This URL bug tricks Facebook into thinking Mark Zuckerberg quit his job [Update: Fixed]

No, Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t actually quit Facebook in light of his newborn child, but if you trick the social network’s URL system the right way, you can make it look like he did.

Security researcher Sachin Thakuri caught the bug, which involves removing a piece from the URL for Zuckerberg’s start date at Facebook. Specifically, he cuts out ‘&ustart=1’ from the original address.

Embedding the post doesn’t seem to work, however, so it’ll be a bit tougher to start fake rumors.

The original post is set to February 4, 2004, so why the August 16, 2011 date on the altered one? According to VentureBeat, that’s probably when Zuckerberg first added the back-dated life event; removing the above portion of the URL seems to default the system to the item’s creation  date instead.

You can mess around with other people’s work statuses too, but it appears to only work with backdated life events. Thakuri noted the bug to Facebook, but it’s minor enough the company says it doesn’t plan on fixing it.

Update: So much for having no plans to fix it; Facebook told VentureBeat the bug has been addressed, and indeed, the trick no longer works.  Twas fun while it lasted.

➤ This bug makes it look like Mark Zuckerberg quit Facebook [VentureBeat]