Is it possible for someone to tell you have looked at their Facebook page?

[olivertwistwantsmore]

Just that.

Can you tell if someone has been stalking your Facebook?

That's what I thought, but I recently;t had someone who I work with, but have no contact outside of work, so no phone numbers, email addresses, mutual groups and so on. There she was. The only explanation was nosing around on her side.

ChardonnaysDistantCousin Nope. Her stalking your FB profile does not affect ‘people you may know’ at all.

You work together, so she will be appearing in your ‘people you may know’ due to location.

FB algorithms are incredibly complex, but they are not at all affected by who has been looking at whose profile.

I know this isn’t supposed to happen, but I’m not convinced.

I looked up an ex (I know, I know) after quite a few years. Within an hour, they’d messaged me on fb messenger.

One I can’t explain is someone I was briefly friendly with maybe 15 years ago. Since then, I’ve moved house and (I think) changed phone number. We hadn’t even exchanged surnames, yet he’s popped up on my ‘people you might know’ suggestions.

I don’t trust Facebook and have stripped out all my personal details.

This has happened to me. It was someone who had interviewed me. No other links at all. She later confirmed she had looked me up.

StCharlotte Her looking you up is entirely irrelevant to her appearing on your ‘people you may know’. She will have appeared there due to location, her looking you up doesn’t affect that at all.

No, I travel quite a lot for work, and I don’t use SM when I work. I only use FB on a laptop I keep at home.

Hm. Am not geographically close to person I may have been looking up...

Also, there were many other people at the same location, how come they are never suggested?

I don't trust it. I moved miles away from my ex, cut contact with everyone we knew and changed my name. After a few years, curiously got the better of me and I looked up a few of my old friends on Facebook, just for a nosy, never made any contact.

... sure enough, next thing I'm getting messages from people from my old life who now know my name etc.
Hopefully they don't know much as I've always kept my security pretty tight but it gave me a shock.

*curiosity

I’m looking at a profile of a person who’s friends with one of my FB friends... used to be friends with them...

No. And anything claiming to tell you who's been looking at your profile is a scam that will spy on you.

What Facebook themselves do with the knowledge you looked at someone, fuck knows.

Also, there were many other people at the same location, how come they are never suggested?

ChardonnaysDistantCousin It doesn’t matter if you travel a lot, and it doesn’t matter whether or not you use SM when you work. Totally irrelevant. You were still in the same location at one point.

As I said, FB algorithms are exceptionally complex; I can’t tell you the ins and outs of them.

But looking someone up does not cause you to appear on their ‘people you may know’ and vice versa. That’s just widespread paranoia; a myth that’s been going around for years that people have been duped into believing.

I get all manner of randoms cropping up on 'people you may know' and there are loads and loads of them. I rarely ever go through the list to check if I do actually know any of them. Far too much faff.

So I’ve been looking at the page of a friend of a friend...

Create a false profile to do that sort of thing, FB gives you the option to go between two called account switcher.

I have one, use it to look up someone who caused me a lot of upset a few years ago. Its been a very informative tool. I never use it to post though, only to look.

However she doesn't come up on ''people I may know'' just some of my existing friends on my official page.

I'm a rare user of FB but have had my BIL pop up as people I might know. I have been NC with him and my sister for 25 years, have no friends in common and we don't share the same or similar name. So someone must have been doing a bit of stalking, and it wasn't me.

Even weirder about Facebook but not directly related to ops point.
Husband went out to pressure wash path. He didn't take his phone with him. I didn't even know he was doing it. Half an hour later when he logged into Facebook pressure washing adds started to appear.
A few days ago I went to clean stains out of daughters carpet. Didn't take phone, didn't search etc upon finishing using carpet cleaner adds appeared on my Facebook for carpet cleaning items!

You seem intent on proving me wrong, Hearts. I don’t understand why you are so certain you are right.

Again, If just being in the same location is enough why don’t the other people who were there come up?

Why doesn’t it matter that I not only never use SM at home, I don’t even have FB on my phone.

Anyway, I don’t really care, my privacy settings are quite tight.

www.mirror.co.uk/tech/facebook-users-convinced-its-listening-14991826

Its not exactly top journalism but the latter part of this article is quite interesting

Does it matter though?

If you don’t want to be stalked then set your profile to private. That way people can look but they won’t find out anything.

Anyone whose profile is public is fair game as far as I’m concerned.

They can't see that you've looked at their page (unless you accidentally add them or like something!))

With t the “friend coincidences” I wonder if they are “friends of friends of friends” etc: so something that you can’t easily see/check, but actually not difficult for FB to calculate...

Yeah, I think there’s something in this.

Most of my people you may know suggestions are the “x mutual friends” sort.
Occasionally I get suggestions with no mutual friends.

I looked at one of those yesterday - I’d never heard of them, no mutual friends, mutual groups etc, I’m wondering why FB has suggested them.
But when I looked at their friend list, about a dozen people on that were people who had mutual friends with me. Which presumably triggered some sort of FB algorithm.

You seem intent on proving me wrong, Hearts. I don’t understand why you are so certain you are right.

ChardonnaysDistantCousin I don’t need to prove you’re wrong. You are wrong, whether you are willing to accept it or not.

@ChardonnaysDistantCousin I'm sorry but @heartsonacake is correct