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Facebook Bug Communications Network Privacy Social Networks The Internet

Facebook Apologizes For Bug That Unblocked 800,000 People (gizmodo.com) 66

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Facebook disclosed a new "bug" on Monday that temporarily let some users who'd been blocked on the service send messages to the people who had blocked them. The bug also let some previously-blocked users view posts that were shared "to a wider audience," such as publicly or with friends of friends, Facebook said. Facebook's privacy boss Erin Egan apologized for the error, writing in a blog that the company is reaching out to "over 800,000" users about the screw-up. The "blocking bug" was active between May 29 and June 5, for eight days, though the company now says Messenger should be acting normally. According to Egan's post: "[the bug] did not reinstate any friend connections that had been severed; 83% of people affected by the bug had only one person they had blocked temporarily unblocked; and Someone who was unblocked might have been able to contact people on Messenger who had blocked them."
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Facebook Apologizes For Bug That Unblocked 800,000 People

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  • Why would you even block someone, that's so lame.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by cre1mer ( 5440320 )
      You block people when you want to have the last word and not read any follow up replies thereafter.
      • Not surprisingly, I got modded down as a troll. But not because of my comment.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • In general I'd agree, but there are people out there who have nothing better to do with their lives and some tickle in their brain or bug up their ass that leads them to devote as much of their time as possible to wasting your time or making you miserable. Here's but one example [chronicle.com] of countless many.

      If you're blocking someone just because they disagree with you or aren't validating your belief structure, I'd say that kind of makes you a bit of a dink. If someone's just endlessly spamming you, why devote you
    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      Time to block you! :P

    • Clearly, you don't know what it's like to have someone spam/harass you online with insults and threats because you had the audacity to determine you didn't want to be in a relationship with them anymore. I witnessed it happen firsthand to a close friend of mine, They had to block their ex online, change their cell phone number and file a restraining order.

  • No they are not (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DarkRookie ( 5030953 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @04:48PM (#56882052)
    They are not sorry for doing this
    They are sorry that they got caught.
  • I'm sure none of us have ever made a mistake like that. /s

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Facebook! ROTFLMFAO!
  • Facebook say 'sorry', whatever-Cambridge-Analytica-are-called-now say 'thank you'.

  • I've never had a Facebook, but the people I know who have one have complained repeatedly over the years about random unblockings.

    I wouldn't be surprised if the team responsible for managing the permissions system in Facebook were told "hey guys, don't pay too much attention to the quality of your code here. Wink, wink."

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!

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