If You Delted Photos on Facebook Do They Still Show in Photo Uploads

Biz & It —

Over iii years later, "deleted" Facebook photos are yet online

Photos that you remember you're deleting from Facebook are yet remaining on …

Some photos just don't need to meet the light of the next day.

Facebook is notwithstanding working on deleting photos from its servers in a timely manner virtually iii years later Ars first brought attention to the topic. The visitor admitted on Friday that its older systems for storing uploaded content "did not ever delete images from content delivery networks in a reasonable period of time even though they were immediately removed from the site," but said it's currently finishing up a newer system that makes the process much quicker. In the meantime, photos that users idea they "deleted" from the social network months or even years agone remain accessible via straight link.

The problem: "deleted" photos never go away

When we showtime investigated this phenomenon in 2009, nosotros discovered that photos "deleted" from Facebook seemingly never become away if you have a direct link to the image file on Facebook's servers. Users who might have had second thoughts well-nigh posting a photo—whether information technology was because they didn't want retaliation from an employer, wanted to avoid family drama, or uploaded a photo of a friend without their permission—could certainly remove the image from Facebook's master user interface, but as long equally someone had a direct link to the .jpg file in question, the photo would remain accessible for an indefinite corporeality of time. When we asked Facebook nearly information technology, nosotros were told that the company was "working with our content delivery network (CDN) partner to significantly reduce the amount of fourth dimension that fill-in copies persist."

Just when we followed up on the story more a year afterwards, our "deleted" photos were still accessible via direct link. That'south when the reader stories started pouring in: we were told horror stories about online harassment using photos that were allegedly deleted years ago, and users who were asked to take downward photos of friends that they had put online.

There were plenty of stories in between as well, and panicked Facebook users continue to email me, asking if we accept heard of any new way to ensure that their deleted photos are, well, deleted. For instance, 1 reader linked me to a photograph that a friend of his had posted of his toddler itch naked on the lawn. He asked his friend to take it down for obvious reasons, and then the friend did—in May of 2008. Equally of this writing in 2012, I have personally confirmed that the photograph is still online, as are several others that readers linked me to that were deleted at various points in 2009 and 2010.

(Amusingly, after publishing the 2010 followup, Facebook appeared to delete my photos from its CDN that I had linked in the piece. The company never offered me any explanation, but my photos were the only ones that were deleted at that time. Other "deleted" photos that I had saved links to—ones that weren't from my account and were deleted even earlier than mine—remained online.)

It's 2012, and things aren't much different—notwithstanding

After confirming again that all the photos that my friends and Ars readers had sent in were still online, I reached out to Facebook once again, looking for an answer as to why this is still going on well-nigh three years after the company commencement promised it was "working" on the issue.

"The systems we used for photo storage a few years ago did not always delete images from content commitment networks in a reasonable period of time even though they were immediately removed from the site," Facebook spokesperson Frederic Wolens told Ars via e-mail.

Wolens explained that photos remaining online are stuck in a legacy system that was apparently never operating properly, but said the company is working on a new system that volition delete the photos in a mere calendar month and a one-half. For really real this time.

"We accept been working hard to move our photo storage to newer systems which do ensure photos are fully deleted within 45 days of the removal asking being received," Wolens said. "This process is nearly complete and there is only a very modest percentage of user photos still on the former system pending migration, the URL you provided was stored on this legacy arrangement. Nosotros await this process to be completed within the next month or two, at which point we volition verify the migration is complete and we will disable all the one-time content."

Long story brusk, Wolens claims that Facebook is on the verge of fixing upwards its content systems and then that "deleted" photos are really, truly deleted from the CDN within 45 days. Merely with the process not expected to be finished until a couple months from now—and unfortunately, with a company history of stretching the truth when asked about this topic—nosotros'll accept to come across information technology before we believe it.

It'south hard to believe that we've been following this story over a catamenia of years and the problem hasn't been stock-still yet. But unlike the by, we do have some semblance of confidence that Facebook might really exist working on it this fourth dimension. We'll continue to follow this story until the new changes are actually in place. In the meantime, does anyone have whatsoever new Facebook horror stories to share?

List paradigm by Photograph analogy past Aurich Lawson

wilsonweververnly.blogspot.com

Source: https://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/02/nearly-3-years-later-deleted-facebook-photos-are-still-online.ars

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