(Image source: CNET)

BY MALLORY PERRYMAN

You're watching multisource tech news analysis from Newsy.

Another Facebook rumor has been circling the mill.

HLN makes it sound like a doozy.

Anchor (HLN): “A huge Facebook alert is out! ...People started warning others yesterday the phone numbers of all their contacts is visible for everyone on the site.”

Like a lot of rumors-- it’s not totally true. Mashable explains-- the rumor stems from Facebook’s “contacts” service- which has actually been around for a long time.

“Contacts uses your mobile phone contacts to match your friends’ Facebook profiles with their numbers. If a friend hasn’t included her number on her Facebook profile, it looks as though Facebook has just given you her number when in reality it came from your own phone.”

Gawker breaks it down this way...

“So, all the phone numbers in your cell phone are technically ‘on Facebook.’ However, the numbers aren't visible to the world and/or stalkers—they're only visible to you...this isn't an ALL CAPS-WORTHY SITUATION.”

So your friends digits aren’t exactly out in the open-- but they are in Facebook’s database. The Wall Street Journal’s Shayndi Raice  says-- this only contributes to Facebook’s shaky rep on privacy issues.

Shayndi Raice (The Wall Street Journal): “People think that Facebook is doing all sorts of things with their information. In some cases, maybe they are, in a lot of cases I think they aren’t but there’s still this general distrust. And so you constantly see these status updates that Facebook is doing something new and go here go there to protect yourself.”

Finally- The New York Times suggests, this scare could have been avoided with a little PR.

“So if you’re Facebook, you think like engineers, and this is where Facebook often gets into trouble — not because they necessarily did a bad thing, but because they didn’t explain themselves well enough.”

The New York Times article explains how you can remove the phone number feature. While you’re there-- remember to “like” Newsy for updates on the biggest tech news throughout the day.
 

'Like' Newsy on Facebook for updates in your news feed.

Get more multisource video news analysis from Newsy.

Transcript by Newsy