Facebook users were reporting about a bug on the platform and it was that years-old Messages threads were showing automatically on Facebook.com without any context.
It was first reported by several users on Twitter and later the company confirmed about this bug that older messages threads are being treated as new, unread ones which cause them to pop up in the Messenger tab on Facebook.com.
“Some people are seeing older messages on Facebook.com. We are aware of the issue and are actively working to resolve it in as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
This bug could have resulted in the resurfacing of conversation that one would want to forget. Unless you have deleted the conversation between you and any other user, this was a chance that it could have popped up in the Messenger tab on Facebook.com
This isn’t the first time that such a thing has happened. Back in 2015, Facebook’s On This Day feature began to resurface some painful memories for people and it was due to the algorithm which didn’t know how to differentiate between different posts.
This issue is since resolved by Facebook and the cause of this bug was due to software updates.
A Facebook spokesperson told The Verge in a statement that:
“Earlier today, some people may have experienced Facebook resending older messages. The issue, caused by software updates, has been fully resolved. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.”
[Source: The Verge]