How Facebook knows who you might be dating online
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Re: How Facebook knows who you might be dating online
#2Something similar happened to me on Facebook.
There was someone I was meeting in real life but we had absolutely no FB connections. No mutual friends. And I didn't even know she was on Facebook.
Suddenly I saw her on my 'Suggested friends' list.
The only reasonable explanation is that she found me on Facebook and viewed my profile. Facebook saved the incident and suggested her to me as a friend.
Facebook forgets nothing. Nothing.
Re: How Facebook knows who you might be dating online
#3Something similar happened to me on Facebook. There was someone I was meeting in real life but we had absolutely no FB connections. No mutual friends. And I didn't even know she was on Facebook. Suddenly I saw her on my 'Suggested friends' list. The only reasonable explanation is that she found me on Facebook and viewed my profile. Facebook saved the incident and suggested her to me as a friend. Facebook forgets noth…
My theory is that if you use the mobile app it factors in GPS location.
Several times I've been at a particular venue, without "checking in" or even posting. The next day, people I met at the venue would show up in my suggestions list.
Re: How Facebook knows who you might be dating online
#4Something similar happened to me on Facebook. There was someone I was meeting in real life but we had absolutely no FB connections. No mutual friends. And I didn't even know she was on Facebook. Suddenly I saw her on my 'Suggested friends' list. The only reasonable explanation is that she found me on Facebook and viewed my profile. Facebook saved the incident and suggested her to me as a friend. Facebook forgets noth…
I had it happen it to me as well, but the only link I can see was that I was texting with that person for the first time that day. And then I saved the number as a contact in my phone.
Then I guess WhatsApp picked up that change and sent the data back to the Facebook servers. An hour later, the person showed up under Suggested Friends.
Re: How Facebook knows who you might be dating online
#5Most likely this is because someone on the dating profile saw the persons profile, thought it was interesting enough to 'dox' the person.
If people knew how little information is needed to get started they would be either terrified or amazed.
First name + Location + Instagram profile and you are already off to a good start. And maybe there's a picture from some marathon you participated in, and they might have an online list of participants, narrow down to matching first names, then look them up on facebook.
What facebook then sees mimics person A trying to find his new friend person B, which makes it natural to include this person on the other "do you know list"
Re: How Facebook knows who you might be dating online
#6Yeah, I haven't actually used facebook for anything in years, so now I'm deleting my account and I will use a temporary phone for any future situation where I need it.
I will also be going out of my way to spread as much FUD among my less tech savvy friends as I possibly can.
Go Zuck yourself, Mark.
Re: How Facebook knows who you might be dating online
#7The thing that I find most interesting about this article is the displayed approach towards privacy management. People quoted in this article reveal little about themselves in a dating network, and don't want to give enough information to make it possible to guess their real identity. Facebook destroys this concept by suggesting dating matches as potential facebook friends, making it possible for their dating matches to discover all about them in their public profiles and timeline.
That's a straightforward conflict, but it makes me wonder why people are comfortable with revealing "all [their] information" publicly on facebook, when their dating network behaviour shows they don't want total strangers to know all this? Facebook provides lots of privacy controlls, allowing you to finely tune who sees what. If you don't want strangers to know your last name, or which area you're from, why make it publicly viewable on facebook?
Is the problem with facebook making it not simple enough to hide things from total strangers (i.e. people you have not friended)? Is it a problem with people never bothering to change default settings? Or is it something about the way people use facebook that makes this apparent inconsistency actually completely rational?
Re: How Facebook knows who you might be dating online
#8Something similar happened to me on Facebook. There was someone I was meeting in real life but we had absolutely no FB connections. No mutual friends. And I didn't even know she was on Facebook. Suddenly I saw her on my 'Suggested friends' list. The only reasonable explanation is that she found me on Facebook and viewed my profile. Facebook saved the incident and suggested her to me as a friend. Facebook forgets noth…
My theory is that if you use the mobile app it factors in GPS location. Several times I've been at a particular venue, without "checking in" or even posting. The next day, people I met at the venue would show up in my suggestions list.
I can somewhat confirm that Facebook at least collects this data.
Using rooted android you can make a seperate permission dialog pop up every time an app tries to access certain APIs.
Despite having all GPS related features of Facebook and its messenger disabled, the Facebook Messenger app tries to access my GPS location at seemingly random times.
Re: How Facebook knows who you might be dating online
#9Something similar happened to me on Facebook. There was someone I was meeting in real life but we had absolutely no FB connections. No mutual friends. And I didn't even know she was on Facebook. Suddenly I saw her on my 'Suggested friends' list. The only reasonable explanation is that she found me on Facebook and viewed my profile. Facebook saved the incident and suggested her to me as a friend. Facebook forgets noth…
> The only reasonable explanation is that she found me on Facebook and viewed my profile. Facebook saved the incident and suggested her to me as a friend.
This. I had something similar happen a year or two ago; I enrolled in a course at a local university, and about midway through the semester Facebook suggested that I friend the instructor.
I was friends with no one else in the course, had never posted about the course on FB, or anything else that I could think of.
Of particular note was that his had all happened after I had to drop from the course due to health issues.
Re: How Facebook knows who you might be dating online
#10I think this goes well beyond that. I've had FB suggest neighbors to me even though we have never exchanged emails or friends etc.