Last Friday, Facebook users discovered a bug that shattered their illusions of privacy—on the mobile app, friend requests were being sent to any profile visited. For people engaged in the timeless habit of looking up other people on the sly, as Facebook typically doesn’t share who has seen a user profile, their browsing habits were suddenly (and in some cases, mortifyingly) revealed.
As reported by The Daily Beast, the glitch reared its head whenever you viewed the profile of someone you weren’t friends with yet. Users shared their discovery on social media, with some individuals testing (and recording) the bug in action.
While this bug put a temporary chill on Facebook stalking, a spokesperson for Meta (Facebook’s parent company) apologized for the issue in a statement to The Daily Beast and confirmed it had been fixed. Users reported in subsequent social media posts that unwanted friend requests have since disappeared.
If you’re concerned you may still have lingering sent friend requests, you can check your pending requests by heading to https://www.facebook.com/friends. Select Friend Requests in the left navigation bar, then click on “View sent friend requests” to see your unanswered friend requests. You can delete any that you didn’t mean to (or don’t recall) sending by clicking on the Cancel request button next to the person’s name.
For any requests you find that you don’t recall sending (much less visiting the profile of that person), they may have been accidentally sent through Facebook’s “People You May Know” module. It appears periodically in your feed as you scroll, and sometimes you may not be aware when you’ve clicked or tapped on one of its Add friend buttons. On desktop, you can hide this feature by installing Social Fixer, a browser extension available for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Opera that lets you tweak Facebook’s interface. Once it’s active, open its settings to activate the Hide People You May Know filter—and breathe a little easier after.
Author: Alaina Yee, Senior Editor
Alaina Yee is PCWorld's resident bargain hunter—when she's not covering PC building, computer components, mini-PCs, and more, she's scouring for the best tech deals. Previously her work has appeared in PC Gamer, IGN, Maximum PC, and Official Xbox Magazine. You can find her on Twitter at @morphingball.