A lurker's worst nightmare — a Facebook bug sent friend requests to profiles that users were looking at
It's every lurker's worst nightmare — checking the Facebook profile of a crush, coworker, or someone they might not necessarily know, only to accidentally send a friend request.
This situation became a reality last week as users began noticing that after viewing accounts that they were not connected to, a friend request would automatically be sent, exposing any kind of peeping behavior, The Daily Beast reported.
Facebook's parent company, Meta, which confirmed the issue to Insider, said the glitch occurred as a result of an update to the Facebook app, which "caused Facebook friend requests to be sent mistakenly."
"We've stopped this from happening, and have canceled any requests that were sent because of this error," a Meta spokesperson said. "We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."
Reactions from people online ranged from embarrassment to curiosity around whether they might be on the receiving end of such a friend request that would reveal who had been checking out their online profile.
