Facebook private messages made public

[ALF]

Is this really happening? All I can say for sure is that it's happening to me.

Last night I saw there were some news reports popping up in the afternoon that Facebook had a glitch where former private messages were visible on users' walls.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/24/re...showing-up-on-timelines-as-posted-by-friends/

Facebook denied the 'glitch' saying that is was a feature that transposed accounts from the old wall system to the new, and that FB walls have always been public.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/25/facebook-private-messages-published-false

I've seen a few very old but private messages I wrote to close friends on their walls this morning. It gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach to know they won't all be eradicated unless each of those people takes the time to hide their walls from their timeline. It's creeptastic.

Of course, this gives heaps of ammunition to those proud to boast at having never given neither byte nor bit of data to the social media giant... to those I can only express envy for never having bothered with social media.

De-activation of an account doesn't seem to help because it doesn't retroactively stop your sent messages from being read on anyone else's wall. That's the really sketchy issue... that you can control your own wall, but not your posts on the walls of others. I scrubbed my entire timeline, one piece at a time. Everything went "hide from timeline".

Here's an article on how to fix it, but besides scrubbing your own wall, the damage is done. There are heaps of people out there with abandoned accounts that may have incriminating posts open to public view... for what have may been years now. It just seems like no one has dug through them and noticed yet... kind of incredible, really.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...ooded-with-complaints-after-messages-bug.html

...well, they are fucking noticing today!

FB's position on this is very cold and unapologetic. What's true is that people don't really remember how wall posts used to work... but that didn't stop me from reading several drunken apology emails that wouldn't be left on anyone's wall today!!

“A small number of users raised concerns after what they believed to be private messages appeared on their timeline. Our engineers investigated these reports and found that the messages were older wall posts that had always been visible on the users’ profile pages,” reads a statement."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/tech...-private-messages-made-public/article4565889/

"There may be messages in Inbox or chat conversations on internal Facebook. These messages are found mixed comments from friends on the wall," writes Metro France (per Google Translate).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...timeline_n_1909813.html?utm_hp_ref=technology
It appeared that members were shown old public "wall" postings that they wrongly believed were private messages. Observers said the outcry showed how the way people use Facebook has changed, as they have become more aware of their privacy online.

Facebook’s director of engineering, Andrew Bosworth, aimed to calm the panic.
"In case there was any concern, these are just wall posts and not personal messages… people just forget how we used to use the wall!," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...ooded-with-complaints-after-messages-bug.html

 

[KimMH]

how utterly craptastic. everyone posts something they wish they hadn't once in a while. this will certainly not help fb's image.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Yeah, it doesn't sound like these were actual private messages. I can't even imagine how you'd do that by accident--they are most likely in totally separate databases from wall/timeline posts.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

If you follow that first link in the OP, the tech crunch article has been updated to confirm that it turned out to be wall posts.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

If you follow that first link in the OP, the tech crunch article has been updated to confirm that it turned out to be wall posts.

That makes sense.

Facebook has screwed up in the past where they change the way privacy settings work and take wall posts that used to be private and make them public. Well, I should put "screwed up" in quotes, because they don't seem to care all that much about their users' privacy.

To be fair, anyone concerned about their privacy should either not use Facebook or not be doing anything on it they wouldn't want the whole world to see.

 

[KimMH]

yeah, I checked mine and no messages on my timeline. it would still be up
setting to think that stuff you thought was private isn't. it's like having to think before you speak. oh, wait . .

 

[doubleohfive]

To be fair, anyone concerned about their privacy should either not use Facebook or not be doing anything on it they wouldn't want the whole world to see.

This was pretty much the extent of all mrcoaster would say about this whenever someone's sex tape got leaked or some melodrama came to light that would have otherwise remained private. I agreed with it then, I agree with it no.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

To be fair, anyone concerned about their privacy should either not use Facebook or not be doing anything on it they wouldn't want the whole world to see.

This was pretty much the extent of all mrcoaster would say about this whenever someone's sex tape got leaked or some melodrama came to light that would have otherwise remained private. I agreed with it then, I agree with it no.

I don't consider sex tapes to be the same kind of thing. With Facebook, you are using a service with known terms and a known privacy policy. They tell you what they are doing with your information.

With sex tapes, sometimes one party (possibly both parties) isn't even aware they are being recorded. Other times, both parties are aware, but it's allowed with the understanding that it not be publicized or shown to anyone else. And then breakups happen, and the vengeance begins.

I don't believe you deserve to have your privacy violated just because you agreed to be recorded having sex one time. If Facebook did that--said they would protect certain information, then blatantly did not--it would be illegal. Pretty sure it's illegal when a private party does it, too.

 

[Rhaven]

It never fails to amaze me how many different changes FB fosters onto it's users. Now private info is posted to an area for all to see.
While I don't have anything posted there, I'm sure thousands do. What a mess!

 

[Robert Maxwell]

It never fails to amaze me how many different changes FB fosters onto it's users. Now private info is posted to an area for all to see.
While I don't have anything posted there, I'm sure thousands do. What a mess!

Except that's not what happened.

 

[Rhaven]

It never fails to amaze me how many different changes FB fosters onto it's users. Now private info is posted to an area for all to see.
While I don't have anything posted there, I'm sure thousands do. What a mess!

Except that's not what happened.

I thought I read private messages were posted to the walls of users. Did I get it wrong?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

It never fails to amaze me how many different changes FB fosters onto it's users. Now private info is posted to an area for all to see.
While I don't have anything posted there, I'm sure thousands do. What a mess!

Except that's not what happened.

I thought I read private messages were posted to the walls of users. Did I get it wrong?

Yes. Old wall posts showed up on people's timelines after they were converted. They were confused because wall posts, when converted to the new timeline format, don't look quite the same.

No one's private messages were converted to wall posts. From a technical standpoint, this shouldn't even be possible to do by accident.

 

[Rhaven]

Except that's not what happened.

I thought I read private messages were posted to the walls of users. Did I get it wrong?

Yes. Old wall posts showed up on people's timelines after they were converted. They were confused because wall posts, when converted to the new timeline format, don't look quite the same.

No one's private messages were converted to wall posts. From a technical standpoint, this shouldn't even be possible to do by accident.

Well then, that's good.
I didn't like the time line format when it was introduced, I still don't.

 

[ALF]

Except that's not what happened.

I thought I read private messages were posted to the walls of users. Did I get it wrong?

Yes. Old wall posts showed up on people's timelines after they were converted. They were confused because wall posts, when converted to the new timeline format, don't look quite the same.

No one's private messages were converted to wall posts. From a technical standpoint, this shouldn't even be possible to do by accident.

If you're on FB, go to a close friend's page and check their timeline between 2007-2009. read through the "XXX people posted on XXX's wall." Just read a few of the posts. With some it's very obvious that the tone and content of the posts are intended for one person only.

I've seen stuff like, "I'm getting out of my shitty job, I just had a (secret job) interview, don't tell my co-workers" to "Yeah, I get 50% off my new job, hit me up for some discounts." "Nah, I don't have a crush on her anymore." How anyone could not regard those kinds of posts as intended to be private is beyond me. I understand that FB didn't have an inbox messaging system until after 2009, what I don't get is how FB doesn't see its a problem to retroactively make all these posts public. All one has to do is read them to see they aren't really suitable.

It's interesting that these features lay dormant for years until the French gov't freaked out about it yesterday...
http://www.zdnet.com/facebook-denie...-messages-as-it-faces-french-fury-7000004756/

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I thought I read private messages were posted to the walls of users. Did I get it wrong?

Yes. Old wall posts showed up on people's timelines after they were converted. They were confused because wall posts, when converted to the new timeline format, don't look quite the same.

No one's private messages were converted to wall posts. From a technical standpoint, this shouldn't even be possible to do by accident.

If you're on FB, go to a close friend's page and check their timeline between 2007-2009. read through the "XXX people posted on XXX's wall." Just read a few of the posts. With some it's very obvious that the tone and content of the posts are intended for one person only.

I've seen stuff like, "I'm getting out of my shitty job, I just had a (secret job) interview, don't tell my co-workers" to "Yeah, I get 50% off my new job, hit me up for some discounts." "Nah, I don't have a crush on her anymore." How anyone could not regard those kinds of posts as intended to be private is beyond me. I understand that FB didn't have an inbox messaging system until after 2009, what I don't get is how FB doesn't see its a problem to retroactively make all these posts public. All one has to do is read them to see they aren't really suitable.

I did and I saw nothing of the sort. Some examples would be nice.

 

[ALF]

Yes. Old wall posts showed up on people's timelines after they were converted. They were confused because wall posts, when converted to the new timeline format, don't look quite the same.

No one's private messages were converted to wall posts. From a technical standpoint, this shouldn't even be possible to do by accident.

If you're on FB, go to a close friend's page and check their timeline between 2007-2009. read through the "XXX people posted on XXX's wall." Just read a few of the posts. With some it's very obvious that the tone and content of the posts are intended for one person only.

I've seen stuff like, "I'm getting out of my shitty job, I just had a (secret job) interview, don't tell my co-workers" to "Yeah, I get 50% off my new job, hit me up for some discounts." "Nah, I don't have a crush on her anymore." How anyone could not regard those kinds of posts as intended to be private is beyond me. I understand that FB didn't have an inbox messaging system until after 2009, what I don't get is how FB doesn't see its a problem to retroactively make all these posts public. All one has to do is read them to see they aren't really suitable.

I did and I saw nothing of the sort. Some examples would be nice.

RobertMaxwell, I have read that some accounts aren't affected, which is good news for you. Personally I have never used "fuck" on FB publicly because connected with family I don't see the need to expose them to my own vulgarity. But sure enough in 2008, aren't I going off like a drunken sailor to one of my close friends and it's public on his wall.

I'll have screencaps to prove my point, in the meantime here's a French journalists' experience.... her screen capture aren't in English, though.
http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/09/24/facebook-users-seeing-private-messages-showing-timelines/

From PCworld:
"Though there's no real story here -- there's been no Facebook privacy snafu, and private messages are still private -- the fact that people actually forgot they'd posted personal-sounding messages on public walls raises a few questions. For example, how much of our online social lives are (still) on the Internet, ready to come back and bite us in the butt at any moment?"
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2010...but-maybe-its-time-for-some-housekeeping.html

From thenextweb:
"Update at 2:55PM EST: Just like Anna Heim, readers are finding Facebook’s statement hard to believe. They are pointing to addresses and phone numbers appearing on their Timeline, as well as showing up on their friends’ Timelines, which would have only been sent as private messages. I have contacted Facebook again for further information."

They are old wall posts, written privately.
Republished publicly.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

If you're on FB, go to a close friend's page and check their timeline between 2007-2009. read through the "XXX people posted on XXX's wall." Just read a few of the posts. With some it's very obvious that the tone and content of the posts are intended for one person only.

I've seen stuff like, "I'm getting out of my shitty job, I just had a (secret job) interview, don't tell my co-workers" to "Yeah, I get 50% off my new job, hit me up for some discounts." "Nah, I don't have a crush on her anymore." How anyone could not regard those kinds of posts as intended to be private is beyond me. I understand that FB didn't have an inbox messaging system until after 2009, what I don't get is how FB doesn't see its a problem to retroactively make all these posts public. All one has to do is read them to see they aren't really suitable.

I did and I saw nothing of the sort. Some examples would be nice.

RobertMaxwell, I have read that some accounts aren't affected, which is good news for you. Personally I have never used "fuck" on FB publicly because connected with family I don't see the need to expose them to my own vulgarity. But sure enough in 2008, aren't I going off like a drunken sailor to one of my close friends and it's public on his wall.

I'll have screencaps to prove my point, in the meantime here's a French journalists' experience.... her screen capture aren't in English, though.
http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/09/24/facebook-users-seeing-private-messages-showing-timelines/

From thenextweb:
"Update at 2:55PM EST: Just like Anna Heim, readers are finding Facebook’s statement hard to believe. They are pointing to addresses and phone numbers appearing on their Timeline, as well as showing up on their friends’ Timelines, which would have only been sent as private messages. I have contacted Facebook again for further information."

I just went to a couple friends' pages and I see what could be private messages in a similar format, but it's not totally clear.

If that really is what's happening, then I stand corrected and Facebook goofed big time!

 

[Mooch]

I think the simple answer is that people are more aware now of how public Facebook is, that and they have bad memories. It's changed a lot over the years.

Since I don't use Facebook much, it's pretty easy for me to go and see all the private messages (there's only 15 or so) I have sent people over the years, and they aren't on anyone's wall.

 

[Drago-Kazov]

Thank goodness i am not on Facebook, i was on messenger once but i rarely speak uberlong on the phone so...

I am pretty sure Google is spying on me though.

 

[Alpha Romeo]

Seems like this was pretty well debunked. Went back and looked on a few peoples walls and there aren't any private messages that I can see on them. There are old wall posts that are all jumbled up and out of context. That seems to be the gist of what everyone has found.