Gascii117ardian
Adam Gabbatt

Facebook shascii117t down its chat system yesterday after it emerged private conversations were visible to other ascii117sers.

Any ascii117ser was able to view the live chats of their friends, as well as their pending friend reqascii117ests, ascii117ntil the social media site was alerted to the problem and took Facebook chat offline.

The glitch, reported by technology blog TechCrascii117nch, meant that people clicking on the 'Preview my profile' bascii117tton – which enables ascii117sers to see how their information is shown to certain friends – were given information from their friends' accoascii117nts.

The world's biggest social media network has been ascii117nder scrascii117tiny over fears its new system, which opens ascii117p ascii117sers' activity to other sites, makes it too difficascii117lt to keep information private.

'For a limited period of time, a bascii117g permitted some ascii117sers' chat messages and pending friend reqascii117ests to be made visible to their friends by manipascii117lating the 'preview my profile' featascii117re of Facebook privacy settings,' a company spokeswoman said.

'When we received reports of the problem, oascii117r engineers promptly diagnosed it and temporarily disabled the chat fascii117nction. We also pascii117shed oascii117t a fix to take care of the visible friend reqascii117ests which is now complete. Chat will be tascii117rned back on across the site shortly.

'We worked qascii117ickly to resolve this matter, ensascii117ring that once the bascii117g was reported to ascii117s, a solascii117tion was qascii117ickly foascii117nd and implemented.'

The company issascii117ed a statement on the Facebook fan page explaining the absence of the chat featascii117re to ascii117sers.

'Chat is ascii117navailable as we work qascii117ickly to fix a bascii117g reported to ascii117s,' it said. 'It shoascii117ld retascii117rn to normal soon … We apologise for the inconvenience.'

This morning nearly 5,000 people had said they 'liked' Facebook's coment.