text: Image copyright Facebook Image caption Facebook's own CEO was among the "dead" during the bug's brief appearance 
   
   An unusual bug on Facebook briefly labelled many people as dead. 
   
   The error on Friday caused the social network to show a memorial banner on user profiles for people who were still alive. 
   
   Users posted status updates to reassure friends and family they were not dead, despite Facebook's message. 
   
   "This was a terrible error that we have now fixed," a Facebook spokesperson said. "We are very sorry that this happened." 
   
   The message, intended for "memorialised profiles", erroneously appeared on the profile pages of a large number of users - including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 
   
   "We hope people who love Mark will find comfort in the things others share to remember and celebrate his life," the banner on his page read. 
   
   Technology reporters and Facebook users, however, saw a humorous side to the story. 
   
   Image copyright Facebook Image caption Many users felt the need to clarify things, often with a sense of humour 
   
   Image copyright @jarretsays 
   
   Image copyright @EmmettPlant 
   
   "Why Is Facebook Saying I'm Dead?" asked the New York Times' Katie Rogers. "At first, I was indignant. I was definitely not dead. Then I thought I had been hacked. Then I asked a few of my colleagues. Also dead." 
   
   "Facebook is capping one of the longest weeks in American history by telling everyone that they are dead," quipped The Verge, a technology website, in reference to the presidential election. 
   
   The memorial feature was introduced by Facebook in 2015 because of a number of high-profile cases where family wanted to access the social accounts of deceased loved ones. 
   
   User can opt to have their account turn into a memorial page upon their death, where Facebook contacts can leave message and share memories. 
   
   An alternative option is to have your account deleted after your death. ||||| Facebook users were forced to do a double take on Friday as they leisurely scoped out their friends’ profiles. 
   
   At the top of the page, some people, including verified users, reported seeing memorial banners. 
   
   The problem: the person memorialized wasn’t actually dead. 
   
   “We hope people who love [Facebook user] will find comfort in the things others share to remember and celebrate [his or her] life,” the banner read. 
   
   The switch to memorial pages left users shocked and confused. 
   
   “Having a tough day today, but not dead, just in case Facebook tries to claim that I am,” one user posted. 
   
   “I’m still alive at the moment!” another person exclaimed. 
   
   Even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg fell victim to the apparent bug. 
   
   The company later addressed the “terrible error” in a statement provided to CBS News. 
   
   “For a brief period today, a message meant for memorialized profiles was mistakenly posted to other accounts,” a Facebook spokesman said. “This was a terrible error that we have now fixed. We are very sorry that this happened and we worked as quickly as possible to fix it.” 
   
   Facebook Thursday: Fake news is not a problem 
   
   Facebook Friday: Mark Zuckerberg is dead. Your friends are dead. We are all dead. — Julia Carrie Wong (@juliacarriew) November 11, 2016 
   
   Facebook is now saying we're all dead https://t.co/V14fPuymnC pic.twitter.com/rUOCAyC0Xz — Marc Zwygart (@mediaadvantages) November 11, 2016 
   
   According to Facebook, memorialized accounts can only be requested after a person passes away. 
   
   “If Facebook is made aware that a person has passed away, it’s our policy to memorialize the account,” Facebook explained in a post.
target: – Killing off millions of users is as bad as a mistake as a website can make—but luckily for Facebook, it was reversible. The company apologized for a "terrible error" Friday that caused the profiles of many users—including Mark Zuckerberg—to be switched to the "memorialized" version used after people die, the BBC reports. "We hope people who love Mark will find comfort in the things others share to remember and celebrate his life," said the message under the "Remembering Mark Zuckerberg" banner. Pages are usually only memorialized after a user dies and friends or family request the change and provide proof of death. Affected users scrambled to reassure friends and family that they were still alive, CBS reports. "Having a tough day today, but not dead, just in case Facebook tries to claim that I am," one user posted. Facebook said it had introduced a new message for memorialized pages and accidentally displayed it on the accounts of around 2 million living users. "We are very sorry that this happened and we worked as quickly as possible to fix it," a spokesman said. The Guardian notes that the blunder happened just two days after Zuckerberg insisted that fake news on Facebook played no role in people's voting decisions.