Meta Issues Mea Culpa Over Facebook Friend Request Glitch

Meta has apologized for a glitch that Facebook users said sent automatic friend requests to any profile they viewed. “We fixed a bug related to a recent app update that caused some Facebook friend requests to be sent mistakenly,” a spokesperson for Meta told The Daily Beast Friday. “We’ve stopped this from happening and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.” Numerous Facebook users took to social media early on Friday to complain about the massive privacy breach, which some branded “the end of stalking.” “Facebook letting your stalkers be known today!” one user posted on the platform, while another called it “the funniest thing Facebook has ever done.” Others were less gleeful about the apparent technical issue, calling it “awkward” and “embarrassing.” Some users said Facebook sent a request to a person they were trying to block. “Surely this is a privacy issue!” another user complained. A number of Facebook users said they had deactivated their accounts. This latest bug comes as Facebook’s parent company Meta is in the midst of mass layoffs, which have seen the company cut at least 13 percent of its staff, firing more than 11,000 people. Last month, a glitch in Facebook ads overcharged customers and forced the company to briefly stop all advertising. In November, 2022, users reported seeing an uptick in people commenting on celebrity pages in their feed, even if they did not follow the commenter or the celebrities. At the time, Facebook described it as “trouble” caused by “a configuration change.”