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Facebook Apologizes For Bug That Temporarily Unblocked Blocked Users

The bug was active between May 29 and June 5, and the company says it's been fixed.
Posted at 6:18 PM, Jul 02, 2018
and last updated 2018-07-02 18:18:59-04

Facebook is apologizing for another privacy breach. The company said Monday that it was notifying over 800,000 users that a bug temporarily unblocked previously blocked users.

A statement said that bug was active between May 29 and June 5.

During that time period, some users were able to see certain posts from profiles that had blocked them. For example, if the posts were set to reach a wide audience, like "friends of friends," blocked users would also be able to see them. Those users could not, however, see things shared under a "friends only" setting. The company says the issue has since been resolved. 

Facebook has been on something of an apology tour lately, at least partially in an effort to create more transparency in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

It just apologized last month for automatically defaulting 14 million users' post settings to public.