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This photograph taken on November 5, 2021, shows the logo of US online social media and social networking service Facebook on a laptop screen in Moscow.

Facebook claims to have fixed the issue that suddenly caused users' news feeds to become weird and chaotic. The social media platform has also released an explanation of why the glitch occurred.  

Instead of the typical posts from friends or other sites they were interested in, readers discovered on Wednesday morning that their news feeds were overrun with comments on celebrities' pages. 

43% of users have complained about problems with the app, 40% have complained about problems with their newsfeed, and 16% have complained about problems with the website as a whole, as per DownDetector.com.

However, the issue did not stop memers and fans from making light of the situation. Many took advantage of the bug to introduce themselves to the larger Facebook audience. 

One user took to Taylor Swift's feed and asked her if she could "cover some Bollywood songs." Another user went to Adele's page and wrote, "I don't know but I want to try it too, hello!" 

But what was the real cause of this weird glitch?

Read also: Facebook Experiences A Strange Glitch Spamming Celebrity Pages - Was It Hacked? 

Configuration Change

According to Facebook, the problem was caused by a "configuration change" that has subsequently been resolved. 

The Independent reported that Facebook has previously used the same cryptic justification in the past. The same term was used in October 2021, when a significant outage forced the site offline for roughly seven hours. 

Even after the issues have been fixed for a while, the company hardly ever provides comprehensive information regarding its outages in the past, as per The Independent. 

"Earlier today, a configuration change caused some people to have trouble with their Facebook Feed. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience," a spokesperson told The Insider.

According to The Verge, some users tried to make money off the problem by sharing PayPal and cryptocurrency links, while others made fun of the glitch by flooding other users' feeds with memes. 

Another Facebook issue that was reported earlier this year boosted false information on users' News Feeds rather than reducing it. The Verge published a story in March 2022 claiming that for six months, a software flaw had been unwittingly promoting posts that contained violence, nudity, and inaccurate information. 

The issue also appeared after Meta, the corporation in charge of Facebook, settled for $54 million in the US after being accused of violating users' privacy. The case was based on a charge that the platform had unlawfully tracked user activities using their smartphones.

There have been allegations that Facebook broke Californian law by collecting data from users who had previously turned off location services on their phones and that the company used users' IP addresses to determine their locations.

Related Article: In-App Browsers of Facebook and Instagram Are Capable of Tracking Users' Activity Online, Research Says 

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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla

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