UK Edition
Facebook apologises for bug that prematurely announces users' demise
The biblical phrase “O death, where is thy sting” has come to haunt Facebook after a bug erroneously placed an announcement on users’ profile pages that they had died.
Even Mark Zuckerberg was affected by the glitch, with visitors to the page of the company’s chief executive greeted with the sad news of his passing.
"We hope people who love Mark will find comfort in the things others share to remember and celebrate his life," a message read.
Viewers of the pages were invited to follow a link to a form in which they could pay tribute to the dearly departed.
While next of kin, subject to strict rules, delete an account, some friends and relatives are using the deceased’s social media pages as a way of preserving their memory.
A Facebook spokesman apologised for the egregious error. “For a brief period today, a message meant for memorialised profiles was mistakenly posted to other accounts," he said.
"This was a terrible error that we have now fixed. We are very sorry that this happened and we worked as quickly as possible to fix it.”
Mr Zuckerberg is hardly be the first person to have read of his own demise. Mark Twain famously described the reports of his death as an exaggeration after a newspaper reported that he had died.
Other members of the premature obituary club include Joe DiMaggio, Marcus Garvey and Rex Alston, a retired BBC commentator.