Facebook Bug – 14 million Facebook Users Private Posts Turned Public

Another Facebook scandal has surfaced and yet another time users privacy has been breached. Due to a software bug, private posts of 14 million users turned public in May. This has been confirmed by Facebook on Thursday.

As per Facebook the issue has been resolved. The bug automatically asked the users to turn their new posts public even though it was set for a private setting like ‘Friends Only’. If the users did not notice this suggestion, their private post automatically turned public.

Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, said “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.”

Facebook still recovering from its major Cambridge Analytica scandal and now it is has put itself again in hot waters. The social media giant is asking users to review their posts.

Also read: Cambridge Analytica closure in process

Jonathan Mayer, a professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University, said “Facebook’s latest privacy gaffe looks like a viable Federal Trade Commission / state attorney general deception case. Facebook made a representation that its sharing setting would maintain the most recent privacy preference. That wasn’t true.”

Adding, “Here’s the legal problem for Facebook. For several days, for 14 million users, the privacy explanation below was literally false.”

Facebook confirmed that the bug was present in between May 18th to May 27th. Out of 2.2 billion active users on Facebook, data of at least 14 million users got breached. Their posts turned from private to public without their permission.