Facebook admits bug set 14 MILLION users’ sharing settings to public last month
- Facebook on Thursday revealed a new bug that switched 14 million users’ privacy settings to public between May 18 to May 27 without their knowledge
- The flaw only affected Facebook’s system for 10 days in May, but Facebook says it still plans to notify the users who were affected, beginning this week
- Facebook said it happened as it was testing a new tool called ‘featured items’
- It caps off a string of recent controversies for Facebook, which is still dealing with the fallout from its Cambridge Analytica scandal, which erupted in March
Facebook has revealed a new bug that switched 14 million users’ privacy settings to public without their knowledge.
The flaw only affected Facebook’s system for 10 days in May, but Facebook says it still plans to notify users who were impacted by the bug.
It occurred when Facebook was testing a new feature and meant that it accidentally changed a user’s privacy settings to public from whatever it was previously, making potentially sensitive status updates viewable from anywhere in the world.
The flaw affected Facebook’s system for 10 days in May, but Facebook says it still plans to notify users who were impacted. It happened as a ‘featured items’ tool was being tested
Facebook said the privacy bug took place from May 18 to May 27 and didn’t affect any posts published before that time period.
The bug caps off a string of recent controversies for Facebook, most notably the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which resulted in 87 million users’ data being harvested without their knowledge and shared with the Trump-affiliated research firm.
‘We recently found a bug that automatically suggested posting publicly when some people were creating their Facebook posts,’ Facebook’s chief privacy officer Erin Egan told TechCrunch.
‘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,’ she added.
Users who were affected by the bug will start receiving a notification on Facebook starting Thursday. A message will prompt them to ‘Please Review Your Posts’ as well as a link
The specific tool being tested was a ‘featured items’ option on a user’s profile that highlights photos and other content.
Featured items are meant to be publicly visible, but Facebook accidentally made it so that setting applied to all posts made on a user’s profile.
Users who were affected by the bug will start receiving a notification on Facebook starting Thursday.
A message will prompt them to ‘Please Review Your Posts’, while a link will direct the user to view a list of what they shared during the 10 days that the bug was active.
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