This is why I only use facebook in a private browsing tab. I’ve done this ever since facebook released their unfortunately named “frictionless sharing” feature.
To stave off the inevitable question of why I don’t just cancel my account: If I cancelled my facebook account I would no longer be able to participate in planning family reunions, and I’d miss out on important updates during family emergencies.
I used to be in the same boat as you. I thought I could never cancel my facebook account lest I’d be left out of all family news.
I ended up rage-quitting in September 2014, and I still manage to keep in touch with my family and friends using other tech like Whats App, Skype, and email.
I quit for years, but eventually returned after realizing that all I’d actually achieved by quitting was shifting all the ‘social organizing’ work onto my wife.
I’m in the same boat re: realizing that my opting out was just placing more of a burden on her.
I still try to discourage people from contacting me over FB even so by only logging in to check my inbox once a week or two, but it seems to have limited success. I should probably just change my profile description to just be an exhortation to use email instead.
Some of the mysterious matches remain mysterious, but shared IP could certainly be one. Is the therapy group meeting in a place with public wifi? That’s somewhat concerning on its own, but perhaps not as disastrous as GPS colocation.
“We are not using location data to suggest people you might know,” said the spokesperson. “This includes IP and Wi-Fi access point location information.”
Anyway, I have a couple theories. Besides the obvious they’re full of shit theory.
The strangers around us are not as disconnected as we may believe. Sharing the same location is often correlated with other connections besides proximity. So it’s easy to see why we’d believe Facebook would themselves make the leap proximity -> connection. But in turn, we forget the original basis for this theory is that connection -> proximity. Perhaps you have a connection you don’t know about. I have a bunch of stories about serendipitous encounters with strangers who turned out to be “friends”.
Combined with a healthy dose of confirmation bias, recency bias, etc., and it definitely looks like location data is influencing suggestions.
Facebook suggested I should know “Alice”. It turns out I went out with her a few times, and we exchanged numbers, but don’t have other connections. Facebook does not, to my knowledge, have my phone number (42). So how was the match made? Obvious answers include lying about stealing my phone’s contacts, lying about recording our conversations with the microphone, lying about location data, etc.
FB does have some people’s contact info. (I assume Alice has given FB access to her contacts.) So there is a network of “people who know 42”. I am strongly connected with that graph. FB could probably infer that I am 42, but the weaker inference is that I also know 42. Alice and I are both people who know 42 (she directly and I indirectly), so we get matched as friends of friends.
This theory could be tested, but it’d be quite burdensome. I’d have to ask a bunch of my friends if I can scan through their suggestions looking for Alice. And even a negative result doesn’t prove anything.
Facebook has been working at the suggestion problem for many years now. They probably have a great deal of experience with identifying clusters, then mapping and merging overlapping clusters in ways that defy expectation. They’re very much trying to draw out the people you know but don’t know you don’t know. Maybe they’re just getting too good at it.
Obviously, one solution would be to explain suggestions. (You may know Alice because she knows 42 and several of your friends know 42.) Then it wouldn’t be as mysterious and creepy. But that would be a tremendous privacy leak. So we’re stuck with disconcerting, opaque results.
I would be very suprised if facebook didn’t know your phone number.
A friend has a contact record for you with an email address and phone number, and they’ve installed a facebook app on their phone? Facebook can link that phone number and email address to your name+social circle.
Facebook’s app absolutely positively uses your phone’s contacts. You can confirm this multiple ways. First, it asks. Second, you get a copy when you do a Download Your Info.
Additionally, both searching for someone on Facebook and looking at their profile are enough to get added to friend recommendations. I’ve experimentally confirmed this multiple times with clean Facebook accounts, on clean wifi, on clean machines, in entirely different countries. (Writing this down really hammers in the point that I live a weird life…)
Anyway, I have a couple theories. Besides the obvious they’re full of shit theory.
The stories in the linked articles (people who went to the same meeting of parents of suicidal teens, psychiatrist’s receptionist, people hitting on each other in bars, neighbours and people working at the same office building, patrons of the same café) and the fact that the spokesperson changed his/her story do seem to point to the full of shit theory,
People over estimate how much they need a Facebook account. There are many alternatives such as Twitter, email, sms, meeting up in person. Many people like me are just never going to get a Facebook account, so if you only contact people via Facebook then you are missing out on my charm and wit. Facebook is forgiven for all kinds of privacy violations.
Just think about whether you would forgive a car manufacturer for offering a friend suggestion to the stranger next to you at the lights? Would it be ok if your routes and which carparks you parked in and when were shared with any company/government that paid for them?
Mum: “Oh, I see you have a second facebook account, one where you L/G/B/T/I”.
Paedophile: “Hi <child’s name> your parents went me to pick you up today”.
Stranger following me home from bus stop: “I worked out you’re rich while browsing you and your friend’s public photos on the bus”.
Shops: “Hi <name> I hear this is the 3rd time you’ve shopped here even though you keep using cash”
Had a guy I stood next to on the subway show up on my recommendations. It was very creepy.
Was it a subway with wifi?
This is why I only use facebook in a private browsing tab. I’ve done this ever since facebook released their unfortunately named “frictionless sharing” feature.
To stave off the inevitable question of why I don’t just cancel my account: If I cancelled my facebook account I would no longer be able to participate in planning family reunions, and I’d miss out on important updates during family emergencies.
I used to be in the same boat as you. I thought I could never cancel my facebook account lest I’d be left out of all family news.
I ended up rage-quitting in September 2014, and I still manage to keep in touch with my family and friends using other tech like Whats App, Skype, and email.
And I’m much happier without it.
I quit for years, but eventually returned after realizing that all I’d actually achieved by quitting was shifting all the ‘social organizing’ work onto my wife.
I’m in the same boat re: realizing that my opting out was just placing more of a burden on her.
I still try to discourage people from contacting me over FB even so by only logging in to check my inbox once a week or two, but it seems to have limited success. I should probably just change my profile description to just be an exhortation to use email instead.
Ah, the irony… http://i.imgur.com/K9S1HgS.png
It’s freaking everywhere unfortunately. The worst is “login to facebook to make a comment”. But I don’t evem have n account!
Hmm. Now Facebook reverses: http://fusion.net/story/319712/facebook-now-says-phone-location-not-used-to-recommend-friends/
Some of the mysterious matches remain mysterious, but shared IP could certainly be one. Is the therapy group meeting in a place with public wifi? That’s somewhat concerning on its own, but perhaps not as disastrous as GPS colocation.
According to this article,
Lies, damn lines and mysterious matches.
Oh, good catch. One theory down.
Anyway, I have a couple theories. Besides the obvious they’re full of shit theory.
The strangers around us are not as disconnected as we may believe. Sharing the same location is often correlated with other connections besides proximity. So it’s easy to see why we’d believe Facebook would themselves make the leap proximity -> connection. But in turn, we forget the original basis for this theory is that connection -> proximity. Perhaps you have a connection you don’t know about. I have a bunch of stories about serendipitous encounters with strangers who turned out to be “friends”.
Combined with a healthy dose of confirmation bias, recency bias, etc., and it definitely looks like location data is influencing suggestions.
Facebook suggested I should know “Alice”. It turns out I went out with her a few times, and we exchanged numbers, but don’t have other connections. Facebook does not, to my knowledge, have my phone number (42). So how was the match made? Obvious answers include lying about stealing my phone’s contacts, lying about recording our conversations with the microphone, lying about location data, etc.
FB does have some people’s contact info. (I assume Alice has given FB access to her contacts.) So there is a network of “people who know 42”. I am strongly connected with that graph. FB could probably infer that I am 42, but the weaker inference is that I also know 42. Alice and I are both people who know 42 (she directly and I indirectly), so we get matched as friends of friends.
This theory could be tested, but it’d be quite burdensome. I’d have to ask a bunch of my friends if I can scan through their suggestions looking for Alice. And even a negative result doesn’t prove anything.
Facebook has been working at the suggestion problem for many years now. They probably have a great deal of experience with identifying clusters, then mapping and merging overlapping clusters in ways that defy expectation. They’re very much trying to draw out the people you know but don’t know you don’t know. Maybe they’re just getting too good at it.
Obviously, one solution would be to explain suggestions. (You may know Alice because she knows 42 and several of your friends know 42.) Then it wouldn’t be as mysterious and creepy. But that would be a tremendous privacy leak. So we’re stuck with disconcerting, opaque results.
I would be very suprised if facebook didn’t know your phone number.
A friend has a contact record for you with an email address and phone number, and they’ve installed a facebook app on their phone? Facebook can link that phone number and email address to your name+social circle.
Facebook’s app absolutely positively uses your phone’s contacts. You can confirm this multiple ways. First, it asks. Second, you get a copy when you do a Download Your Info.
Additionally, both searching for someone on Facebook and looking at their profile are enough to get added to friend recommendations. I’ve experimentally confirmed this multiple times with clean Facebook accounts, on clean wifi, on clean machines, in entirely different countries. (Writing this down really hammers in the point that I live a weird life…)
The stories in the linked articles (people who went to the same meeting of parents of suicidal teens, psychiatrist’s receptionist, people hitting on each other in bars, neighbours and people working at the same office building, patrons of the same café) and the fact that the spokesperson changed his/her story do seem to point to the full of shit theory,
People over estimate how much they need a Facebook account. There are many alternatives such as Twitter, email, sms, meeting up in person. Many people like me are just never going to get a Facebook account, so if you only contact people via Facebook then you are missing out on my charm and wit. Facebook is forgiven for all kinds of privacy violations.
Just think about whether you would forgive a car manufacturer for offering a friend suggestion to the stranger next to you at the lights? Would it be ok if your routes and which carparks you parked in and when were shared with any company/government that paid for them?
I do appreciate the heads-up, but these sorts of articles are neither actionable or educational.
Mum: “Oh, I see you have a second facebook account, one where you L/G/B/T/I”.
Paedophile: “Hi <child’s name> your parents went me to pick you up today”.
Stranger following me home from bus stop: “I worked out you’re rich while browsing you and your friend’s public photos on the bus”.
Shops: “Hi <name> I hear this is the 3rd time you’ve shopped here even though you keep using cash”