18 May 2023 , 13:28
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Facebook users were caught out last week by an "embarrassing" glitch which led to friend requests automatically being sent to any profiles people had viewed.
Users scrambled to cancel the requests as quickly as possible after the bug happened recently following an app update.
The social media giant, led by Mark Zuckerberg, has apologised and urged users to review pending friend requests in their activity log.
But some users have rejoiced at the gaffe, calling the "funniest thing Facebook has ever done", because it may allow people to see who has been snooping their profiles - whether it's exes, colleagues or distant relatives.
Facebook users received strange friend requests last week (Getty Images)Others called the technical glitch "embarrassing" and "awkward".
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"That explains the friend requests I got," one woman posted on social media.
Another said: "These platforms are so dangerous for people's mental health."
A third stated: "Imagine you stalked your ex or your enemy, and they received a friend request notification."
A message appeared on Facebook accounts to explain the issue (Meta)Speaking to The Daily Beast, a spokesperson for Meta said: "We fixed a bug related to a recent app update that caused some Facebook friend requests to be sent mistakenly.
"We've stopped this from happening and we apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused."
Some users said on social media that unwanted friend requests have since disappeared.
But if you're still worried you've been affected by the technical defect, head to facebook.com/friends.
From here, click 'Friend Requests' in the left-hand tab followed by 'View send requests' to review the pending requests.
Last year, another Facebook bug led to user feeds being flooded with posts from strangers sharing content on celebrity pages.
And in 2016, people thought they had been hacked when old photographs were being reposted to their Facebook timelines as if they were new.
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But it again was a glitch caused by an app update.