The global Facebook Page admin fail and the SA connection

The bug that caused worldwide havoc on Facebook Pages this week was resolved quickly after it was apparently discovered and reported by a bunch of quick-witted South African Page administrators early on Thursday morning.

A recently-updated privacy setting had caused a bug that prevented or limited administrators of their respective Facebook Pages from responding to comments from fans. Facebook acknowledged the problem and quickly fixed the error: “We are currently working on a fix that is keeping some Page admins from commenting on their Wall content. Thanks to those who helped us identify this issue.”

The local Page administrators claim they were “the first” to notice and identify the problem. The hashtag #FBPageFail, created by the locals, sprung to life and news of the issue began to spread globally like a virus.

Memeburn got involved and, judging by reports and a Google search, appears to be one of the first major platforms to report on the global bug. Memeburn’s article on the issue helped other Page administrators across the world to understand that what they were experiencing wasn’t unique.

By the time the rest of the world had woken up, the savvy South African social media managers had delivered a full investigation and scope of the problem so that Facebook could immediately get to work and fix it… along with a nifty hash tag to share the issue with others.

The good news was that as soon as the Facebook developers woke up and got into the office, they had fixed the bug within hours.