Facebook API Bug Deletes Contact Info On Phones 178
An anonymous reader writes "If you thought that Facebook's recent unannounced change of its users' email address tied with their account to Facebook ones was bad, you'll be livid if you check your mobile phone contacts and discover that the change has deleted the email addresses of many of your friends. According to Facebook, the glitch was due to a bug in its application-programming interface, and causes the last added email address to be pulled and added to the user's phone Contacts. The company says they are working hard at fixing the problem, but in the meantime, a lot of users have effectively lost some of the information stored on their devices."
Well deserved (Score:4, Insightful)
Any fool who syncs their phone with Facebook deserves all the pain they are likely to get.
The sad part is they inflict some of this pain on innocent bystanders who they happen to have in their phone books.
Yea right a 'glitch' (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dipshits (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet still you have a Facebook account. Why exactly should they set the bar higher if all their screw-ups do is get them more free publicity?
Every time FB fucks up, the online world whines like it is the end of life as we know it. All you're doing is confirming to FB that you're addicted and can't live without them.
Why again should they change? You're their bitch and they like it that way.
Bug? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems a bit disingenuous to call this a "bug."
The API was operating as designed: when a friend lists a new email address, my address book is updated to reflect it. That's normal behavior.
The "bug" in this case was Facebook's decision to modify their users' contact info without permission. The API is not to blame here.
Re:Dipshits (Score:4, Insightful)
Because I like facebook's free service, just as I like free TV or free online magazines or free Firefox or free Opera or free Lubuntu. I just wish facebook was as competent as the other guys.
If I was paying then yes I'd certainly cancel the account, just as I canceled Comsucks. I'm more tolerant of mistakes on free services (since technically I lose nothing) than I am of mistakes for paying services.
Re:The real issue is with permissions (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case I don't think that's the underlying problem: even if it were opt-in, a lot of users would opt in to syncing email addresses, because in the normal case that's what they want. If a friend leaves company A and goes to company B, updating the address in your phone is convenient. What's less convenient is Facebook changing their email address when the old one was still valid and the friend didn't actually remove it...
Re:the bizarre part of FB (Score:5, Insightful)
It s not that Facebook is cool, it's that social networking is cool, and there is no other realistic alternative. If I (collective I, I personally don't use facebook) have something to share to a group, Facebook is the simplest and the widest audience.
Facebook and wooden talking rings (Score:2, Insightful)
Because I like facebook's free service
Can someone explain what service that is?
Because all I've ever heard is stuff like, "I can chat w/ my friends on FB". Well, I can chat with them without FB too. Or, "I can learn where the party this w/e is gonna be". Well, I seem to learn that without FB. I've so far never seen something people claim they use FB for that doesn't work just fine if FB never even existed. I mean, jeez luise - people were going to parties and talking to family online before FB ever existed. Or, "It lets me find my highschool buds!" Which I did just fine without ever touching FB.
It's like someone suddenly sold every human being a wooden ring to place over their mouth and convinced them they couldn't talk to anyone without using this ring. So people buy these and walk around talking to people by placing the ring over their mouths, because hey, the rings let us go to parties and talk to friends and be social!one!! If you don't have one of these rings, you must be some weird antisocial weirdo who never talks to anyone! Except that people were talking to each other for the last million years without those rings and it worked fine, and plenty of don't even have a ring and seem to do everything the ring-people are doing, and without having to pay for the ring. It's completely unnecessary, but some mass insanity convinced everyone they needed it.
It makes no fucking sense.
Re:Bug? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. You gave them persmission when you enabled "syncing". Only a fool would allow an advertising agency with which they have no contract to not only run unaudited software on a computer containing their only copy of important data but also permit that software write access to the data.
Re:Facebook and wooden talking rings (Score:3, Insightful)
"I can chat w/ my friends on FB"
Agreed, definitely not the best (and far from only) thing for that.
"I can learn where the party this w/e is gonna be".
Agreed, definitely not the best (and far from only) thing for that.
"It lets me find my highschool buds!"
Sure, but if FB wasn't considerably more effective at this (i.e., you find a much higher percentage of folks you went to school with), it's because you have only three friends slashdork. It's more like, find the high school chic I had a huge crush on. You know so I can stalk her like never before, because, since we were high school friends (and I'm not in jail or something), it must be cool to let me know where she is and post pictures of herself with her new puppy and her pajamas.
The truth is, I remain on FB because it's extremely popular with the teenagers (which I have three). I damn sure can't just let them use the thing without educating them about the risks and consequences (and checking / fixing privacy settings every fucking week).
I'd be a dick to tell them they can't use it because I don't trust them or FB. I'm the guy that fixes and explains everything. It's what they expect and deserve.
They will have way more of this to deal with in the future than you can imagine (please get a clue before having children (or don't)). It may be a major pain in my ass to make sure that their cellphones aren't geo-tagging photos, they aren't just accepting everyone as friends, they post appropriately, and all sorts of things. It's my job as a parent to NOT tell them "NO SEX! NO VIOLENCE! NO DRUGS!" It's my job to educates them and teach them in a way that enables them to be good and safe AND PROTECTED citizens when I am no longer doing these things WITH them (e.g., my son knows how to install and _for-the-most-part_ maintain his machine with both windows and *my preferred linux*).
Anyway, Fuck FB.
And Fuck you slashdork. Grow some balls and own the technology.
Re:Bug? (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realize that same sentence could apply to Google with Android OS? Only that they do have full root control on your phone.
PS: I do use an Android phone with sync to Google servers.
Re:Well deserved (Score:5, Insightful)
and nobody would have expected even Facebook to fail this hard
Huh? Facebook has pretty stated that their strategy is to try major, risky changes at high speed and retract them if necessary. A careful, backwards-compatible, regression tested release process is the opposite of what they do.
So: I would say anyone trusting facebook with their critical data is a fool.