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Comment by milkshakes | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to see this. So far I've heard a lot of people make this claim yet nobody has produced any evidence of it.

An interesting point is made here: http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2012/09/facebook-private-message-le... "... many users who are still adamant the messages they saw were private and claim that Facebook is just trying to cover up its mistake by calling them all crazed liars."

I guess I am in that group, I strongly believe some of the messages I saw were originally private. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to prove this.

sure there is. it's called email.

every time you get a facebook message, you get an email. as late as 2009, those emails included the full content of the message.

Or you know, not writing shit you don't want out over Facebook, Email, IM, Twitter, HN, Reddit PM..........

Right, that will help us confirm or deny this rumor.

yes, but some people clean up their mailboxes. I know I do. Specially with something as spammy as FB email notification back in 2009. I did check my timeline and some messages there DO look like they HAD to be private - no way those kind of information would be posted on my wall. Unfortunately, i do not keep FB emails from 2009 anymore. I guess many can't prove because of this fact - deleted fb notifications from 2009/2008

Totally. What's unfathomable to me, however, is that in the age of Gmail, in this ocean full of strident accusations, not a single person has been able to produce something like this. That's all it would take.

Okay, I just checked, I have over 3.000 archived Facebook emails.

I just have to find some private post on my timeline, the corresponding email and write a blog post?

It shouldn't be hard. The email contains the body of the message. So search for the message.

Do you have any proof? Have you talked to any users? Seen any screen shots?

I haven't seen any of that. However, I have seen people having conversations on posts where it almost seems like the conversation belongs in an email.

Also, it is easy to be a troll by copying and pasting a section of the article.

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