Last week, Select All reported that Facebook had quietly been storing videos users never posted and believe they had deleted. The issue involved videos that users filmed back in the days when Facebook let users film videos directly on the platform to post on their friends’ walls. Turns out, when a user filmed a take and decided not to post it … the video was saved. Nearly a week later, Facebook says it finally has an answer as to why this happened, and says that it is working to delete all of the inappropriately saved content.
From Facebook:
We investigated a report that some people were seeing their old draft videos when they accessed their information from our Download Your Information tool. We discovered a bug that prevented draft videos from being deleted. We are deleting them and apologize for the inconvenience. We appreciate New York Magazine for bringing the issue to our attention.
Many users discovered that this so-called “bug” had affected them after downloading their Facebook data archive. (If you haven’t, here’s a very easy how-to guide.) Videos were not the only thing in those archives that has concerned users in recent weeks. Android users who downloaded their data were alarmed to discover that Facebook had saved detailed records of calls and text messages from their phones. Facebook said the feature was opt-in, though it’s unclear if users were fully made aware of the kind of surveillance they were opting into by agreeing. Select All has asked Facebook if there is any way for users to confirm that the platform has actually deleted their old videos and will update this post if we hear back.
