Facebook Secretly Saved Videos Users Deleted

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal, some users decided to download a file with everything they shared on the social network giant Facebook. This includes posts, photos, chat messages and even videos that have never been posted.

The New York Magazine found that for some users, the social network giant Facebook file includes videos that have never been posted on the social network, but which were stored in the profile. One user found more than 100 videos in her file, for example, but only published about one-third of them.

A few years ago, the social network giant Facebook site had a feature that allowed the user to record videos using the webcam. You could post it on a friend’s wall after seeing a preview, or simply discard it.

However, the video was not actually deleted and was stored on the servers in FLV (Flash Video) format. You can view it by downloading your Facebook file and using VLC Player if you used this webcam feature.

Why did the social network giant Facebook send a video that could be discarded to its servers? Probably to speed up the process: it would already be ready when the user clicked “Publish”; you would not have to wait for the upload.

The social network giant Facebook apparently is not breaking any rules by keeping these videos without prompting the user. The data policy states that the company may collect “content and other information provided by you when you use our Services”, including when you “create or share content”.

In a statement, the social network giant Facebook says this is a flaw: “We discovered a bug that prevented video drafts from being deleted. Let’s remove them, and we apologize for the inconvenience.”

Some users also found that the social network giant Facebook has stored names, phone numbers, and the length of each call made or received on Android devices. The social network also stored SMS and MMS metadata, including the recipient’s number and date of submission.

As we all now that Android let apps access your call and SMS history when you grant access to your contacts. This changed in Jelly Bean 4.1, but developers could look at older versions of the API and continue accessing their link data.