Years of Mark Zuckerberg's Old Facebook Posts Have Vanished. The Company Says it 'Mistakenly Deleted' Them. (businessinsider.com) 118
Old Facebook posts by Mark Zuckerberg have disappeared -- obscuring details about core moments in Facebook's history. An anonymous reader shares a report: On multiple occassions, years-old public posts made by the 34-year-old billionaire chief executive that were previously public and reported on by news outlets at the time have since vanished, Business Insider has found. That includes all of the posts he made during 2007 and 2008. Reached for comment, a Facebook spokesperson said the posts were "mistakenly deleted" due to "technical errors." "A few years ago some of Mark's posts were mistakenly deleted due to technical errors. The work required to restore them would have been extensive and not guaranteed to be successful so we didn't do it," the spokesperson said in a statement.
"We agree people should be able to find information about past announcements and major company news, which is why for years we've shared and archived this information publicly - first on our blog and in recent years on our Newsroom." The total number of vanished posts could be significantly higher, as the very nature of the issue makes it extremely difficult to make a full accounting of what exactly what has gone missing over the years. The spokesperson said they didn't know how many posts in total were deleted.
"We agree people should be able to find information about past announcements and major company news, which is why for years we've shared and archived this information publicly - first on our blog and in recent years on our Newsroom." The total number of vanished posts could be significantly higher, as the very nature of the issue makes it extremely difficult to make a full accounting of what exactly what has gone missing over the years. The spokesperson said they didn't know how many posts in total were deleted.
O RLY? (Score:5, Insightful)
Several years of posts? This looks like a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence/hide something.
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O RLY?
Isn't that a technical publishing company?
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END OF LINE
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Yep, and anybody who believes that Facebook ever deletes a single byte of information is delusional.
It's all there, no matter how long ago you clicked 'delete'.
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They'll just "anonymize" it.
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Yes, giving government the power to burn to the ground speech-based businesses is a great idea. I assume we will need a constituinal amendment as this is forbidden for silly anachronistic reasons like King George III, Vlad, China, and Venezuela all doing it.
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Late night drinking is a likely reason.
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It also takes time to delete all your old posts.
I did manage to find a script somewhere that I ran before I closed my Facebook account, but I am guessing that Facebook never actually deletes anything you have posted. The article also suggests that.
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No one doubts the posts were deleted to prevent being part of discovery or a subpoena. It's entirely a laughable lie, IMHO.
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Just because your pointless life doesn't require documentation of milestones to be preserved doesn't mean the CEO of the largest data mine in the world *(who is also accused of fraud and perjury) shouldn't be scrutinized, moron.
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I mean, it would hardly be the first time.
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"Several years of posts? This looks like a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence/hide something."
Just the usual racist, misogynist, homo- and xenophobe stuff I guess.
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Six months from now: "While Facebook wants to comply with this subpoena, that information no longer exists. It was purged long before any subpoena was conceived much less issued."
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Two years. Not "several", although there's been link-rot in the news-blog since then, not unique to Facebook. In my own timeline, the first FB post I ever made was in October 2007, and I believe that's actually correct; I was tagged in a couple photos posted before that, and I have some backdated "Life Event"s before that, but if it was exactly two years maybe it was just a backup script that had a bug, or something, and it might have affected some other users as well but no one else noticed and bothered to
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BleachBit to the rescue again!
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I hope it's an april fools prank
He's getting ready to run for public office (Score:2)
and nothing of value was lost (Score:1)
Re:and nothing of value was lost (Score:5, Insightful)
Down the memory hole (Score:5, Insightful)
Winston rubbed his eyes as he pondered why the slip of paper instructed him to purge the social media history of one of the most popular and powerful figures in the tech industry.
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Re:Down the memory hole (Score:4, Funny)
We have always been at war with Wikimedia
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Hmmm, that may result in you ending up in Room 101 with a rat in a cage strapped to your face...
HORSESHIT. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is COVERUP / DAMAGE CONTROL, it's as obvious as Zuck's lying under oath to Congress.
Smart move (Score:2)
In today’s world, deleting old posts seems like a good idea. The concept of people having aged or learned something in the time span of 10 years since they posted something, seems to be lost on the loudest voices.
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No, you're 100% missing the point. He's deliberately covering up his corporate machinations after the fact - and what's more, you yourself CANNOT delete your old FB posts - they will remain even if you think you have.
So not only is Zuck no doubt lying about the reason this happened (as they change their corporate announcement historical archive format to make it harder also, notice) but this is something his FB victims cannot do themselves.
Privacy and whitewashing for me, but not for thee.
Privacy for Zuckerberg (Score:5, Insightful)
But not for you.
If you don't pay for it YOU are the product.
I call BS (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing is ever truly deleted from Facebook. Nothing.
I deleted my account, supposedly all the way. Not a "deactivation," but a DELETE.
That was 3 years ago. Last week I created an account using a DIFFERENT EMAIL ADDRESS that had not existed when I deleted my account THREE YEARS AGO, and guess what?
ALL of my old account was right there - came right up as if I had never left.
So not only does Facebook not delete ANYTHING, they keep tracking you AFTER you supposedly "delete" your account.
These people belong in jail, not at the top of the Internet food chain.
100% legal (Score:2)
For what? What they're doing is 100% legal. We need to vote for people who are going to change the laws. Europe can do it. But in the US... well... jobs?
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Then why are you coming back to them to give them more of your information?
Remember, he cares about HIS privacy... (Score:1)
He tried to buy all the surrounding properties of his mansion so he could have, you know... a little privacy.
In related news (Score:1)
Mark Zuckerberg Wants The Government To Help Police Internet Content
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
How quaint
Sorry (Score:4, Informative)
Which is why Facebook has been blocking archiving by the Wayback Machine [itstillworks.com] since January 2011.
Technical errors? (Score:2)
So Facebook is saying that there is a regular occurance that facebook posts just vanish because of technical errors and it's possible that they are just gone forever?
Well that doesn't exactly gives much confidence in using Facebook as an information platform does it?
Zuck, I think you dropped these... (Score:3)
The Zuckerberg Files. [zuckerbergfiles.org]
I believe these are all the archives somebody on /r/DataHoarder [reddit.com] snagged before Facebook accidentally hit delete 10,000 times and then accidentally dropped the backup drives in a volcano.
New Feature (Score:1)
In other words this is proof that the company can permanently delete profile data. When will we have a delete button next to each item?
Blame Myspace (Score:4, Funny)
They hired the Myspace team to relocate a few servers.
Don't use facebook (Score:2, Informative)
It should be called identitytheft.com if there were laws requiring truth in advertising for websites. Zuckerberg and Sandberg would be in prison if they didn't own the government.
Who cares or believes what the company says? (Score:2)
Didn't anybody else archive this stuff [archive.org]?
Apparently... (Score:3)
...you always have a Right to be Forgotten when you own the company that has a lifetime of your public Internet communications.
Checking the calendar (Score:2)
I trust Zukerberg..... (Score:1)
how is it a mistake (Score:2)
how is it a mistake when it happens to one person who happens to be the top dog at the service? could it be the rumors are true that he is getting ready to run for some political office and need to get rid of postings that could hurt him?
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Re: Yeah. And NASA accidentally reused Moon tapes. (Score:2)
"Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice."
- Surveillance Valley Razor