As it turns out, it was a false alarm. The "private" messages that were appearing publicly on people's Timelines were never private at all -- they were just old wall posts from 2009 that people had, well, forgotten about.

Facebook told that they have checked every report and have found no privacy breaches. Instead, users are just confused -- before 2009 there were no Likes or comments on wall posts, and so the posts look more like private message threads.

Facebook also says that there are technical barriers between the two systems that prevent such a privacy snafu from ever happening.

"The two systems are totally separate," Facebook said.

The issue was first reported in French newspapers, including and , and may have come to light because Facebook's new Timeline format was recently pushed to French users.