Facebook is not ‘liking’ pages for you
Facebook is fixing a glitch with its social plugins, but contrary to a report going around the Web, Facebook is not “liking” pages for you.
The glitch was discovered and shared on Hacker News this week. The site found that if you share a Web page on Facebook that has a “like” or “recommend” button, the page gets credit for two likes. Many commercial and individual sites now use those button to help boost their popularity.
But the count, in that case, should go up by only one.
News of the glitch led Gizmodo to post an article titled “Facebook Is Reading Your Messages and Liking Things For You.” The article said that private messages sharing URLs for Facebook Pages -- such as the ones used on the social network to promote a movie or a celebrity -- causes Facebook to “like” that page in the name of you and your friend.
Fortunately, that’s not true.
Picture Gallery: Fresh Facebook Features
A spokesman for Facebook told The Times that the social network will not like a Facebook Page for you just because you send someone its URL.
So you can feel safe sending someone a link to Justin Bieber’s Page without fearing Facebook will like it for you -- which would, of course, be quite embarrassing.
In the meantime, Facebook is fixing the glitch, the spokesman said.
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