Today's dose of Facebook hysteria is currently replicating in the form of a viral wall posting:
EVERYONES PHONE NUMBER IS NOW ON FACEBOOK!! NO JOKE... Go to the top right of your screen, click Account then Edit Friends. Go to the left side of your screen and click Phonebook. Everyone's phone numbers are now being published. Please repost to let your friends know this is happening so they can remove their number....
Quite misleading. The phone numbers you see if you click "Phonebook" under "Edit Friends" in your "Account" menu are only those belonging to your Facebook friends who have selected to share that information via their privacy settings. The same is true of your own phone number and other personal details. What your friends see depends on your privacy settings. (NOTE: Your contacts' phone numbers will also populate your Phonebook if your mobile phone is synced with Facebook. If you don't wish this to be the case, change your sync settings.)
Nor is this a new feature. As has been the case for years, if members prefer not to share their phone number, address, or other personal contact information with friends or other Facebook users, they must choose their privacy settings accordingly, or delete those details from their profiles.
UPDATE: Mari Smith has compiled a helpful page for Facebook users on how to protect their Phonebook privacy.
UPDATE: New version of the rumor circulating as of mid-August 2011 refers specifically to mobile phone contacts:
ALL THE PHONE NUMBERS IN YOUR PHONE... INCLUDING YOURS are now on FACEBOOK! go to the top right of the screen, click on ACCOUNT, click on EDIT FRIENDS, left side of screen and click CONTACTS. you will see all phone numbers from your phone are published that you have stored in your mobile phone. TO REMOVE, go to RIGHT column, click on "this page." please repost this on your status, so your friends can remove their numbers and thus prevent abuse if they do not want them published.
Read more about it:
• Facebook: We're Not Giving Out Your Phone Number
• Facebook Faces Down Phone Number Rumors
• Alert: Facebook Phonebook Is Not a Security Threat
• Facebook Help: Profile and Contact Information Privacy
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Comments
yeah iv already heard about this. some people have already started prank calling my friends :/
They will only be visible if you post them for everyone to see.
This is not rubbish……. I have just checked and ALL my contacts from mobile were listed… including those who are not on facebook
It shows YOU all your contacts, because it is synced with your smartphone. The numbers you see on that page are only visible to YOU, not everyone.
Not true, they are visible to anyone who looks – we just tried it at work
Not a false rumour at all, I just clicked and checked and all my Iphone contacts are now on Facebook. I suggest you check it out properly.
Check your privacy settings. Just because you can see it doesn’t mean others can unless you allow it.
Nope, my phone numbers were hacked from my phone. I never synced my phone contacts with FB and yet all the numbers from my phone were on FB, not just the ones that people posted on FB themselves but numbers of people who I’m not friends with, the whole phone book. When I went to shut the sync off it was already off. Not hysteria. So, if FB can get your contact list from your phone then I imagine they can get anything else from your phone.
I do agree! It’s true. All the #’s are there. I have an HTC EVO and every1 of my fb friends #’s are on there.
For all of those that say “i’ve never sync’d and now they’re all there!”
check the terms and conditions of all of those facebook helper apps that you have installed on your phone. All of them say that they are able to take your contacts and post them to facebook and use them for whatever they like. Especially the non-official ones. The official iPhone app is a bit better, but still says they can do anything they want.
learn the facts first before writing an article like this!!