Facebook Showing Friend Count

[OtherS]

Not sure if this is common knowledge, or whether anyone else cares, but Facebook are now showing your friend count, even if you have your friend list set to private. There's apparently no way of disabling it, so if you don't want everyone seeing how many friends you have you have to deactivate.

Is this an issue for you?

So what

It's always shown the friend count though hasnt it?

Why does it matter if it's set to private anyway?

Couldn’t care less!

🧐

And?

Hasn’t it always done this?

It has always shown it i didn't think you can hide it ? Friends who's private don't show though.

Well, I am a Billy-no-mates with no friends on FB, I don't use it for that, well, I hardly ever use it but I guess it's no different to anyone seeing on X that I only have 2 followers and only follow 5 people. Yay for anti-social tendencies!

Does it shiw the friends too or just how many?

I don’t get why it’s an issue.

unless you’re a teenager who’s self esteem is aligned to how many online friends you have?

It’s always done this. It’s always been possible to see how many friends a profile has - it’s a way of assessing if it’s a fake profile, if nothing else.

No, it now shows the number of friends even if set to private. It only changed late 2024 and is being rolled out now, previously you could hide your friend list completely. Obviously most people don't care, other people do. I personally think Facebook shouldn't be changing it's privacy settings without announcement.

Showing the number of friends you have isn’t a privacy setting. They don’t need to inform you. No one is concerned with how many Facebook friends someone has

I had a notification weeks ago saying meta was changing this, that and the other etc yadayada. Did I bother to read it, you ask. No, I didn't.

Oh maybe I should be paying attention to my meta notifications !

I don't think its an issue though, I have just 100 and something friends its not something I've thought to much about.

That's what I've always thought. It's a good way to sniff out scammers.

Still can't fathom why it matters. Unless you're a scammer like.

I don't even know how many FB friends I have, let alone anyone else, and couldn't be less interested.

Nobody cares how many friends you have, so it’s not a big deal.

Not everyone is tech savvy enough to realize that. In my opinion they are trying to get rid of trolls and bots since the rise of AI, by ensuring more transparency, but unfortunately this is happening at the expense of peoples privacy.