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Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

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Re: Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

#81

Post by randartie »

lionleaf wrote: post #57

I too thought I found private messages on my timeline. But it turns out they were indeed wallposts. It shows how much facebook has changed from a friends-only environment where you used the wall of people for semi-private chats, to a place where you have to be carefull and try to present yourself in a decent manner. Noone would ever use the wall in the same way it was used back then.

I 100% think that this is what is happening. Before Facebook's chat feature became as prominent as it is, the number of 'trivial' wall-to-wall posts was very high, such as 'hey, what what you been up to?' or 'Thanks again'. These posts look like 'messages' because these days you would normally just send it as a message.

So much press on this 'bug' but so little proof

Re: Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

#82

Post by AlexMuir »

You know what's most interesting to me here? The tug between trusting my social network, and trusting FB and my own knowledge.

My friends are ASSURING me that these are private messages. But every media outlet is now running the story that this is not true. And I have seen no evidence. So what do I believe?

Re: Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

#83

Post by lawnchair_larry »

zabar wrote: post #75
AlexMuir wrote: post #38

If I could short FB I would do so immediately. The fallout from this is going to be immense and long-term. I'd imagine they are facing two choices at FB right now: 1. Take the site down and prevent any further leaks. But accept the absolutely massive flak that would come from that. or 2. Continue to let the leaking happen and try to hotfix the bug. Be accused of failing to get a handle on it, but perhaps get away wit…

Probably the best solution for them at this point would be something in between, like hiding all friend's post on every user's wall instead of letting every user to that manually.

But facebook is about "sharing" with advertisers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfriends. They don't want less "sharing."

Re: Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

#84

Post by RobAtticus »

tisme wrote: post #79
RobAtticus wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty easy to redact a message so as to show they are the same message but without giving away sensitive info. Hell, some of these are probably benign messages like "sure meet you there" or something anyway. Your analogy is ridiculous.

Yes, but 'sure meet you there' wouldn't be quite juicy enough to satisfy the 'that was not private enough so therefore it wasn't a private message' crowd. With the way sharding works I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing was real but only affected an extremely small portion of the users, and in such a way that stuff that had been pushed into the mists of time made it back to the present somehow. That alone would…

"Yes, but 'sure meet you there' wouldn't be quite juicy enough to satisfy the 'that was not private enough so therefore it wasn't a private message' crowd."

The whole point of showing it next to a screenshot of the email or the message in the private inbox is to confirm that it is PRIVATE regardless of the actual content. There might be somebody out there who has an unusual interest in other people's private messages, but I think the vast majority of people are looking for something a bit more real than "this happened to me."

Re: Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

#85

Post by icebraining »

drbawb wrote: post #43
iyulaev wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, a few weeks ago I was joking that if Facebook went through my private messages, I wouldn't be surprised, based on how scummy they've behaved in the past. Now apparently they've done this, except also shared everything with the whole world. I don't think I have to say this, but this is totally, 100% unacceptable. Back then I was using FB almost as a personal e-mail; the consequences of something like this could b…

This is where someone typically parrots: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." -- Eric Schmidt; Executive Chairman, Google, Inc. To which I reply: I'm sorry, but my personal matters are personal _expressly because_ I've found people to be ignorant, bigoted, biased, or otherwise untrustworthy when it comes to matters of my identity. The fact tha…

As much as I disagree with Schmidt about true anonymity being "too dangerous," I have to point out that he said anyone, not everyone, and he was specifically mentioning the government.

Re: Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

#87

Post by danielweber »

AlexMuir wrote: post #74
soupboy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Update: Facebook Confirms No Private Messages Appearing On Timeline. They’re Old Wall Posts."

So TC have basically rewritten their entire article rather than add an update but anyway. It's probably not private messages - but it is messages that people think should be private TODAY. But it doesn't really matter - it's perception that matters here. And also I guess this is an illustration of how people's attitudes to FB have changed over time. "I would NEVER have shared this publicly." they say. But either they…

So TC have basically rewritten their entire article rather than add an update but anyway.

There is no good way to answer "how do we correct a story that was completely wrong," but this seems to be a decent enough way to do it.

Re: Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

#88

Post by ErrantX »

It might be only certain users affected; I have trawled through all the '09 posts appearing on my feed, and all of them are legit wall posts from then.

Indeed; it was actually interesting to see how different Facebook was back then. So much more intimately public in terms of messaging and back/forth.

Re: Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

#89

Post by danielweber »

RobAtticus wrote: post #67
tisme wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Same here, my wife just called me crying because a large number of very private conversations she had with friends in the past are now visible on her timeline." Sounds pretty clear to me, I figure that the lady knows which conversation were private and which weren't, if only by their content.

Look at his edit, she isn't entirely sure they were private. Amazing how many people have "confirmed" it but nobody has posted anything verifiable. Just a screenshot of the private message inbox/email + the post on the timeline. Redact as much as you want. I've gone through the messages on my timeline, and truth be told I don't remember the context of a lot of the messages, so it wouldn't surprise me if people don't…

This feels like the "everyone go find weird stuff in your Wendy's food now" situation all over again. Except explained more by incompetence than malice.

I don't even like FB, but come on people.

Re: Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

#90

Post by lionleaf »

randartie wrote: post #81
lionleaf wrote: post #57

I too thought I found private messages on my timeline. But it turns out they were indeed wallposts. It shows how much facebook has changed from a friends-only environment where you used the wall of people for semi-private chats, to a place where you have to be carefull and try to present yourself in a decent manner. Noone would ever use the wall in the same way it was used back then.

I 100% think that this is what is happening. Before Facebook's chat feature became as prominent as it is, the number of 'trivial' wall-to-wall posts was very high, such as 'hey, what what you been up to?' or 'Thanks again'. These posts look like 'messages' because these days you would normally just send it as a message. So much press on this 'bug' but so little proof

Yeah, I'm really certain too. Some of them seem surprisingly private though, so no wonder people get scared. It's still a bad thing that friend banter from long ago suddenly shows up for all your new friends / colleagues / family to see...
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