In an embarrassing and unexplained glitch, social media giant Facebook started posting notices to many users on Friday implying that they were dead.
Several Facebook users reported having received a message from Facebook that referred to them by name — as if they were dead — while posting the link to a relatively unknown feature that “memorizes” the Facebook profile/page of someone who had died.
Apparently, Facebook hoped that the “dead” users’ families and loved ones would find it comforting to revisit some of the posts that others shared about the deceased. What’s even weirder is that even Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg received the death notice for a short while on the same day.
The blunder, however, did not remain unnoticed for too long as Facebook’s internal teams soon removed it from user profiles.
Admitting that it was indeed a terrible error, Facebook issued a statement saying: “This was a terrible error that we have now fixed.”
“We are very sorry that this happened and we worked as quickly as possible to fix it.”
However, the company representatives refused to divulge any info with regard to the cause behind the glitch. The number of users affected is also currently unknown.