Facebook users begin deactivating accounts in shame after embarrassing glitch exposed snoopers

Facebook users have had their accounts deactivated after an embarrassing glitch that revealed who they had been “stalking” on the site.

A bug sent automatic friend requests to all profile pages that “snoopers” had viewed, prompting users to rush to cancel the requests as soon as possible.

One user said, “This is a cool new Facebook fact. If you view someone’s Facebook that you’re not friends with, a friend request will automatically be sent for you. It’s true because I’m now friends with my ex-husband’s wife.”

Another Facebook user wrote, “I got a friend request from an ex – thank you Facebook for letting me know they are still obsessed with me.”

Warnings about the outage have been shared on the platform as well as Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. For many, however, it was already too late with school friends, ex-partners and colleagues bombarded with “awkward” friend requests.

Others described their hearts as “racing” as they rushed to see if they had been caught.

One user said, ‘Too sodding late. I can never show my face again. I want to die’.

Another wrote, “Deactivated my Facebook because I can’t remember if I was stalking people or not when it faltered and asked them as friends.”

Facebook has apologized for the issue caused by an app update and urged users to review pending friend requests in their activity log and cancel them if necessary.

One social media user called it the “funniest thing Facebook has ever done,” while others called it “embarrassing” and “awkward.”

A spokesperson for Meta, the company headed by Mark Zuckerberg that runs Facebook, explained the issue The everyday beast.

“We’ve fixed a bug related to a recent app update that caused some Facebook friend requests to be sent inadvertently,” the spokesperson said.

“We prevented this and apologize for any inconvenience.”

An user posted a short video of the glitch in action, where the friend request is automatically created just a second after the user clicks on their profile.

Other affected users posted to Twitter and TikTok about the outage, with one calling it “the end of stalking.”

Another said, “It’s the wrong night to leaf through and stalk my yearbook.”

Another posted: “Imagine if you stalked your ex or your enemy and they received a friend request.”

Some users said on social media that unwanted friend requests have since disappeared.

But if you’re still worried about being affected by the technical glitch, visit facebook.com/friends.

From here, click “Friend Requests” in the tab on the left, followed by “View Send Requests” to view the pending requests.

Bizarre glitches on social media platforms usually occur when engineers make changes or tweaks to the user experience.

Another very humiliating Facebook glitch last year resulted in user feeds being flooded with posts from strangers sharing content on celebrity pages.

For example, memes shared on American rapper Eminem’s official Facebook page appeared on people’s homepages.

The problem appeared to stem from a technical glitch where Facebook’s internal systems were controlling which posts appear in users’ News Feed.

• Have you been caught by this Facebook glitch? Email news@mailonline.co.uk