Facebook announced on Monday that it found a new bug in its system which automatically unblocked unwelcome users.
According to Gizmodo, the bug which was active from May 29 to June 5, this year enabled unwanted and blocked persons to send messages to the users of Facebook, who were unwilling to have a chat to those individuals whom they had blocked. The bug allowed blocked individuals to view public posts and shared photos with friends.
The privacy of about 800,000 Facebook users was at stake before the bug was fixed. Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan expressed deep regrets for this incident after the trouble was fixed.
CNBC stated Facebook apologized for the error.
"We know that the ability to block someone is important - and we'd like to apologize and explain what happened." However, Egan said 83 percent of the users who were affected by the bug had only one person they had blocked temporarily unblocked, and the person who was unblocked was not permitted to reinstate friendship with the affected user(s).
He further quoted: "Someone who was unblocked might have been able to contact people on Messenger who had blocked them."
Facebook has recently been in the news for various issues ranging from unwanted contents, privacy violation, and potentially harmful bugs.
According to Egan, the bug was handled by the authorities as soon as it was discovered. Facebook was also able to reach out to "over 800,000" users to let them know about the error.
Potential sources and tech experts were curious to know whether it was Facebook which discovered the bug or stemmed from a user complaint.
Facebook, however, refused to give any proper briefings on this question. It added that it's planning to take strong steps to abolish all the faults in its blocking system and also planning to implement new measures to avoid such harassments and bullying actions.
