Facebook “Poke” App Doesn’t Actually Delete Videos as Suggested

As we learned right before Christmas, Facebook has released an app called "Poke" that is supposed to magically make photos, videos, and messages "disappear" after a set amount of time. It turns out that may not be true after all.

"Poke" explains in the app's description that photos, videos, and messages can be sent between Facebook users with the sender being able to set a pre-determined viewing time of 1, 3, 5, or 10 seconds before the content is deleted. While Facebook's terms of use prohibit users from sending "naughty" photos and videos, it is hard to imagine there are many uses for such means of communication in the first place.

In tests conducted by BuzzFeed FWD, it was found that videos can be recovered from a phone; even after time has expired and the videos have "vanished". The tests only focus on videos, and don't suggest this can be done with photos or messages.

After the tests, BuzzFeed reached out to Facebook, who responded with the following:

Thanks for reaching out, and we are addressing this issue now. We should have a fix pushed shortly.

So, for all the sexters and other risque message-senders that use Poke; you may want to hold off on sending videos until this flaw is fixed.

[BuzzFeed]