The bug was active between May 29 and June 5 -- and while someone who was unblocked could not see content shared with friends, they could have seen things posted to a wider audience, said Facebook.
In yet another privacy goof-up, Facebook has admitted that over 800,000 users were affected by a bug on its platform and Messenger that unblocked some people these users had blocked. The bug was active between May 29 and June 5 -- and while someone who was unblocked could not see content shared with friends, they could have seen things posted to a wider audience, said Facebook.
"For example pictures shared with friends of friends. We know that the ability to block someone is important -- and we'd like to apologise and explain what happened," Erin Egan, Chief Privacy Officer at Facebook, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. When you block someone on Facebook, they cannot see things you post on your profile, start conversations with you on Messenger or add you as a friend.
Blocking also automatically unfriends them if you were previously friends. "In the case of this bug, it did not reinstate any friend connections that had been severed," Egan said. Nearly 83 per cent of people affected by the bug had only one person they had blocked temporarily unblocked. Someone who was unblocked might have been able to contact people on Messenger who had blocked them, Facebook noted.