Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

So it's, again, people forgetting that they used to write wall-to-wall messages in 2009, and that they were always visible to friends?

i can confirm this too. 3 private message threads from 2009-2010 were on my wall with the privacy set to "friends". these were conversations right out of my private messages (which were also in my private messages).

i'm deleting every facebook message as a result of this, which isn't easy as it has to be done one by one.

i am in the US, but my UK friends are the ones who alerted me to it, as it was happening to them as well.

Same thing here, I'm French and lots of my friends are having the bug as well. Lots of mention in the online newspaper too. I think once it's obvious that it's real, it's going to be a big deal for Facebook...

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.

Is the quickest option a manual delete? She is freaking out.

Edit: I have set her privacy as strict as I can for now, but having pressed her on the topic, it isn't entirely certain that these messages were ever private.

My comment to her was that even if they were always on your wall, you (in hindsight) don't think they should have been. Don't let Facebook convince you that you are wrong to have thought differently. Facebook's model doesn't work like the arrow of time, memories and conversations don't fade out naturally and disappear, they just stay there permanently. And today, your present self wonders what you were thinking that made you post that. When you add that to the fact that your social graph on Facebook was different 5 years ago than it is today, it makes sense that you naturally think certain things should have been private.

In other words, you weren't fit in 2006 to know what in 2012 you would regret having posted and you aren't fit in 2012 to know what you are going to regret in 2018.

If you really are freaking out about stuff that your past self thought should be known to the world, then do your future self a favor and stop putting your life on Facebook.