Fingerprints (Photo credit: kevin dooley)
The following is a guest post by Reese Jones. Her bio is at the end of the article.
Facebook users have blamed a bug for displaying private messages on their public timelines. Despite investigations from Facebook engineers which have proved this not to be the case, many users are still convinced that messages sent to their Facebook inboxes as early as 2007 are now showing up on their public wall space, where they are visible to friends and even strangers.
The reported issue was first flagged up by France’s Metro newspaper, with many Facebook account holders feeling alarmed at the prospect of private communication now appearing as messages ‘posted by friends’ directly onto their Facebook wall. However, Facebook has since reassured users that there is no privacy glitch, and that the messages which some users believed to be private were actually publicly displayed as wall posts all along.
It is thought that the confusion may be due to changes in the way in which wall posts have worked over recent years. Back in 2007, 2008 and 2009 (when many of the posts in question were dated) there were no options to comment or ‘Like’ a public post. Instead, users posted messages back and forth, directly on to each other’s wall spaces – a system which was relatively similar to that of private in-box messaging. This may be why some believed that their private messages had been publicly revealed. With the timeline update having recently been rolled out globally, it is now much easier for users around the world to take a look at the messages which were posted several years ago.
What may now appear to be a particularly private message could well have been something that you, or your friends, were more than happy to share publicly just a few years ago. This could also have something to do with the fact that Facebook was relatively new to many at this point, and was largely popular with students and young people. Nowadays, you are more likely to be Facebook friends with everyone from your boss to your grandparents, meaning that many are more cautious about what they choose to post publicly.
Reese Jones is a tech and gadget lover, a die-hard fan of iOS and console games. She started her writing venture last month and writes about everything from quick tech tips, to mobile-specific news from the likes of O2 to tech-related DIY. See more of 02′s blog at http://www.o2.co.uk