Facebook Engineer Apologizes Via Reddit For Accidentally Blocking Imgur Across Facebook
from the web-3.0 dept
Here's an odd one. Yesterday, I saw that a top story in the technology subreddit was a claim that Facebook was blocking Imgur, the popular image hosting service (especially popular with Redditors, but which we use here as well). This screenshot was shown (hosted on Imgur, natch):Hey folks - so this is actually my fault. Literally, I'm the guy who accidentally blocked imgur for a brief period of time today. I'm really sorry. Some background: I'm an engineer who works on the system we use for catching malicious URLs. In the process of dealing with a bad URL that our automated defenses didn't catch, I ran into a rare bug that caused us to incorrectly block some legitimate URLs for a brief time. Right after I figured that out and removed the bad data, I reworked the UI so no one will get bit by the same issue in the future. As a form of apology that I'm sure is insufficient, here is a picture of my dog dressed up for the 4th of July: https://imgur.com/pR4mRAs some have noted, this really is a fantastic apology. It's not filtered through PR and actually seems to come from someone who sounds human -- which is pretty important in the midst of the Reddit faithful. But it should spread beyond just Reddit. When companies screw up, this is a pretty good lesson in how to respond. Admit to the screwup, be clear and honest about it, and explain what happened and what's been done to prevent it from happening again. And... don't let it near a PR person.
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Filed Under: apologies, pr
Companies: facebook, imgur, reddit
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Your private information is their little multi-billion dollar secret, you dopes.
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Re: Your private information is their little multi-billion dollar secret, you dopes.
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As if this will ever happen ...
For this we apologize,
BP
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Re: As if this will ever happen ...
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Re: Re: As if this will ever happen ...
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Seeing the dog, city name "San Diego" comes to mind. I wonder if he lives there... 8^)
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Same apology but done through PR department
In small print, the apology above does not indicate any wrong doing on our part.
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Mmmmhmmm. I'm guessing a 90% probability that in this case "rare bug" is equal to "fat finger syndrome (ffs)". Not that it matters. Good of 'em to fess up.
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interesting...
1) This was cooked up by PR, as a way to soothe the nerds without taking any risk. The company has made no official statement, the message is unauthenticated and deniable, the author is not to the engineer who made the block, but Facebook can withhold that fact or reveal it, depending on how the wind blows.
2) The message is real, and unauthorized, and the author might well get fired for it.
3) The message is real, and some PR person showed rare insight in the decision to authorize it.
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Re: interesting...
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Re: interesting...
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It’s Official: Social Media Users Happier With Google+ Than With Facebook
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Priceless sarcasm or innocent joke?
On a related note, I like Google+ better than Facebook. Not that I use FB that much (I log once a month) but If ppl were mostly at google+ I'd ditch FB for good. Much like I did with Orkut.
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Re: Re: Re: Skull and BoneS!
Your logic is backwards, better a murderer go free than put one innocent person to death.
Don't buy into the State's terrorist propaganda bullshit, or you'll find yourself both innocent and imprisoned, just like you've accidentally advocated.
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An illogical position, on the other hand, breaks down when subject to extremes.
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just because some random two examples involve an aggrieved party, does not make the context accurate nor the conclusions appropriate.
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Ninja, I agree with your exaggeration for illustrative purposes. Sorry for the placement of my comment, no offense meant.
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Careful with what you wish for. That same line of reasoning is what brought us the TSA and the whole "aggressive pat-down" procedure.
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I disagree 100%. Getting the occasional illegitimate (whatever that is) URL is far preferable to blocking a legitimate one.
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Not just them
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Re: Not just them
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Now maybe we should try apply the same concept with copyright, trade negotiations, and internet censorship (or openness). Take out the politicians, lawyers, and lobbyists and put in engineers. We might actually see common sense, logic, solutions and even transparency/documentation!
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Disclaimer: I'm an engineer.
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It's been my observation that engineering departments handle a lot of things better than other departments inside a corporation.
I think it may have something to do with the fact that engineers usually deal in hard facts and data.
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I think it may have something to do with the fact that engineers usually deal in hard facts and data.
Might also have something to do with the fact that it's an engineer's job to solve a problem or the corporation gets another one who will.
If a lawyer, politican, or PR person makes a problem worse, it's standard practice....
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Facebook is also blocking links to my site for no reason
Facebook need to come clean over this and unblock the site, like they have done with the imgur debacle.
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Re: Facebook is also blocking links to my site for no reason
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Re: Facebook is also blocking links to my site for no reason
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Re: Facebook is also blocking links to my site for no reason
/s
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My comment is more along the lines of the honesty of the engineer. It's a shame in this day and age of personal evaluation into job performance that this level of honesty in admitting a mistake isn't recognized for the quality of the employee.
No one that does things is going to have a perfect record on screw ups. They are going to happen unless you do nothing day after day. When they do, the employee that says, 'It's my fault and this is what I did', just saved his company tons of money in trouble shooting. They know where the problem is and exactly how it occurred and can figure out how to fix it the quickest.
It seems only management needs someone to blame so it isn't their fault. Companies need the above honesty to run the place well.
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Bestest apology ever.
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Ironically, my anti-virus tells me that the link to the guy's picture is unsafe and blocks it by default!
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