Facebook said on Thursday that it made public by default the messages published by 14 million users during four days in May, the most recent error of the social network, increasingly entangled in controversies about the use of data from its members.
"Recently we have detected a computer failure that automatically suggested making public the messages created by some people," said Erin Egan, head of privacy issues at Facebook.
This error occurred while the group was working on a new way of sharing certain elements of the user's profile, such as photos.
The bug affected the network from May 18 to 27. Facebook was able to repair the error on May 22, but it took five more days for all messages to be private.
"We solved this problem and started today (Thursday) to warn all affected people and ask them to verify all the messages they posted during that time," Egan said.
The nearly 14 million users involved should see a notification connecting to the social network inviting them to visit a different page where they can study the publications affected by this error.
The problem comes at a time when Facebook is involved in several controversial cases related to the security of personal data.
The group has been heavily criticized since March for letting the data of tens of millions of users leak to Cambridge Analytica.
This week he was forced to give explanations again by confirming that the Chinese manufacturer of smartphones Huawei, considered close to Chinese power and banned from suppliers of the US military, was among the authorized manufacturers to use personal data of its users.