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Facebook Glitch Allowed Access to Private Photos

... and Mark Zuckerberg himself learned the hard way

By John Johnson, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 6, 2011 5:07 PM CST

(Newser) – A temporary glitch allowed Facebook users to view others' private photos with a surprisingly easy trick, reports ZDNet. It's been fixed, but not before some of Mark Zuckerberg's own private photos got pilfered and reposted on blogs, like here at Launch. The trick: You could report an image to Facebook as inappropriate and mark the "nudity or pornography" box (even if it wasn't). At that point, Facebook would give you access to other photos in the user's private stream so you could check for more to flag.

Facebook announced this afternoon that it fixed the problem, notes Gizmodo. "Earlier today, we discovered a bug in one of our reporting flows that allows people to report multiple instances of inappropriate content simultaneously," it said, calling the glitch "the result of one of our recent code pushes." The system has been disabled.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a file photo from July. (Getty Images)

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Facebook Glitch Allowed Access to Private Photos

... and Mark Zuckerberg himself learned the hard way

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