I’m not one to post unverified or controversial rumors on the blog, but this one has been bugging me so much that I couldn’t help but put it to the readers to see if anyone had updates on this.
Last week it was brought to my attention by a friend, that if you go through your timeline in some of the archived years on the right side (2011, 2010, etc.) that you could see all the wall posts in one place (cool.) but also, some of the private messages were showing up in the mix.
This started spreading like wildfire- and friends of mine were reporting that they had seen private messages appearing on their timeline in the archived section for years past, scary right? For some people I talked to, very personal messages about their marriages, jobs, etc. were appearing on old sections of their timeline….and they swore up and down that this information would NEVER have been posted publicly via comments or status updates, yet they insisted it was visible.
Others, both that I know personally and on the internet, had claimed that no private messages appeared anywhere on their Facebook page than where it belonged. Additionally, Facebook, TechCrunch & Snopes insist that this is just a rumor… so who to believe?
People have argued that we’re “technologically stupid” and don’t know the difference, especially over a long period of time, between what was posted publicly and privately or that this is just the act of panic from paranoid social media users. I on the other hand, aired on the side of caution and hid my old wall posts in the archives just in case.
If you head over to Rage Against The Minivan, they include this pic with the article where they claim their personal messages appeared publicly…and feel free to read the insane amount of heated comments that follow! It gets intense!
Again, I’m not sure if this is TRUE, yet a number of my friends (and commenters on RATM) have reported that personal stuff was leaked. I have posted this to see if anyone knows the skinny or has feedback.
Please, do NOT panic and read through the article without freaking out since it’s a hot button issue where there is a lot of confusion…make your own decision and check it out for yourself!
One of my friends also posted about this, and I went through and checked my timeline. I was so paranoid, at first I thought it really was private messages — there was inside jokes and phone numbers and specific meeting times & places, etc. but after looking for REALLY private messages and not being able to find them, I decided it was just wall posts and my friends & I were just a lot more careless back then (that said, I only keep about 200 friends on fb so it’s pretty private anyway.. and for the past 2 years or so I have had it set so NO ONE can post on my wall but me).
People are freaking out over nothing and are confused about what they wrote 5 years ago.
I don’t think I was affected, but now that I’m reading your post I’m gonna check my Facebook and make sure it’s all good.
I recently read an article about this. If Facebook accidentally leaked private messages, they could easily write code to fix it. People really just forgot what they posted on Facebook 8 years ago when it was a community closed to select college students. The article is: https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-has-a-festering-global-problem-with-no-solution-2012-9
I haven’t been affected thus far, but i think it’s important to keep our privacy and confidentiality in check.
I haven’t been affected thus far, but i think it’s important to keep our privacy and confidentiality in check. The rights of the consumers remain as a priority, even in an online community. (bg)
This is scary, I’ll have to check mine!!! I didn’t even hear about this.
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