Bug Caused 14M Facebook Users' Sharing Setting to Be Set to Public by Default

Facebook admitted on Thursday that last month, a bug forced the sharing setting of around 14 million social media users to be set to public. Only posts that were yet to be shared were affected by the bug.

There are several options Facebook users have in choosing who can view their posts. Those who want a more private setting may opt for the friends-only setup. Meanwhile, posting in the “Public” setting lets anyone view a user's updates, even those who are not on their Facebook friends list.

However, Facebook said that these settings were bypassed last month due to a bug, CNN reports. The said technical error practically set the default privacy settings to public and affected 14 million users. The bug was active for a total of four days, from May 18 to 22, before Facebook employees identified the flaw.

"We recently found a bug that automatically suggested posting publicly when some people were creating their Facebook posts," Facebook chief privacy officer Erin Egan said. "We have fixed this issue and starting today we are letting everyone affected know and asking them to review any posts they made during that time. To be clear, this bug did not impact anything people had posted before -- and they could still choose their audience just as they always have."

According to the report, the bug took effect when Facebook tested a new feature on the social media platform.

As a remedy, Facebook opted to set all affected profiles to private, even those whose owners may have actually wanted their posts to be shared publicly. The whole process took five days to be completed.

Meanwhile, Facebook has also notified affected users by sending out a "Please Review Your Posts" message upon logging in. They can then open a new page that contains all their posted updates at the time when the bug was still active so they can review those and execute their preferred audience settings.