Bug Alert: Removing Image from Who-Viewed-Profile Apps on Facebook

My previous post, Beware of "Who Viewed My Profile" Apps on Facebook, received, by far, the most traffic I've ever received in a single day on this blog. Unfortunately, there's a new problem associated with the original one.

The people who never even installed the application in the first place ended up with photo collages like the one below on their own Photos pages because they were tagged in them.

And now they can't get rid of it.

Normally, when a friend tags you in a photo, you can simply go in and remove the tag so it doesn't show up on your Photos page or Wall (although it will still show up on your friend's profile). However, when people try to click on these collage photos, they are getting the following message:

The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page.

I don't know if this is because the application itself has done something to prevent untagging the photos or because Facebook has removed the application. Regardless, people are now stuck with these photos on their profiles with no way to remove them. Apparently even unfriending the person who installed the app will not remove the photo. And if Facebook has actually removed the application, there's no way to report the problem, since the Report option is only available on an application's page itself.

Here are a few threads posted by users on FB's Help Center related to this problem:

http://www.facebook.com/help/?question=420903
http://www.facebook.com/help/?question=411223
http://www.facebook.com/help/?question=421938

I haven't found an answer yet to how to solve the problem but, if I do, I'll post it here right away. If you've got a solution, please send it along so I can share it with other readers. One thing in particular I'm not clear about is whether if the person who did install the application can remove the photo from their profile and therefore have it disappear from yours. (However, you shouldn't have to rely on that person doing so to be able to remove it from your own.)

I also sent a tweet yesterday to Facebook's Twitter account (oh, the irony!) to see if I could get an answer from them, but so far I haven't received any response. Feel free to retweet it.

Important! One other serious problem that has been mentioned in the threads above is that, in some cases, you may end up with an application installed in your own account without you knowing it. To see if this is the case for you:

Go to Account > Application Settings
From the dropdown list at the top of the page, select Authorized or Added to Profile
Scroll down the list to see if there are any apps you don't recognize
If so, click the x at the far right to delete it from your account

This is one of the more disturbing bugs I've seen on Facebook. And considering they have acknowledged that these applications have violated their own terms, I would have thought they'd have addressed it already, even just to say they're trying to find a fix if one isn't currently available. I hope to have an answer soon.

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