To think "friend suggestions" on Facebook are people who may have viewed your profile?

[ashbeebb]

Apologies if this has been done to death.
Recently I've had two strange things happen.
I have been having CBT and my counsellor appeared as a friend suggestion with a magnifying glass next to her name.
Now my phone number isn't registered to my Facebook and email is different to my email.
No friends in common obviously.

Then also my ex of two years ago randomly popped up yesterday.
I've not got any mutual friends or live in same area etc.
I don't even use my Facebook much.

Aibu surely this can't be just a coincidence can it?
I know Facebook have said nobody can find out who looks at who.

Definitely does use location data; on holiday once surrounded by lots of Russians on the beach and my suggested friends kept giving me Russian names. No other reason for it.
I try now to use FB as little as possible!

Yes it can be who has looked at your profile but it’s also done on mutual friends, pages you’ve both liked and location so if you’ve both been in the same place a few times it might link you. Some seem totally and utterly random though

Yes I definitely think this is the case, I had someone block me and unblock me when they feel the urge to try and see my profile I eventually got the chance to block them so they couldn’t anymore. They have now made a profile of their DC and that one keeps popping up and disappearing before I get the chance to block that profile as well.

@FTEngineerM

Categorically does happen.

If police are snooping they use special accounts so that this doesn’t happen.

I would think that's because it's easy to like someone's post from 2010 when snooping😂 It would be pretty outing if notification popped up that PC Lookingatya like your photo from 2010😂

I'm a counsellor - why don't you ask her if she's looked you up? It could bring up some interesting stuff for you! Why the need to know she hasn't looked etc.
I sometimes do a quick search on socials for people to check they are a real person for spec queries. We can get some suspect emails sometimes. Obvs I'm just seeing that an email matches a person not looking at anything else - I don't want to build a picture from FB as it would impact on my work with the client if that makes sense. I want my picture to come from the client themselves.

Yeah 100%. I know this because it suggested my ex-husbands new bit of fluff. No mutual friends or any reason we would pop up as a suggestion for each other.

@SchrodingersImmigrant I would 100% do that if I was on that job 😂 I do it now on instagram. Cringe.

In all seriousness though, DP was a PS for a decade working with CID on a good few jobs.

One of my friend suggestions was someone I used to go and stand near once a week

Have also been suggested a friend who was someone who gave me a lift the day before that I'd never met before then

I think most of us are guilty at some point of doing it.
Sometimes il be looking at someone's pic on my Facebook,click to see who's liked it and before i know it I'm looking at great aunt Mildred who is 97 and lives in Timbuktu 😂

I would think that's because it's easy to like someone's post from 2010 when snooping
That is the main reason why! All osint training starts with having fake profiles so you don't accidentally like or friend request someone you are searching for and give them your real life details

This is what I hate about bloody facebook.

Last week I got a friend request from a middle aged man (I will call him Dave,) who I have never met. We have NO friends in common. One of my friends (Linda,) is friends with someone called 'Tracey,' (And I am not friends with Tracey.) Tracey however, has 'Dave' on her friends list. I don't know Tracey OR Dave. Yet for some reason he has felt the need to send me a friend request.

It's weird and bizarre. I declined the request, and then the next day he sent another friend request! So this time I declined it and instantly blocked him. A couple of days later, the same man came up with a new facebook account, with another friend request sent to me from this new account.

So I actually declined and blocked, and the deactivated my facebook. I will reactivate it in a week or so, but this guy is pissing me off. I don't know him, and I don't WANT to.

I also get random friend suggestions from people I have no connections with. No friends in common, no mutual groups, no nothing... I find it quite annoying actually.

Yes I think it is. My sister had one who was a man I had recently been dating at the time and ended things with. No other friends in common and I wasn't even on Facebook myself. He wasn't from our local area either. So the only thing I can think is that he searched for her and probably other family members and then showed up in her recommended.

I don’t think it’s because they’ve necessarily viewed your profile. I get suggestions from people I’ve never met, no mutual friends, so I don’t think they’ve been looking at my account. No idea how the algorithms work but I don’t think a friends suggestion is indicative of them looking at a profile of you

So the only thing I can think is that he searched for her and probably other family members and then showed up in her recommended.

Or he checked into a place your sister had too.

It can happen due to location being turned on too. Does your phone have location enabled? This would explain the therapist if they had theirs switched on too.

I know a lot about FB algorithms (and digital marketing algorithms generally) through work and the reality is they’re incredibly complex and interactive. It’s neither as as simple as saying “yes, that’s how they work” or “no, that’s definitely not how they work”. It isn’t simply the case that if you search somebody you will then become a suggested person they know; but it may form part of the footprint combined with much broader data which means occasionally it happens.

It definitely, 100% does! A very distant relative came up on mine which surprised me as we have absolutely no links whatsoever.

No I don't have my location on.
Technology is a crazy thing isn't it.

There are people reading my profile who never turn up in 'may know' - I know they're reading because when we can be together, they tell me and refer to my posts. To be honest, they are the reason I still use fb. Occasionally, I get a 'may know' who is probably someone who has read there, usually friends and relatives of the aforementioned readers. Most of 'may know' are 'friends' of my fb 'friends' and the rest are fb's desperate attempts to connect me with absolute strangers - no fb, I don't need a creche in Brazil, thanks.

Come up in your ‘suggested friends’ when they’ve been looking at your profile. The CEO where I work appeared on my ‘suggested friends’ recently. No mutual friends. Clearly he was being nosey.

That's much more likely location data. Doesn't matter if you've got it switched on, if you're connected to WiFi or within connection range of WiFi (not even yours) then your phone still knows where you are

Yes this happens to me often, get friend suggestions for people I haven't seen for years and who I don't have any online links with

Also I get loads of suggestions from people in countries I've never been to and know no-one from

Just reminded me to stall some people I hate...

Of course it doesn't!
What it does pick up is things you Google, websites and apps you look at etc.
Can't believe people still think this.