Most Facebook users have likely engaged in a little light stalking at some point or another, taking good care not to leave any accidental likes while checking out the pages of former lovers, new coworkers, or distant acquaintances.
But for some users, a spotlight recently shone on their casual poking around, thanks to a Facebook glitch that’s making everything awkward.
“Two nights ago, Facebook absolutely slaughtered me for snooping,” user Kimmy (@kimmysnail) told TikTok viewers. “Facebook came for me—came for everyone. If you were, two nights ago, looking at profiles that you shouldn’t have looked at, you’re in the same position as me where it added every single profile.”
@kimmysnail thanks Facebook 🙃😰 #facebookglitched #awkward #fyp #Facebook #fuck #hack ♬ original sound – kimmy 🍄✨️
Last week, scores of users suddenly realized Facebook was sending friend requests to people whose profiles they clicked on, regardless of whether that was their intent or not. The glitch seemed to specifically be an issue with the mobile app, and parent company Meta later confirmed to The Daily Beast that it had been fixed.
“We fixed a bug related to a recent app update that caused some Facebook friend requests to be sent mistakenly,” a Meta spokesperson said. “We’ve stopped this from happening and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”
Usually, people have no way of knowing if another user has viewed their Facebook profile, so to suddenly have that information pushed to people’s alerts by way of accidental friend requests led to a number of awkward and even humiliating situations.
Kimmy’s viral video highlights this perfectly, as she told viewers she happened to be on “one of the biggest deep dive stalks” she’d been on in a long time when the glitch hit.
“I added 36 people. I added…my ex-boyfriend from 10 years ago? I added his wife. I added my eighth-grade science teacher,” she said. “I added friends of my boyfriend, their girlfriends—who I’ve never met. I’ve never even met his friends. We’re quite new in this relationship so to do that is really fucking weird.”
Viewers empathized with her predicament, with many also still stressed from Facebook’s mistake.
“This will go down as one of the worst glitches in history,” wrote one commenter. “I’m still too scared to click on anyone’s pages.”
“I’ve had to cancel a job interview because I didn’t add just one, but the two people that were interviewing me. I can’t show my face,” another admitted.
Several users claimed to have deleted their Facebook accounts out of panic after realizing they had accidentally sent friend requests to people whose profiles they were trying to view anonymously. Another commenter said she even wound up getting a friend request from her dentist in the fray.
The Daily Dot has reached out to both Meta via email and Kimmy via TikTok comment.
In the meantime, the TikToker suggested anyone who may have been perusing the site at the time take a look at their sent friend requests to see what damage may have been done. Those can be viewed by clicking on the “Friends” tab from the homepage, selecting “Friend Requests,” and then choosing “View sent requests.” Or you can always simply deactivate and live in blissful ignorance instead.
