Facebook Denies Leak of Users' Private Messages

silentbrad writes "The CBC (among others) reports: "A Facebook spokesperson is denying reports that private messages sent by users on the social networking site have become public. The purported glitch began generating attention Monday after French newspaper Metro reported that private messages dating from 2007 to 2009 had become accessible to friends and acquaintances on their profile pages. Other newspapers across the country began reporting similar incidences, citing reports from the site's users. The issue may be related to Facebook moving to its Timeline layout worldwide. ... The company issued a statement in response, saying: 'A small number of users raised concerns after what they believed to be private messages appeared on their timeline. Our engineers investigated these reports and found that the messages were older wall posts that had always been visible on the users' profile pages. Facebook is satisfied that there has been no breach of user privacy.' TechCrunch.com wrote that there was no evidence the messages in question had been private, and posted an explanation from a company spokesperson. 'Every report we've seen, we've gone back and checked. We haven't seen one report that's been confirmed [of a private message being exposed]. A lot of the confusion is because before 2009 there were no likes and no comments on wall posts. People went back and forth with wall posts instead of having a conversation [in the comments of single wall post.]'"

Re:Facebook has changed a LOT

[Anonymous Coward]

I know for a fact that there were leaked messages. Private conversations between me and my girlfriend were posted to my wall when I scrolled far enough back in the history.

It's becausue Facebook used to be a walled garden

[BlackTriangle]

A protected, safe area, where you felt safe posting your phone number and home address for your fellow University students at your specific University. Now that the riff raff are allowed, it's no longer possible to have those safe semi-private conversations. People forget how protected and private it used to be, I think.