WASHINGTON, December 27 (RIA Novosti) – Randi Zuckerberg, the older sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, is crying foul after a family photo she posted on her private Facebook timeline was publically shared, an ironic turn of events that illustrates even the family of Facebook’s founder can be confused by the sites privacy settings.
The photo, showing the Zuckerberg family’s reaction to the social network’s newest smartphone app, Poke, went viral after Callie Schweitzer, a marketing director with Vox Communications, posted the photo on Twitter sharing it with her nearly 40,000 followers.
“Not sure where you got this photo,” tweeted Randi Zuckerberg to Schweitzer. “I posted it only to friends on FB. You reposting it on Twitter is way uncool,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Schweitzer quickly replied with an apology, “Genuinely sorry but it came up in my feed and seemed public.”
The photo in question has since been deleted, but not before it, along with the Twitter exchange, was published by Buzzfeed and shared throughout the blogosphere.
According to various media reports, the photo appeared in Schweitzer’s feed because she is Facebook friends with one of the Zuckerberg relatives tagged in the picture.
Facebook’s privacy settings allowed Schweitzer to view what was intended to be a private photo because one of her friends was tagged in it.
Randi Zuckerberg blamed a lack of decency, not Facebook’s confusing privacy settings, for the breach.
“Digital etiquette: always ask permission before posting a friend’s photo publicly. It’s not about privacy settings, it’s about human decency,” Zuckerberg said on Twitter.
Over the course of the past few months, Facebook’s privacy issues have come under fire.
Last week, Instagram, which was recently purchased by Facebook, attempted to update its privacy policies to allow users’ photos to be used by advertisers. The company has since backtracked on the policy after users complained.