On Monday afternoon, some Facebook users reported on Twitter and Hacker News that, for some unknown reason, they were locked out of their accounts. In the error message displayed, users were prompted to upload a photo ID in order to verify that they are the account holder. The company has issued a statement on the matter, saying:
Earlier this evening, we showed an account verification message to a very small portion of our users unnecessarily. We promptly removed the messages when we discovered the error. We’re sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused.
The issue has since been resolved.
If the statement is to be believed, it doesn’t appear to be a security issue that caused this issue, but could be just a mistake. Nevertheless, some may wonder that although it was a glitch that affected a small percentage of the social network’s 1.15 billion users, could this happen on a larger scale and is it necessary for the company to institute some additional security changes?
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Of course some could say “accidents happen.”
Here’s a Tweet from someone affected by the issue:
Almost two hours now and not a single statement by @Facebook, pretty lame. #facebookdown
— Jakob | Disco Demons (@DiscoDemons) October 29, 2013
Photo credits: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images and screenshot of Facebook error message via Gillian Murphy/Twitter
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