Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2013/02/01/facebook_events_bug/

Facebook's Google, Bing events snub: It's a BUG, NOT a FEATURE

Soon as we fix it, everyone is welcome ... bitch

By Kelly Fiveash

Posted in Networks, 1st February 2013 14:01 GMT

Exclusive Facebook still wants to operate on the web by allowing "public" parts of its vast database to be indexed on search engines such as Google and Bing.

But it appeared earlier this week as though the Mark Zuckerberg-run company had - in the wake of launching Graph Search - began squirrelling away such results relating to public events posted on the free content ad network.

That's not the case, however, Facebook has insisted. Because it's not a feature but a bug.

A spokesman at Zuck's empire told The Register:

We are working on a fix and we expect it to be sorted shortly.

As we uncovered on Tuesday, users searching for Facebook events marked as "public" via, say, Google or Bing are unable to proceed to access the information once they click on the link.

Instead, netizens are redirected to Facebook's homepage, which demands a username and password. In other words, those 6 billion people around the globe not using the service need an account to access that data.

The move appeared to be a natural progression for Facebook to try and rein in its "social graph". But then, many might have considered its subtle removal of events from search engines as suicidal for its advertising revenue.

And that's why this time it's a bug, not a feature. ®