Private Facebook Statuses Exposed By Storify

storify_logoStorify is a popular online curation tool that gathers pictures, status updates, videos and more into one convenient place. However, Julie Pippert, founder of Artful Media Group, discovered a loophole in the service that allows private Facebook statuses to be made public via the tool.

The app can pull private Facebook statuses from groups despite privacy settings. It displays the text of the post next to a picture of the user, completely compromising the privacy of many users who most likely thought their content was safe from prying eyes. Storify obtains this seemingly private information through a process similar to copy and paste and screen grab functions. Facebook released a statement to Mashable saying that the app isn’t obtaining any data from Facebook through its API.

“The behavior appears to result from Storify users utilizing a browser extension that essentially cuts and pastes content available to that user to the Storify site … This is not a result of the Storify application for Facebook,” Facebook said.

Time and again, people are surprised when content they thought was secret becomes public on the web. Even Mark Zuckerberg’s sister received a rude surprise when one of her private family photos leaked in the blogosphere. This Storify problem serves as only the latest reminder that nothing is really private or hidden on the web. If you don’t want something getting out there, don’t post it on the Internet, plain and simple. It doesn’t matter what barriers your content lie behind; there’s a good chance it could get out anyway. Be more thoughtful and careful about what you post and you don’t have to worry about it.


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