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‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

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Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#31

Post by cgriswald »

krilly wrote: post #20
choward wrote: post #6

They kept sending me "do you know [person I probably don't know]" as notifications on my phone! This was the last straw that made me delete the app and my account entirely a few years ago. One of the big annoyances in life is being notified or bugged about something I don't need to be notified about. This keeps getting worse with modern tech all the time which has slowly led me to stop using anything I don't have ful…

>This was the last straw that made me delete the app and my account entirely a few years ago. Why not just disable notifications, or just uninstall the app without deleting your account? Facebook can still be of use to you without you being of use to it. I've long used Facebook only for messaging and managing events because it's an effective and ubiquitous platform for both of these things.

> Why not just disable notifications

Many apps provide useful notifications but some genius somewhere realized they can get more eyeballs if they abuse the notification system. So you have to take the bad with the good or throw them both out.

What’s worse is some apps provide “fine grain control” which is supposed to allow you to decide what types of notifications you get. Some other genius had the idea to be very loose with what belongs in what category.

And yet another genius had the idea to spam email if phone notifications are disabled.

And they’ll let you disable that too... but yet another genius had the idea to “accidentally” forget all these settings.

So... I don’t know. Disable them, sure. It’s the advice that keeps on giving, I guess.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#32

Post by onetimemanytime »

AlexandrB wrote: post #9

This quote from Zuckerberg is something else: > “We don’t view your experience with the product as a single-player game,” he says. Yes, in the short run, some users might benefit more than others from PYMK friending. But, he contends, all users will benefit if everyone they know winds up on Facebook. We should think of PYMK as kind of a “community tax policy,” he says. Or a redistribution of wealth. “If you’re ramped…

I know I know...but it worked. "Everyone" is on FB and they are worth a gazillion dollars.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#33

Post by jodrellblank »

Slartie wrote: post #26
titzer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The geo thing is really happening.

I also have the theory that they are using WiFi names / AP MAC addresses as well. If you happen to be connected to the same private WiFi network, you probably know each other.

Facebook has a patent for using dust and scratches on photos to track which camera they came from. But they claime(d) not to be using WiFi or Geolocation for the PYMK feature - https://gizmodo.com/facebook-knows-how-to-track-you-using-th...

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#35

Post by mc32 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #9

This quote from Zuckerberg is something else: > “We don’t view your experience with the product as a single-player game,” he says. Yes, in the short run, some users might benefit more than others from PYMK friending. But, he contends, all users will benefit if everyone they know winds up on Facebook. We should think of PYMK as kind of a “community tax policy,” he says. Or a redistribution of wealth. “If you’re ramped…

I’m not sure id hi as far as qualifying PYMK as an invasion of privacy, but there are common situations where you DO NOT want to connect with others or others you know/knew connect with you.

Exes, Stalkers, People who can’t let go, Friends who are bad influences, etc...

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#36

Post by smacktoward »

choward wrote: post #6

They kept sending me "do you know [person I probably don't know]" as notifications on my phone! This was the last straw that made me delete the app and my account entirely a few years ago. One of the big annoyances in life is being notified or bugged about something I don't need to be notified about. This keeps getting worse with modern tech all the time which has slowly led me to stop using anything I don't have ful…

The one that got me to delete the app was when I went out one night on a first date with a woman, and then both the woman and I immediately started showing up in each other's "do you know" prompts.

There is probably an explanation for this that doesn't boil down to "FB watched our GPS and noticed our phones sat next to each other at the same location for several hours," but it still felt sufficiently creepy to make me uninterested in sticking around to figure it out.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#38

Post by jetrink »

smacktoward wrote: post #36
choward wrote: post #6

They kept sending me "do you know [person I probably don't know]" as notifications on my phone! This was the last straw that made me delete the app and my account entirely a few years ago. One of the big annoyances in life is being notified or bugged about something I don't need to be notified about. This keeps getting worse with modern tech all the time which has slowly led me to stop using anything I don't have ful…

The one that got me to delete the app was when I went out one night on a first date with a woman, and then both the woman and I immediately started showing up in each other's "do you know" prompts. There is probably an explanation for this that doesn't boil down to "FB watched our GPS and noticed our phones sat next to each other at the same location for several hours," but it still felt sufficiently creepy to make m…

> There is probably an explanation for this that doesn't boil down to "FB watched our GPS and noticed our phones sat next to each other at the same location for several hours," but it still felt sufficiently creepy to make me uninterested in sticking around to figure it out.

That's exactly what happened[1].

> "Location information by itself doesn’t indicate that two people might be friends," said the Facebook spokesperson. "That’s why location is only one of the factors we use to suggest people you may know.”

1. https://splinternews.com/facebook-is-using-your-phones-locat...

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#39

Post by Seenso »

AlexandrB wrote: post #9

This quote from Zuckerberg is something else: > “We don’t view your experience with the product as a single-player game,” he says. Yes, in the short run, some users might benefit more than others from PYMK friending. But, he contends, all users will benefit if everyone they know winds up on Facebook. We should think of PYMK as kind of a “community tax policy,” he says. Or a redistribution of wealth. “If you’re ramped…

> This attitude of "we know what's good for you" is apparent in more and more modern tech products. I find it pretty gross...

It's even grosser than that. The attitude here is really "we did what was good for us, but we think you're dumb enough to be convinced we did it because it was good for you."

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#40

Post by gretch »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #32
AlexandrB wrote: post #9

This quote from Zuckerberg is something else: > “We don’t view your experience with the product as a single-player game,” he says. Yes, in the short run, some users might benefit more than others from PYMK friending. But, he contends, all users will benefit if everyone they know winds up on Facebook. We should think of PYMK as kind of a “community tax policy,” he says. Or a redistribution of wealth. “If you’re ramped…

I know I know...but it worked. "Everyone" is on FB and they are worth a gazillion dollars.

It goes farther than that - the comment parent author doesn't even realize they are exhibiting the same behavior:

"This attitude of "we know what's good for you" is apparent in more and more modern tech products"

Billions of people used PYMK and are generally happy with it and Facebook in general. Who are you to tell them it's a bad thing?

If FB is so bad why don't more people leave? Lots of people on HN leave FB and I respect that choice - and lots don't and enjoy using FB with it's pros and cons. What's wrong with that?

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