over the internet with a redirection bug. Visitors to sites such as The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, the Gawker network, NBC News and News.com.au were immediately transferred to a Facebook error page upon loading their intended site. It was fixed quickly, and Facebook provided this statement: 'For a short period of time, there was a bug that redirected people logging in with Facebook from third party sites to Facebook.com. The issue was quickly resolved, and Login with Facebook is now working as usual.'"

4 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. so... by liamevo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    can we please stop relying on third parties for things *you* should be providing to your users.

    1. Re:so... by orthancstone · · Score: 5, Insightful

      On one hand, I'd prefer to see authentication in the hands of someone I consider more reliable (like Google) than someone programmer of questionable ability at (Insert Random Dying Newspaper here).

      On the other hand, a hearty "HA HA!" does feel appropriate here. They do get what they are asking for by being so deeply tied to a third party.

  2. Congrats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you let others insert scripts into your pages they can steal your visitors.

    Maybe it'll make sites think about who they script src from.

  3. I keep trying to use Facebook. by hessian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've come to the conclusion that social networking is screwed up because the people who use it most are the people who are least invested in reality.

    Every time I try to use Facebook, I get driven away by the behavior of its users. Not the Instagram dinner plate updates, or the personal drama, because I've already filtered out those people.

    It's the sensitivity. People take anything seriously. I posted an article showing that divorce really screws up kids. I got back a half-dozen replies, all from people who'd had divorces, defending their own decisions. When I said that it wasn't personal, they said they still felt attacked.

    There were other instances of similar behavior too. People hover around Facebook, looking for some reason to cause a scene. Why was this, I wondered.

    It seems to me that if you have found something worth doing in life, you're mostly doing it. That doesn't mean your job. If your job sucks, you've probably got a project on the side. You're not going to devote your time to screwing around, which is what most people on Facebook do.

    This means that social networking including Facebook selects out the people who have any direction in life, and leaves the resentful, bored, unemployed, disabled, upset, insane, teenage, etc. and concentrates them in large numbers. This is why so much of the response is crazy.

    I should amend the post title. I used to keep trying to use Facebook (and MySpace, Digg, Reddit, Friendster, Pinterest, etc.). But now, I don't. These aren't places where healthy people hang out.

    --
    Futurist Traditionalism