In 2009, Ars Technica discovered that an alarmingly high number of deleted Facebook photos were never actually deleted. Now, more than a year later, it appears that the social network has yet to fix the problem.When Ars Technica's Jacqui Cheng first contacted Facebook representatives about the issue, they told her that any deleted photos were inaccessible to other users, even if they still exist on the site's server. As Cheng points out, however, this isn't entirely true, since a direct image link will still provide access to a deleted photo, like this pic that Cheng originally 'deleted' on May 21st, 2009. At the time, Facebook reassured Cheng that it was working with its content delivery network (CDN) partner to "significantly reduce the amount of time that backup copies persist." As of yesterday though, neither Facebook nor its CDN had yet to delete the image. (We are presently unable to confirm this, as we couldn't get the image to load this morning.)
When Cheng contacted Facebook this week to inquire about her undeleted deleted photo, she received essentially the same response as she did 16 months ago. "For all practical purposes, the photo no longer exists, and we wouldn't be able find it if we were asked or even compelled to do so," Facebook spokesperson Simon Axten wrote, via e-mail. "This is similar to what happens when you delete information from the hard drive of your computer." This time, however, the social network acknowledged that some deleted photos are indeed accessible to other users who saved the photo's original URL, but, once again, insisted that it's "working with the CDN to reduce the amount of time that the photo remains in its cache."
It appears, then, that we'll all have to wait for Facebook to get around to solving this issue, if it ever does. In the meantime, though, it's probably a good idea to refrain from uploading any embarrassing photos in the first place.
Source: Ars Technica
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