Facebook Bug Fills Feeds With Random Celebrity Content And Outlandish Memes

A bug in the early hours of Wednesday morning filled Facebook feeds around the world with spammy content, confusing and delighting many — especially memers.

The bug specifically made it so that if you liked a celebrity’s page – for example, the band ABBA – every time some stan or random user posted to that page or wrote a message on it, that message would end up on your wall, including the image if one was posted.

Facebook right now #Facebook pic.twitter.com/8c6bHh399v

— Hank Jr (@JrHank_) August 24, 2022

#facebookhackedFacebook's staff coming into work this morning be like: pic.twitter.com/iHuE9rwS9J

— Tracking Hacking (@TrackingHacking) August 24, 2022

Thus, much content that most people would otherwise never see found its way onto the main feeds of the world’s billion-plus Facebook users.

The only place in the world that may have hosted more spam than Facebook at 3 a.m. EST on Wednesday would be the factory in Austin, Minnesota where the iconic processed pork product is produced.

My Facebook feed is hilarious 😂 #facebook #facebookhacked pic.twitter.com/H7G6sPhkuw

— Cassandra Ruiz (@C_RUIZ760) August 24, 2022

Mark Zuckerberg right now #facebook #bug #error pic.twitter.com/nEZgsmpsGr

— P1 JANO (@jan_mager) August 24, 2022

While not precisely an outage, the bug did make Facebook difficult to use, and so users flocked to other platforms to check if they were the only ones experiencing the problem and if it might end any time soon.

Is anyone else’s Facebook broken or have I been hacked. This is my entire feed pic.twitter.com/nQwvtLqRjT

— chris🧣 (@chrismearle) August 24, 2022

Me opening twitter after facebook bug #Facebook #facebookdown #bug pic.twitter.com/YMG9rw3lLM

— Mohammad Waleed (@iamwal33d) August 24, 2022

Twitter and Reddit were full of people complaining about Facebook and reposting the best content that they’d found on their feeds, including a viral post on the subreddit /r/OutOfTheLoop inquiring about the bizarre phenomenon.

At first I was worried about this Facebook bug but some of these are HILARIOUS. pic.twitter.com/NAQrXZndVc

— Lea 🥀 (@300polygons) August 24, 2022

A lot of humorous memes were produced because memers (along with crypto scammers and others) immediately took advantage of the higher visibility to spew reams of odd content. As always, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, perhaps the most visible and memed tech industry leader, was mocked and ridiculed amid the news spreading online.

Facebook right now#FacebookAds #facebookhacked #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/U1plCLAlPx

— weLskkieeee (@welskiee) src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 24, 2022

Just Marc Zuckerberg trying to solve facebook bug 😂 #facebookhacked pic.twitter.com/fntpy0vS7r

— Canis Anthus 🥷 (@idickfih1) August 24, 2022

Please Mark Zuckerberg fix Facebook. I don’t want my parents on Twitter. #facebookhacked pic.twitter.com/ILgbp0dMZA

— Ellie 💫 (@elikipsigei) August 24, 2022

Facebook feeds are now clean again and the bug has been fixed. But the early morning pandemonium that reigned on the world's biggest social media platform is another reminder of the "freakitude" which exists just underneath the smooth surfaces of online life. It can be easy to forget how weird a place the web really is when it's working properly.