Facebook Bug Could Have Unblocked People You Previously Blocked

When you choose to block someone on social media, it's usually for a good reason. Maybe you just don't get along with them, they post upsetting content or maybe they have harassed you in the past. Whatever the reason, most Facebook users probably want the people they block to stay blocked.

That was not the case for 800,000 Facebook users.

The social media giant said in an announcement on Monday that the privacy settings for these users had been affected for eight days, from May 29 to June 5.  The bug allowed people who had been previously blocked on Facebook and the Messenger app, to become unblocked, giving them to see and message the profiles of those that had blocked them.

While the bug has since been fixed, during that period, 83 percent of people affected by the glitch had one person become unblocked, while the rest had to deal with a few more unwelcome guests.

Facebook further explained the bug on Twitter: 

A bug mistakenly deleted some of these associations across Facebook and Messenger, which caused blocks to be lost.

— Facebook (@facebook) July 2, 2018

The bug wasn't concentrated to one geographic area. Instead, users were affected randomly across the world, and should receive a notification from Facebook letting them know what happened and encouraging them to check their blocked list.