Martech: Martech is Marketing Logo
  • Topics
    Digital Transformation
    Marketing Operations
    Data
    Customer & Digital Experience
    Performance Marketing
    Marketing Management
    Special Reports
    All Topics
  • Conference
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • What is MarTech

Processing...Please wait.

MarTech » Performance Marketing » Facebook says privacy settings for 14M users were switched to public due to bug

Facebook says privacy settings for 14M users were switched to public due to bug

From May 18 to May 22, 14M users had the audience setting for new status updates changed to public because of a bug, according to Facebook.

Amy Gesenhues on June 7, 2018 at 6:20 pm | Reading time: 2 minutes

If you’re keeping a list of Facebook apologies for 2018, you can now add “apologizes for accidentally setting 14 million users privacy status to public without their knowledge” to your list.

From May 18 to May 22, Facebook accidentally changed the privacy setting for status updates for 14 million users to public from whatever previous option they had set, according to TechCrunch. The incident, which Facebook defined as a “bug,” was the result of the company’s work on a “featured items” option that is designed to highlight photos and other content that is publicly visible.

TechCrunch says Facebook mistakenly extended the public setting connected to the “featured items” option to all new posts from those users.

Facebook Chief Privacy Officer, Policy Erin Egan sent the following statement to TechCrunch:

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 is notifying the affected users and encouraging them to review their audience settings for recent posts. The notification leads to a dedicated page explaining that a technical error caused user privacy settings to be temporarily changed.

TechCrunch reports that the issue has been fixed and that everyone’s privacy settings for status updates have been defaulted to the privacy setting they had turned on before the bug. Even though the bug was active between May 18 and May 22, TechCrunch says Facebook did not correct the problem until May 27 — meaning that, for the affected users, status updates that they thought were set to private were shared publicly for anywhere from five to nine days past their post date.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


New on MarTech

    Webinar: The key to email marketing success
    The FTC weighs in on customer data privacy
    Whatever happened to customer journey orchestration?
    The latest jobs in martech
    B2B buyers are much more concerned about a company’s values than the general public

About The Author

Amy Gesenhues
Amy Gesenhues was a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.

Related Topics

Performance Marketing

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS The MarTech Conference logo.

September 28-29, 2022: Fall

Start Training Now: Master Classes

Start Discovering Now: Spring



The SMX Conference logo.

Start Training Now:: SMX Advanced

November 14-15, 2022: SMX Next

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes

Webinars

Tracking Growth From Organic Search

Beyond the Buzzword: Transform Digitally to Drive Organic & SEO Growth

Leap or Linger: Determining Which Ad Platforms to Test for Your B2B Brand

See More Webinars
Intelligence Reports

Enterprise Marketing Performance Management Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Customer Journey Orchestration Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Account-Based Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports
Featured White Paper

The CMO’s Formula To 3x Your Digital Marketing Campaign Results

See More Whitepapers
Search Our Site

Receive daily marketing news & analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • Transformation
  • Operations
  • Data
  • Experience
  • Performance
  • Management
  • All Topics
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX

About

  • What is MarTech
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.