Zuckerberg's sister complains about breach of Facebook privacy

Look who’s gotten embroiled in a Facebook privacy controversy – founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, Randi. The former head of marketing at Facebook was outraged as she found a private photo of hers on Twitter.

The older Zuckerberg sibling turned into a victim of the highly confusing privacy settings on Facebook when a photo she thought was private to only her friend list appeared on Twitter. Vox Media’s Marketing Manager Callie Schweitzer – a Zuckerberg subscriber – mentioned Randi in a tweet with the photo. An enraged Randi told Schweitzer off saying, “Not sure where you got this photo.I posted it only to friends on FB. You reposting it on Twitter is way uncool.”

A flustered Schweitzer issued a series of apologies to Zuckerberg on Twitter saying that the photo appeared on the top of her Facebook newsfeed and that she thought the image was public. “…just your subscriber and this was top of my newsfeed. Genuinely sorry but it came up in my feed and seemed public," she tweeted.

Privacy breach in the Zuckerberg Family? (Image Courtesy: Getty Images)

Zuckerberg soon regained her control and graciously accepted Schweirzer’s apology saying, “I think you saw it [because] you're friends [with] my sister (tagged).Thanks for the apology.” The tweet has since been deleted, but Zuckerberg was clearly sore about the entire incident as she added, “I’m just sensitive to private photos becoming ‘news.’”

Zuckerberg signed off with blaming social networking users for lack of digital etiquette instead of obviously contemplating on what is wrong with the privacy settings of the website younger sibling Mark heads. A Twitter user named Anna (@girlvanized) pointedly told Zuckerberg, “Instead of vilifying a subscriber for not reading your mind, maybe you should talk to your brother about recent FB changes.”

The photo in question shows some members of the Zuckerberg family and friends reacting in a dramatic fashion to the new Poke Facebook App. This new app is reportedly the long awaited Snapchat competitor that sends out messages and photos only for a limited amount of time before expiring.  

Earlier this month, Facebook had released an update for their Messenger app on Android using which people who are not members of the social networking website could use it to chat with friends using only their names and mobile numbers. Even as speculations were rife that Facebook would purchase Whatsapp, with this release it showed it meant to give tough competition to other messenger services.

If WhatsApp wasn’t enough, Facebook then trained its guns on self-destructing message app Snapchat. Facebook has also taken on Snapchat with Poke, with similar features of time controlled messages that destroy themselves after the receiver has read it.

Even as Facebook is adding feature after feature to its apps and website, it looks like the social media giant has ended up neglecting users by making privacy features tighter. Facebook has had several security lapses and ‘oops’ moments in the past – said to be the only chink in Facebook’s armour. The honcho’s own sister facing an issue, where her private photo became visible to a friend of someone tagged, does not bode well for the website. Are you listening, Mark?