Social networking site Facebook has blamed 'a bug' for an odd posting purporting to come from founder Mark Zuckerberg

The cryptic message was posted to the Facebook fan page in the name of the 26-year old billionaire founder. It called for the site to become a "social business" with investment from its users.

The message caused rumours that the site had been hacked or Zuckerberg's account was compromised.

"A bug enabled status postings by unauthorised people on a handful of pages, the bug has been fixed," the BBC quoted the site as saying in a statement.

"It was a handful of public Facebook pages and no personal user accounts were affected," it added.

The message, left in the name of Zuckerberg, read: "Let the hacking begin: If Facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn't Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way?

"Why not transform Facebook into a 'social business' the way Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus described it?" the message read.

The message also linked to a recently edited Wikipedia article about social business and asked readers: "what do you think?"

In addition, it linked to a page for the Hacker Cup, an annual programming event organised by Facebook. Many have interpreted this as a sign that the hacker feels they should win the competition.

Zuckerberg's private account appears not to have been affected. (ANI)