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Facebook erroneously sucking in Twitter updates

Users are complaining about their Twitter updates showing up in Facebook. Plus: How to turn it off.

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Rafe Needleman Former Editor at Large
Rafe Needleman reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business.
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Rafe Needleman
To turn off erroneous Twitter updates in Facebook, block the Twitter app. Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET

Reports are surfacing that Twitter users' updates are showing up on their Facebook walls, quite against their wishes.

Twitter previously developed a Facebook app for users of both services that takes in a user's Twitter content and posts it on Facebook. Apparently a lot of people installed it but left it turned off, and now Facebook is, in error, ignoring the setting and letting the app do what it was designed to do even if users don't want it.

There are also reports that the same thing is happening with the Friendfeed app, which quite complicates things since many people give Friendfeed itself access to their Twitter feeds.

Consensus seems to be that a Facebook bug is causing the platform to ignore users' "off" settings on their Twitter and Friendfeed apps. A solution is to block the offending applications (Twitter, Friendfeed) from accessing your profile.

Update, 11:40 PM: Facebook released this statement:

Earlier this evening, a small Facebook bug allowed a handful of apps to publish to the stream on behalf of users who had previously authorized the app. The situation has now been resolved, and all application settings will remain intact for users.