Search icon

International

21st May 2023

Facebook glitch saw app send friend requests when people looked at other user’s profiles

Steve Hopkins

Facebook

‘The end of stalking.’

A Facebook glitch saw the app auto-send friend requests when users viewed other people’s profiles, in what was a nightmare scenario for some users.

‘Profile-snoopers’ were caught out when Meta fixed a bug and inadvertently created another problem. It dispatched friend requests to any profiles users had viewed.

Some users were amused by the glitch, calling it the “funniest thing” the platform had ever done, while others, who were perhaps looking at profiles they shouldn’t have been, labelled it “embarrassing” and “awkward”.

Meta explained what happened to The Daily Beast: “We fixed a bug related to a recent app update that caused some Facebook friend requests to be sent mistakenly.”

The spokesperson added: “We’ve stopped this from happening and we apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

Anyone still concerned about making friends with users they would rather not, can sort the situation at facebook.com/friends.

From there, click ‘Friend Requests’ in the left-hand tab followed by ‘View send requests’ to review the pending requests.

Related links.

Topics:

Facebook