It actually could be a bug. And for many other companies I'd be happy to believe them. But just like for bitcoin exchanges 'we've been hacked' is no longer believable FB has a problem when they wish to attribute to accident what could also be attributed to malice. Remember the time when they started messing with the emotional state of their users in the name of an undisclosed scientific experiment? That's roughly when they lost the benefit of the doubt about 'accidents'.
The point is, in case I'm not making it clear enough, that 'accident' is just another convenient excuse to trot out when caught doing something unsavory, tasteless, creepy or downright illegal.
FB has plenty of examples along those lines so I will no longer give them the benefit of the doubt on any claims like these. For that to work you have to have a documented track record of building trust rather than a documented track record of transgressions.
Doing something shitty and doing something shitty then lying about the cause are two different things. I think you're smart enough to know the difference. This is sloppy logic.
It's not about logic, not everything is about logic. It's about breaking trust. FB broke that trust in many ways time and again so now when they trot out the 'bug' cause to me that is just as believable as 'hacker' when a coin exchange claims they lost a few 100 million worth of bitcoins.
It is a common mistake in the tech scene to look at everything through the lens of logic as if life is one giant computer program or a court case. Proof is nice but in some cases it can be optional.
Multi-national with 100's of QA engineers rolls out un-feature that backfires -> 'bug'. I don't buy it. If it's good enough for you then that's fine by me but Facebook has a very long and uphill battle until they reach the benefit of the doubt stage again.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/02/facebook-...