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Facebook is stealing my thoughts
SpongeCake
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I've always considered myself savvy when it comes to keeping my personal info personal, but a string of events on Facebook has just majorly freaked me out.
I've got a small, very private profile, viewable only by my friends, and which shouldn't even pop up on public searches for anyone other than friends of friends, simply because I like to keep my private life private. As you probably know, Facebook has a "people you may know" feature, which pops up suggested friends you might want to add. Fair enough. Most of these people are people who my friends have also friended, which makes perfect sense. Others are seemingly completely random folks I've never seen before, which I just ignored until recently.
What's worrying me, is that Facebook has started bringing up "people you may know" from my distant, distant past, that I have had no online or real contact with for longer than Facebook has existed. We also have absolutely zero friends in common. First time this happened it was a girl I went to university with - 0 friends in common, I'm convinced I never had her email address and I've never contacted her on Facebook.
Just recently, a guy has popped up who I haven't spoken to since 1999, again 0 friends in common. He's not even registered with his real name, he's using a novelty one that I remember from '99.
How in the name of fuck has Facebook figured out that I know these people? Where is this data being scoured from?
I've got a small, very private profile, viewable only by my friends, and which shouldn't even pop up on public searches for anyone other than friends of friends, simply because I like to keep my private life private. As you probably know, Facebook has a "people you may know" feature, which pops up suggested friends you might want to add. Fair enough. Most of these people are people who my friends have also friended, which makes perfect sense. Others are seemingly completely random folks I've never seen before, which I just ignored until recently.
What's worrying me, is that Facebook has started bringing up "people you may know" from my distant, distant past, that I have had no online or real contact with for longer than Facebook has existed. We also have absolutely zero friends in common. First time this happened it was a girl I went to university with - 0 friends in common, I'm convinced I never had her email address and I've never contacted her on Facebook.
Just recently, a guy has popped up who I haven't spoken to since 1999, again 0 friends in common. He's not even registered with his real name, he's using a novelty one that I remember from '99.
How in the name of fuck has Facebook figured out that I know these people? Where is this data being scoured from?
SpongeCake on
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Bolded part, are you sure they're random? If Facebook shows you enough people that you went to college with, eventually it'll hit one you recognize. Whether it's college, high school, current location, or maybe even your listed interests, I'd say there's a high probability that you have something in common with these people for the algorithm to show them to you.
What's really weird for me is when I see a person on there that I have two friends in common with, except those two friends are from completely separate parts of my life and have no idea that the other exists.
People in your geographical network
People who match some data you provided (your school, your employer, your hobbies, etc.)
The friends of your friends
Par for the course.
If we're talking sheer chance here, then there are tens of thousands of people who would be showing up alongside him - this guy is popping up every other day, it's clearly more than just chance.
You want a paranoid mind reader moment?
Facebook once recommended two people on the same day.
One I had only talked to on MSN six months earlier, and never had any other contact.
The other wrote a comment on my blog years ago.
This guy is so far removed from my life that the chances of it being random are like, 1 in a hundred thousand. That'd be fine if I'd also seen a hundred thousand other unrelated people and he'd just popped up in there. There are only about a dozen "0 friends" faces that keep appearing, and his is always there.
This is precisely the kind of thing I'm getting it. Is Facebook harvesting data from places like MSN to figure out recommended friends lists?
If you used the same email you signed up to MSN with then yes they do.
Well super. That's creepy as hell, but good to know.
So it's entirely possible that someone you know gave your privacy away.
I checked, not a single one of my friends who Facebook claims used that service have actually used it.
Unless he's got a bunch of information on his profile publicly viewable, then I'm not sure how you can say that since you can't account for his whereabouts and/or life over the last 11-12 years.
Also, if you viewed his profile, that might increase the chances that Facebook will show it to you again.
Friends say they've seen me on it. And I consider my email account to be the keys to my digital life since that's where all password reminders/resets get sent. So yeah, they're blatantly making shit up.
Creepy by design.