In their Facebook security settings, many users opt to make their friends list only viewable to themselves or friends. Despite doing this, a recently revealed loophole shows that their friends list are accessible to any Facebook user regardless of set privacy settings.
Users can access this loophole via Facebook's mutual friends feature. If one of two friends has a friends list available to the public, another user can compare their two lists and access the friends they have in common. Facebook has been aware of the issue for some time, but doesn't recognize the loophole as a security threat. Still, the loophole is making some users question just how private their information on Facebook really is.
Why Facebook Supports the Feature
The mutual friends feature on Facebook remains implemented because of Facebook's central mission, which is to someday connect every person in the world to Facebook. To accomplish an ever-growing extension of social networking, they believe that viewing mutual friends can help inspire new connections. Continuing on this path with their central plan in mind may isolate some users with privacy concerns, though.
Facebook issued the following statement on the loophole: 'A friendship includes two people, and we give each of those people control over who they share their friends lists with. Of course, friends sometimes disagree on things, maybe even when it comes to who they share things with on Facebook... That's why we not only give people control over who can see their friends list on their Timeline, but we explain prominently that their friends also get to choose who they share with and that they might select a different set of people.'
The Loophole in Action: Mark Zuckerberg's Friends List
Since this loophole is now common knowledge, it was only a matter of time before Facebook users utilized it to see the friends list of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's highly recognizable founder and CEO. Exemplifying the loophole, users accessed Zuckerberg's friends list despite it being set as private; they accomplished this by looking at a mutual friend of Zuckerberg's - Facebook employee Chris Cox, in this case - whose friends list is public. Zuckerberg and Cox have 248 mutual friends, which allows users exploiting the loophole to view over 400 of Zuckerberg's friends.
Mark Zuckerberg's Friends
The loophole revealed some prominent names among Mark Zuckerberg's list of friends, many of them titans in the tech industry:
Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter, CEO and founder of Jelly Blake Ross, Co-creator of Mozilla Firefox Dennis Crowley, CEO of Foursquare Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox Jack Dorsey, CEO and founder of Square, Twitter co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp John Donahoe, President and CEO of eBay Qi Lu, Executive VP at Microsoft Robin Li, CEO and co-founder of Chinese search company Baidu Scott Sassa, Former CEO of Friendster Sean Parker, Co-founder of Napster, early President at Facebook Trip Adler, CEO and co-founder of Scribd
As expected, Zuckerberg's friends list reads like a 'who's who' of the tech world. It's worth noting that Zuckerberg has plenty of more Facebook friends, but these names are among of the 400 or so available by accessing the loophole via the Mark Zuckerberg (private) and Chris Cox (public) connection. His many other friends could include anyone -- from world leaders to the CEO of the largest packer cups company.
At the moment, Facebook has no plans to remove the 'mutual friends' feature. After all, they have the reasoning that Mark Zuckerberg's own profile is just as secure as everyone else's, even if that means a portion of his friends list is available for public viewing. If they continue their mission to connect everyone on Facebook, it's doubtful Facebook will remove the feature or subsequent 'loophole' anytime soon.
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