Facebook unlocks the contacts of 800,000 users by mistake


Facebook unlocks the contacts of 800,000 users by mistake


The ruling, which took place between May 29 and June 5, adds to the various scandals related to privacy in the company



The social network Facebook has admitted this Monday that it unblocked the blocked contacts of 800,000 users over several days, an error that, he assured, has already been corrected. In a statement, the company reports that the massive unblocking occurred between May 29 and June 5 and that "this problem has been resolved and everyone has been blocked again."

The social network said that in 83% of cases only one user was unblocked and added that it is notifying the 800,000 affected of its failure. The Silicon Valley company also claimed that the error "did not restore friendships that had been cut" with the locks, but it did admit that unlocked users could access shared content through third parties and get in touch.

The admission of these failures of Facebook occurs at a delicate time for the company, punctuated by various scandals related to privacy.

The last one exploded in March with Cambridge Analytica, a British consultancy that used data from Facebook to develop psychological profiles of voters that supposedly sold, among others, to the campaign of the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, during the 2016 elections.

 This scandal forced the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, to appear before the US Congress and the European Parliament, and be scrutinized by numerous countries, which have accused the company of failing to protect the personal data of about 87 million users around the world.

The investigation continues

Precisely, US authorities have expanded the research on data leakage to Cambridge Analytica to focus more on the decisions taken by the social network, as reported Monday local newspaper The Washington Post.

The research is now focused on the information given by Facebook about the use made of the data in relation to the British consultancy.

"We are cooperating with several senior officials from the United States and the United Kingdom, among other countries. We have appeared publicly, we have answered all the questions and we have ensured that we will continue to collaborate, "a representative of Facebook told the Reuters news agency.

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