Facebook users begin deactivating accounts in shame after embarrassing glitch exposed snoopers

Facebook users have deactivated their accounts after a embarrassing glitch which revealed who they had been ‘stalking’ on the site.

A bug sent automatic friend requests to any profile pages ‘snoopers’ had viewed, leaving users scrambling to cancel the requests as quickly as possible.

One user said: ‘This is a cool new Facebook fact. If you check someone’s Facebook that you’re not friends with, it automatically sends a friend request for you. It’s true because I’m now friends with my ex-husband’s wife’.

Another Facebook user wrote: ‘Got a friend request from an ex – thanks Facebook for letting me know they are still obsessed with me.’

Warnings about the glitch have been shared on the platform as well as on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. However, for many it was already too late with school friends, ex-partners and colleagues bombarded with ‘awkward’ friend requests.

Others described their hearts ‘racing’ as they rushed to see if they had been caught.

One user said: ‘Too sodding late. I can’t show my face ever again. I want to die’.

Another wrote: ‘Deactivated my Facebook because I can’t remember whether or not I was stalking people when it was glitching and requesting them as friends.’

Facebook has apologised for the issue which was triggered by an app update, and urged users to review pending friend requests in their activity log and cancel them if needed.

One social media user called it the ‘funniest thing Facebook has ever done’, while others called it ’embarrassing’ and ‘awkward’.

Facebook users have deactivated their accounts after a embarrassing glitch which revealed who they had been ‘stalking’ on the site

Acknowledging the issue, Facebook urged users to review friend requests in their activity log

So facebook now automatically sends friend request when you see someone¿s profile¿. We did the test with random people and if you check your friend request sent they appear there¿ #Facebook pic.twitter.com/vN7r8T1uw8

— ¿MONTSE (Taylor¿s Version) (@beachybones) May 12, 2023

A spokesperson for Meta, the company led by Mark Zuckerberg that runs Facebook, explained the issue to The Daily Beast.

How to review friend requests on Facebook

Head to facebook.com/friends
Click ‘Friend Requests’ in the left-hand tab followed by ‘View send requests’
From here you can cancel friend requests that you’ve made
When you delete a friend request, the person who sent you the request won’t be notified

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‘We fixed a bug related to a recent app update that caused some Facebook friend requests to be sent mistakenly,’ the spokesperson said.

‘We’ve stopped this from happening and we apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.’

One user posted a short video of the glitch in action, with the friend request being made automatically just a second after the user clicked on their profile.

Other affected users posted on Twitter and TikTok about the glitch, with one calling it ‘the end of stalking’.

Another said: ‘It’s the wrong night to go through my year book and stalk’.

Another posted: ‘Imagine you stalked your ex or your enemy and they received a friend request notification.’

Some users said on social media that unwanted friend requests have since disappeared.

But if you’re still worried you’ve been affected by the technical defect, head to facebook.com/friends.

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

One affected user said ‘it’s the ‘wrong night to go through my year book and stalk’

Another posted: ‘Imagine you stalked your ex or your enemy and they received a friend request notification’

The bug sent automatic friend requests to any profile people had viewed, meaning users were scrambling to cancel them as quick as possible

‘See you in another life’: Users were left embarassed by the glitch, which punished the common habit of ‘profile snooping’

Fortunately, when you delete a friend request on Facebook, the person who sent you the request won’t be notified

Bizarre glitches on social media platforms tend to occur when engineers roll out changes or make tweaks to the user experience.

Another highly humiliating Facebook glitch last year resulted in user feeds being flooded with posts from strangers sharing content on celebrity pages.

For example, memes shared to the official Facebook page of US rapper Eminem started appearing on people’s homepages.

The problem appeared to stem from a technical issue with Facebook’s internal systems determining which posts appear in users’ news feed.

Have you been caught out by this Facebook glitch? Email [email protected]

Did YOU use Facebook between May 2007 and December 2022? The social media company likely owes you money – here’s how you can claim

You may be entitled to a piece of a $725 million settlement Meta agreed to pay in a class action lawsuit.

Eligible users are those who had a Facebook account from May 24, 2007 through December 22, 2022 – these individuals must submit a claim here by August 25, 2023.

The lawsuit, in which Meta admitted no wrongdoing, claims the social media platform made user data and data about users’ friends without permission available to third parties.

It stems from the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, which claimed the company had misused data from tens of millions of Facebook accounts by allowing access to third parties.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk