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Social Media Bug Creates #FacebookRapture


FILE - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a town hall at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, Feb. 27, 2015. Zuckerberg was one of the victims of the bug that emerged this week on the social networking site.
FILE - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a town hall at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, Feb. 27, 2015. Zuckerberg was one of the victims of the bug that emerged this week on the social networking site.

Many Facebook users have been discovering a new problem with their accounts — a banner on the top of their homepage, telling people they are dead.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was one of the victims of the bug that emerged this week on the social networking site. Some wits have titled the phenomenon #FacebookRapture, referring to a biblical story about people being removed from Earth in mass numbers.

While the notion is jarring, the message sounds benign. The banner, which appears above the person's original page, reads, "We hope that people who love _____ will find comfort in the things others share to remember and celebrate their life."

A Facebook spokesperson told the Buzzfeed News site that the problem was due to a bug that has since been fixed.

Facebook has recently been plagued with criticism that partisan stories posted on the site helped to influence the U.S. presidential election.

The outcry was so strong that on Thursday Zuckerberg spoke out to defend his company, saying at a conference in San Francisco that the idea is "pretty crazy."

"There is a profound lack of empathy in asserting that the only reason someone could have voted the way they did is because they saw fake news," he said.

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