Facebook says 800,000 users were affected by a bug that unblocked people

In a blog post written by Facebook’s chief privacy offer Erin Egan, she says the temporarily unblocked users didn’t have full access to the profiles of users they’d been blocked by, but could still view content that they had previously been barred from. For instance, she says that “while someone who was unblocked could not see content shared with friends, they could have seen things posted to a wider audience.“

When someone is blocked on the platform, they can no longer see profile posts, start conversations on Messenger or add the person back as a friend.

While the bug was active, Facebook says it did not reinstate any friend connections that had been severed, but that “someone who was unblocked might have been able to contact people on Messenger who had blocked them.” Out of everyone affected, 83% had only one person they had blocked temporarily unblocked.

The issue has now been resolved and everyone has been re-blocked, but Facebook says that those who were affected will get a notification on Facebook encouraging them to check their blocked list.