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Ask HN: FB suggests friends after visiting same city, don't use FB phone. How?

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21–29 of 29 posts

Re: Ask HN: FB suggests friends after visiting same city, don't use FB phone. How?

#21

I used to date girls on Tinder with at least a few degrees of separation (ie, no friends in common), didn’t have Tinder and Facebook connected in any way, and the dates would still show in my friend recommendations list. It was WhatsApp.

I think that your example is not correct.

Tinder and a lot of others apps share information with Facebook about what you do by using their SDK.

Re: Ask HN: FB suggests friends after visiting same city, don't use FB phone. How?

#22
Did you add each others' numbers on WhatsApp?

Or if you moved due to work and you got added to a company-wide address book which is also synced to employees' phones and in turn got synced to WhatsApp, Facebook's systems could probably match up names to suggest a connection.

Although, why only these 2 people and not others from the company? Scarily there's probably enough data between you 3 for FB to know that you would be compatible with each other, so maybe Facebook figured the same thing you 3 figured out in real life -- you hung out with each other so I would deduce you found these 2 co-workers interesting. But I doubt anyone got paid to make such sophisticated stuff, there's probably a simpler logic that offers a quantity but not quality of "friends".

I still want to write a short story that starts with a guy saying "OK Google, get me a girlfriend", and an algorithm that slowly pops up suggesting events and locations for him to visit, knowing that a girl that he'd be compatible with will be at the events/locations...

Re: Ask HN: FB suggests friends after visiting same city, don't use FB phone. How?

#23
post #17

FB could buy your data from other networks, provided via some other app. Also your coworkers probably looked at your FB profile.

This freaking sucks, I use one "for junk" email address for online shops, etc, but it's also the email I use for Facebook. Facebook opened its "Data Disclosure" section a few months ago, and mine had a list of many companies which uploaded their customer data to Facebook and probably could target me...

Re: Ask HN: FB suggests friends after visiting same city, don't use FB phone. How?

#25
post #21

I used to date girls on Tinder with at least a few degrees of separation (ie, no friends in common), didn’t have Tinder and Facebook connected in any way, and the dates would still show in my friend recommendations list. It was WhatsApp.

I think that your example is not correct. Tinder and a lot of others apps share information with Facebook about what you do by using their SDK.

How would they do that if I didn’t log in with Facebook or in any way connect the apps together?

What I did do is add those girls’ numbers on WhatsApp - which is a Facebook property - and they suddenly appeared as friend recommendations.

But if there is any definitive proof it’s that I only was recommended the ones that I had messaged on WhatsApp, never those that I had only chatted up on the Tinder app...

Re: Ask HN: FB suggests friends after visiting same city, don't use FB phone. How?

#27
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that your example is not correct. Tinder and a lot of others apps share information with Facebook about what you do by using their SDK.

How would they do that if I didn’t log in with Facebook or in any way connect the apps together? What I did do is add those girls’ numbers on WhatsApp - which is a Facebook property - and they suddenly appeared as friend recommendations. But if there is any definitive proof it’s that I only was recommended the ones that I had messaged on WhatsApp, never those that I had only chatted up on the Tinder app...

Each phone has an unique advertisement identifier, they could link you across several apps with that.

But it may be very possible that they do a combination of everything to track you (whatsapp, instagram, facebook, oculus, apps that use the sdk...)

Re: Ask HN: FB suggests friends after visiting same city, don't use FB phone. How?

#28

You are missing the most obvious and most likely reason for matching with new coworkers. Your new coworkers searched and viewed your profile on Facebook after meeting you. This is a key way Facebook suggests friends.

this. so obvious yet we jump to conspiracy.

Re: Ask HN: FB suggests friends after visiting same city, don't use FB phone. How?

#29

You are missing the most obvious and most likely reason for matching with new coworkers. Your new coworkers searched and viewed your profile on Facebook after meeting you. This is a key way Facebook suggests friends.

this. so obvious yet we jump to conspiracy.

It's so obvious that it's reptiles, yet we jump to a simple search on Facebook.
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