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Comment by click170 | Hacker News Reader

Im surprised at Facebooks response, which is basically, "Your all crazy and there is no problem".

Hum

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/24/reports-facebook-users-seei...

"TechCrunch has investigated more, and we have found no evidence that the allegedly exposed posts were actually private messages. Their email receipts show they were in fact wall posts, and the posts do not appear in users’ Facebook Messages inbox.

Facebook also says in no uncertain terms that there is absolutely no privacy bug. What people are seeing are old Wall postings, not private messages. A spokesperson tells TechCrunch:

“Every report we’ve seen, we’ve gone back and checked. We haven’t seen one report that’s been confirmed [of a private message being exposed]. A lot of the confusion is because before 2009 there were no likes and no comments on wall posts. People went back and forth with wall posts instead of having a conversation [in the comments of single wall post.]

A small number of users raised concerns after what they mistakenly 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. Facebook is satisfied that there has been no breach of user privacy.”"

This is why real reporters actually check into news stories first before publishing. I have yet to find a single shred of evidence anywhere that shows this has been verified and repeated. And I've been looking pretty hard for the last 30 minutes.

> And I've been looking pretty hard for the last 30 minutes.

You need not look so far, it's right here in this thread. People are confirming some of their private messages set to 'friends' only to be world visible on their timeline.

They aren't confirming anything. People are looking at wallposts and thinking/remembering they are private messages, but everyone that has tried to verify using email notifications has found only wallposts. Until someone shows that a verifiable private message showed up publicly, than there's no reason to continue spreading this. If it's a problem, it can easily be confirmed. Even Techcrunch, who criticised Facebook's response have now backpedaled.

"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 remember if something was private.

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.

No, people are making the same mistake the TC reporters made.

Look through the "private messages" of your friends. The dead giveaway is that a huge number of them are happy birthday posts. People post those on walls.

And yet not one person has posted any evidence. Not one screen shoot. Which has been asked by a few people already. Show me the screen shots. Show me the screen shots.

Yes, random internet strangers, please reveal the conversations you specifically intended only one person to receive for the whole world to review!

Interesting. Did you register just now to post this response?

yup due to a friend that puts way to much value in posters opinions here vs using logic and his own mind. People are jumping the bandwaggon of facebook hate on something that isn't verified based on reports that make a lot more sense that its old wall to wall posts and not personal messages. The lack of any real evidence including from those posting here that can confirm yet cant show screen shots of this is just more cause of concern this is just bandwaggon hopping. I have no love for facebook. None at all. But I am not going to go nuts over something that isn't proven in the slightest.

To me it looks that they were trying to buy some time. Trying to slow down the propagation of the story. But I think by now it's not fixed and it's obvious that it's very real, they will have to find something else...

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