Facebook private message rumor is absolutely true.

Facebook said in a statement, reported on by the BBC, that no private messages were ever published, and the kind of breach reported is impossible.

Today I verified that my private messages from prior to 2010 were leaked to anyone who could view my Timeline, which included over 700 people on my friend's list.

Messages found on my timeline included personal messages such as "tonight was fun. let's do it again." that would never have been posted to my wall in a million years.

Flirting messages, work-related messages, and even private messages from my mom asking if I'm coming home for the holiday were all exposed to my friends.

After hours of discussion with individuals on my friends list, we verified that the breach was not limited to seeing your own messages. I had several friends verify that they could see each and everyone one of these posts that appeared as "wall messages."

Despite massive virality around the security breach, Facebook said in a statement that "A small number of users raised concerns after what they mistakenly believed to be private messages appeared on their Timeline."

UPDATE: Facebook has repeatedly claimed, in numerous news stories, that these messages are actually old wall posts that had always been public. They claim that users simply "forgot" these were actually public messages.

However, numerous users, myself included, have verified that these messages were private - many online commenters in news stories have said things like "they even said they were sending me a message instead of posting on my wall in the post."

For now, you can hide these posts from your timeline by following these instructions.