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Facebook Alerts 14M To Privacy Bug That Changed Status Composer To Public (techcrunch.com)

Posted by msmash on from the joys-Facebook-brings-to-the-world dept.

Facebook has landed itself in yet another self-inflicted privacy debacle. As many as 14 million Facebook users who thought they were posting items that only their friends or smaller groups could see may have been posting that content to the entire world, the company said Thursday. From a report: Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan wrote to TechCrunch in a statement: "We recently found a bug that automatically suggested posting publicly when some people were creating their Facebook posts. We have fixed this issue and starting today we are letting everyone affected know and asking them to review any posts they made during that time. To be clear, this bug did not impact anything people had posted before -- and they could still choose their audience just as they always have. We'd like to apologize for this mistake." The bug was active from May 18th to May 27th, with Facebook able start rolling out a fix on May 22nd. It happened because Facebook was building a 'featured items' option on your profile that highlights photos and other content.

5 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Yet another reason..... by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ....not to be on FaceBook!!!

    Lord, it just keeps going....and going....and going....

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:Yet another reason..... by geek · · Score: 2

      They are the Adobe Flash of online privacy

    2. Re:Yet another reason..... by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · · Score: 2

      I'm on facebook and I'm happy: I just assume everything on my profile is publicly accessible. If you think otherwise you're either a gullible person or a clinical idiot. I just cannot understand how rational people can trust their data to be stored "safely" and "privately" by literally thousands of strangers whose only purpose is to make money off you.

  2. sing it now "we are the world" by zlives · · Score: 2

    "thought they were posting items that only their friends"

    friendship goal achieved... Hello world.

      this is a feature not a bug.

  3. I find it strange.. by overnight_failure · · Score: 2

    ..that you never hear about 'bugs' that accidentally make people post privately instead of to everyone.

    I can only presume it's because their default privacy mode is 'none' and the features that change that setting are the ones that are faulty.