Facebook’s faux pas ‘kills’ millions

FACEBOOK accidentally declared its founder Mark Zuckerberg and many other users dead on Friday, acknowledging after fixing the problem that it had committed a “terrible error”.

“For a brief period today, a message meant for memorialised profiles was mistakenly posted to other accounts,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

“This was a terrible error that we have now fixed.”

Media reports indicated that some two million errant memorials were posted on profile pages.

Even Facebook co-founder and CEO Zuckerberg was memorialised in a message expressing hope that people who loved him would take comfort in posts people shared in tribute to his life.

“Poor Mark,” read an @JudiD23 tweet that included weeping face emojis. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.” The mistaken memorial notices contained links to forms that can be submitted to have people’s accounts modified into online memorials after they die.

Some said that the mistake shook confidence in Facebook’s feature for checking on people after disasters — or its claim that hoax stories were not a worry at the social network.

A not-dead-yet Zuckerberg had defended the integrity of News Feed stories during an onstage chat at a Techonomy conference in California the night before being memorialised on his Facebook profile page.

Zuckerberg had rejected the idea that bogus stories shared at the social network paved a path of victory for US president-elect Donald Trump.

“The idea that fake news on Facebook, which is a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way I think is a pretty crazy idea,” Zuckerberg said.

The News Feed at Facebook has evolved from its early days of being about sharing personal titbits with friends or family to becoming a platform for breaking news. — AFP