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Summary The French government on Tuesday summoned Facebook managers to explain rumours.
The rumours spread that some users old private messages were being posted publicly on the social network.Facebook denied the rumours but a French minister said doubt remained and urged users to file complaints if they felt their privacy had been violated.In a joint statement, Industrial Renewal Minister Arnaud Montebourg and the junior minister for the digital economy, Fleur Pellerin, said Facebook managers had been summoned before Frances CNIL data watchdog to explain the rumours.Clear and transparent explanations must be given without delay, they said.Facebook on Monday said it had investigated complaints from members and denied the reports of private messages being made public.A small number of users raised concerns after what they mistakenly believed to be private messages appeared on their Timeline, the California-based social network said in an email response to an AFP inquiry.Our engineers investigated these reports and found that the messages were older wall posts that had always been visible on the users profile pages.Concerns showed that private Facebook messages from 2007, 2008, or 2009 were being posted for public viewing spread wildly on Twitter Monday after a story first appeared in the free French daily Metro.
