Over 3 years later, "deleted" Facebook photos are still online

[Robb]

Timely.

Facebook is still working on deleting photos from its servers in a timely manner nearly three years after Ars first brought attention to the topic. The company admitted on Friday that its older systems for storing uploaded content "did not always delete images from content delivery networks in a reasonable period of time even though they were immediately removed from the site," but said it's currently finishing up a newer system that makes the process much quicker. In the meantime, photos that users thought they "deleted" from the social network months or even years ago remain accessible via direct link.

The problem: "deleted" photos never go away

When we first investigated this phenomenon in 2009, we discovered that photos "deleted" from Facebook seemingly never go away if you have a direct link to the image file on Facebook's servers. Users who might have had second thoughts about posting a photo—whether it was because they didn't want retaliation from an employer, wanted to avoid family drama, or uploaded a photo of a friend without their permission—could certainly remove the image from Facebook's main user interface, but as long as someone had a direct link to the .jpg file in question, the photo would remain accessible for an indefinite amount of time. When we asked Facebook about it, we were told that the company was "working with our content delivery network (CDN) partner to significantly reduce the amount of time that backup copies persist."

But when we followed up on the story more than a year later, our "deleted" photos were still accessible via direct link. That's when the reader stories started pouring in: we were told horror stories about online harassment using photos that were allegedly deleted years ago, and users who were asked to take down photos of friends that they had put online.

Read More: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/02/nearly-3-years-later-deleted-facebook-photos-are-still-online.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

[SheilaT]

1. Why I don't post anything to Facebook.

I actually have a Facebook account, and I have a profile photo, but that's it. I mainly make use of FB to see what others are up to.

[Skittles]

2. I don't have an account, and refuse all requests from FB users

yet what do you know - I'm still very much able to find out what people are up to - by talking to and emailing them

[Zalatix]

3. Why you LUDDITE!!! Talking to and emailing people? That's so 1990s! <--- sarcasm

I do it, too. No Facebook for me. Not now, not ever.

[Skittles]

4. WOOT!

I surely hope to see the demise of FB in my lifetime - I'm hoping a new generation comes along that says, FUCK THAT and uses SOMETHING ELSE!! I'm seeing more and more people saying NO to corporate FB

[Zalatix]

6. I fear something worse will come along.

Something we'll be forced to participate in.

[Skittles]

7. OOOH

"be careful what you wish for"

[Bonobo]

5. I have to grudgingly commend you...

You have hit on a truly deep societal issue that is affecting us all.

Your finger is truly on the pulse of the times and for that, I applaud you.

[Zanzoobar]

8. It's worse than that.

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Try any website. Any year. They show just a sampling. It's all there. It's all recorded.

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. Not really, anything with "noindex" in robots.txt or in the meta tag isn't archived.