Facebook

The glitch set a user’s post to be shared to "everyone", even if a user had previously chosen a more restricted option, such as “friends of friends”.

“We’d like to apologise for this mistake,” said Erin Egan, Facebook’s head of privacy.

Users who may have been affected will be notified on the site’s newsfeed.

"We recently found a bug that automatically suggested posting publicly when some people were creating their Facebook posts,” Ms Egan said.

Supposedly, Fabrizio Brambilla already has his system connected to your account. And, warns the message,  if one of your friends accepts him, you will be hacked as well.

Versions of the message are circulating in Italian and English.

An example of the hoax:

"When you're building something like Facebook which is unprecedented in the world," he said on Wednesday, "there are things that you're going to mess up.

"What I think people should hold us accountable for is if we are learning from our mistakes."

As well as being Facebook's chief executive, Mr Zuckerberg is chairman of the company's board. When asked if his position had been discussed, he replied: "Not that I know of!"

The mere possibility that his leadership is in question is a scenario few would have predicted even a month ago.

The CEO's statement follows allegations that 50 million Facebook users' private information was misused by the political consultancy firm.

Mr Zuckerberg pledged to introduce a series of changes.

These would make it far harder for apps to "harvest" user information, he said.

A breach of trust between app creator Aleksandr Kogan, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook had occurred, Mr Zuckerberg said in a statement on his Facebook page - his first public comments since the scandal broke.

"Local news helps us understand the issues that matter in our communities," explained chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on his page on Monday.

The update will initially apply to the US before it is rolled out more widely.

It comes after Facebook announced that it was making posts from businesses, brands and media less prominent.

"Starting today, we're going to show more stories from news sources in your local town or city," Mr Zuckerberg said in his post.

Paul Tweed said he had been "deluged" with inquiries after the settlement with the 14-year-old girl.

She sued Facebook after a man allegedly posted a naked photo of her on a so-called "shame" page.

Facebook has said it takes the issue of revenge porn seriously.

It said it has developed tools to tackle the problem.

In a post on his page on the social network, he said it was making too many errors enforcing policies and preventing misuse of its tools.

Mr Zuckerberg has famously set himself challenges every year since Facebook started in 2009.

Social media firms have come under fire for allowing so-called fake news ahead of US and other elections to spread.

Facebook in particular has been criticised for allowing Russia-linked political ads in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential vote.

The social network said it was "very cautious" about removing political speech.

The details emerged as the Home Affairs Committee grilled Facebook, Google and Twitter on what they were doing to combat hate speech.

MPs said the firms had made progress but were still not doing enough.

Google promised an annual transparency report on the issue. Facebook and Twitter said they were looking at a similar course of action but did not commit to it.

On Britain First, a far-right group, Facebook's director of public policy Simon Milner said it was reviewing its future.

Facebook has blocked the sale of a pack of Christmas cards featuring a robin redbreast because of its “sexual” and “adult” nature.

The artist, Jackie Charley, said she “could not stop laughing” when she discovered the reason the social media company would not approve the product last month.

The bird, with its distinctive red and orange breast, was one of three designs painted by Charley of animals in the snow for the set. The others were a stag and a squirrel.

In the most recent development, it looks like Facebook has quietly removed the Ticker, the box that used to appear to the right of your News Feed to summarize what all your friends have been liking, commenting on, and generally doing on the social network.