{"id":491813,"date":"2023-05-15T11:43:07","date_gmt":"2023-05-15T09:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=491813"},"modified":"2023-05-15T11:44:25","modified_gmt":"2023-05-15T09:44:25","slug":"facebook-bug-automatically-sent-friend-requests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/491813-facebook-bug-automatically-sent-friend-requests.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook bug automatically sent friend requests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook has fixed a bug that led to some user accounts on the popular social media site automatically sending friend requests to profiles they viewed.<\/p>\n<p>Several Twitter users reported the issue after a Facebook mobile app update last week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So Facebook now automatically sends friend requests when you [view] see someone&#8217;s profile,&#8221; one impacted user <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/beachybones\/status\/1656979082721083397\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>said<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We did the test with random people, and if you check your sent friend requests, they appear there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The screen recording below shows how Facebook would automatically send a friend request if someone clicked on the profile of a user they were not friends with.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Fb is legit adding randoms if you click on their profile.<\/p>\n<p>Got a screen record here.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/facebook?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@facebook<\/a> wtf?!<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Facebook?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Facebook<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/glitch?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#glitch<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/facebookadd?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#facebookadd<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/S7lxPhQU6F\">pic.twitter.com\/S7lxPhQU6F<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bavid Mcjavid (@bavidmcjavid) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bavidmcjavid\/status\/1657023260670689280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 12, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Some users looked at the funny side of the issue, as it effectively gave away those who were &#8220;Facebook-stalking&#8221; people they were not friends with.<\/p>\n<p>Others were not as amused, describing the glitch as &#8220;absolutely terrifying&#8221;, &#8220;embarrassing&#8221;,\u00a0 and even &#8220;the Devil&#8217;s work&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook parent Meta Platforms acknowledged the bug in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/facebook-glitch-on-mobile-app-is-friending-anyone-you-view-on-phone?ref=scroll\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>statement to The Daily Beast<\/strong><\/a> on Friday, 12 May 2023.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for the tech giant said a recent app update caused the bug and that it had been patched.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve stopped this from happening, and we apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused,&#8221; the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>Subsequent to Meta&#8217;s response, Facebook removed the unsolicited pending friend requests and rolled back the friend requests that were accepted as a result of the bug.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/491181-twitter-adds-encrypted-dms-for-verified-users.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">Twitter adds encrypted DMs for verified users<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some users looked at the funny side of the issue, as it effectively gave away those who were &#8220;Facebook-stalking&#8221; people they were not friends with.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":491825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[161,17214,73842,86311,405],"class_list":["post-491813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-facebook","tag-facebook-bug","tag-meta-platforms","tag-the-daily-beast","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491813"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491847,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491813\/revisions\/491847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}