How do we get friend suggestion on facebook

How Does Facebook Suggested Friends Actually Work?

Facebook's ‘People you may know’ is a phrase that seems harmless, if a bit formal - ‘Oh come to this party! There’ll be loads of people you may know there!’ - but in the last few years it’s become synonymous with that creepily accurate Suggested Friends carousel featuring people who yes, you do know but, my god, how does Facebook KNOW you know them?! Is Mark Zuckerberg actually a wizard? Or more pertinently, what is the basis for Facebook suggested friends? Is it stalking? Is it based on profile views? What exactly does it mean?

Facebook’s official line on this, on their help page, explains that they make selections for your Suggested Friends based on ‘mutual friends, work and education information, networks you’re part of, contacts you’ve imported and many other factors’. It’s the ‘other factors’ that are the most interesting, considering how goddamn vague they are - especially when a suggested friend crops up, and you have no mutual friends in common. ..

Who is in my Facebook suggested friends and why?

Just having a brief scan over my own current suggested friends, there are at least three people there that I haven’t met, I’ve never worked with, we didn’t go to the same school, I have no mutual friends with and they’re not in my contacts. One of them is someone I’m fairly sure, after doing a quick search on other social media sites, is currently seeing my ex. So why is she being suggested?! Is this to do with the ‘other factors’ Facebook mentions? I don’t know her! Were we once in the same cafe? Has she, completely understandably, been stalking me? Have we finally found the definitive answer to how you can tell when people have looked at my profile?!

What is Facebook suggested friends algorithm - what is it based on?

So many questions, and so many conspiracy theories. Thankfully, I’ve done the manic researching, so when that guy you slept with who never whatsapped back and you can’t stop thinking about pops up on your suggested friends, you don’t have to.

Are your suggested friends based on your location?

In one of the best cases of 'ER, NO I DIDN’T MEAN THAT, SHUT IT DOWN' Facebook revealed in 2016 that location data was one of the factors in suggested potential friends, before days later retracting it and saying they absolutely didn’t. Cool.

There were a number of slightly worrying reports of how eerily accurate the supposed algorithm is; ‘Seriously, I’ve had enough reporters ask me, freaked out, why Facebook is recommending their protected sources’ tweeted Violet Blue, a reporter on cybercrime.

If true, it also means that Facebook uses similar technology to the NSA.

During an investigation, [Fusion](/wp-admin/(http:/fusion.net/story/319108/facebook-phone-location-friend-suggestions/) found a load of anecdotal evidence pointing towards location services being used. One example was a man who had attended an anonymous gathering for suicidal teenagers, and had then seen one of the teenagers he didn’t have any contact with other than being in the same place, popped up as a suggested friend. They approached Facebook who said: ‘Location information by itself doesn’t indicate that two people might be friends, that’s why location is only one of the factors we use to suggest people you may know.’

When Fusion had published an article, understandably, explaining how this is a privacy mess - Facebook immediately retracted it. The statement was changed to the fact that location services had been trialled a year earlier, but weren’t one of the very vague ‘other factors’ described on the help site.

The journalist in question described ‘repertorial whiplash - I’ve never had a spokesperson confirm and then retract a story so quickly.’

One way to stop any apps using your location is to change the location settings on your phone, or get rid of the Facebook app and use it on good ole Safari. Other browsers are available.

Are your suggested friends based on who has looked at your profile?

There is no hard evidence that someone else’s activity affects your page - and a Facebook employee was fairly clear on their stance in a recent Quora thread:

Thanks for your illuminating and rich response, Peter. But I find it difficult to believe that, when trying to create the perfect suggested friends list, Zuckerberg wouldn’t have wanted algorithm kick into gear when you search for someone, or if someone searches for you. Because that’s the purest way it can tell if you want to be friends, surely? Plus, there are just too many anecdotes to ignore.

‘I recently viewed someone who I haven’t been in touch with for many years and who I didn’t want to be in touch with,’ says one anonymous user on Quora. ‘Two weeks later I had a friend request from that person. I have no common friends and this person is far removed in my network of friends. Unless this person suddenly remembered me after almost twenty years since I have contacted them, then I have no other explanation.’

In a recent Vice investigation into how this suggested friend list happens, David Liben-Nowell, a computer science professor at Carleton College who studies the structure and evolution of social networks said:

‘My hunch is that [Facebook is] using names you've searched for or profiles you've viewed to suggest friends to you. It would almost be silly for them not to: if you've shown an interest in a person while using Facebook, then you've as good as told Facebook that you might want to have some kind of relationship with them.’

Agreed - it does make a whole lot of sense, if they’re trying to make the friends they suggest as accurate as possible. And there’s also some fairly compelling evidence pointing to the fact that [the friend grid works off the basis of who is looking at your profile](/wp-admin/(http:/www.thedebrief.co.uk/news/real-life/facebook-stalking-is-officially-over-heres-why-20150440740), so why not suggested friends? I mean, that makes even more sense, if you think about it.

Are your suggested friends based on your phone contacts?

This one is a definite yes. In one of the many app updates, you will have inadvertently synced all your phone contacts to Messenger. And if you’ve allowed Facebook to sync your phone contacts, then it’s going to suggest you connect to them online. It can be freaky, though, if you don’t realise you’ve put people in your contacts because you’re drunk, then they get suggested back at you.

‘Somehow my suggested friends list is always chicks I have had one night stands with,’ says a Reddit user who says words like ‘chicks’. ‘Facebook somehow looks through my contacts on my phone and uses their phone numbers to suggest it. It's kinda creepy when you see a girl who you met one time and didn't even know her last name, but somehow they are suggested for you.’

An easy way of getting rid of this via the Facebook app on your phone - go to settings, and scroll down until you see ‘Sync Contacts’. Hit ‘remove Facebook’. Done. Removed.

And check out the box that comes up as you’re about to remove the contacts:

‘If you choose to remove your imported contacts, friend suggestions for you and your friends may become less relevant’. YEAH MATE. THAT’S SORT OF WHAT I WANT COS YOU’RE CREEPING ME THE F OUT.

Are Facebook friends suggestions based on other third party apps like Tinder?

The official line on this is no. In fact, it couldn’t be any more a ‘no’ if they tried, as they state on site: ‘We do not use cookies from third-party sites to generate or rank People You May Know’. Well there you are then.

However, if you’re getting a bit freaked out by the fact that Tinder matches/people you’ve Bumbled have suddenly started cropping up, then you’re not alone - it’s been a bit of a recent thing. And if you don’t have their number in your phone, then how the hell do they know this if they AREN’T getting it through Tinder?

Well, it’s likely that your Tinder match will have also tried to stalk you on Facebook, although remember Facebook claim they don’t suggest friends who search your name.

But the other, less speculative, solution is that you have their number on your Whatsapp contacts. Because Whatsapp bought Facebook, so if you’ve been ‘sapping, and you haven’t un-synced your Facebook contacts (as above), then do that immediately.

Exhausting, isn’t it?

Can you turn off or remove Facebook suggested friends?

Yes - indirectly. If you block someone, then they won’t show up on your suggested friends list. So if you have any particularly triggering people from your past, then it might be worth taking a deep breath, having a dram of whisky (or, like, a glass of juice) and doing the deed.

Oh, and you know how you can specify people who you don’t want to come up in that horrific On This Day feature? They won’t come up in your suggested friends either - which might be a good idea if you don’t want to all-out block someone, you just don’t want them popping up all the time.

You're welcome.

Read More:

The Best Instagram Accounts To Follow For Support, Positivity And Inspiration

The Karen Meme: What Is It Exactly? And Why Is Everyone Fighting About It?

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Just so you know, whilst we may receive a commission or other compensation from the links on this website, we never allow this to influence product selections - read why you should trust us

How Does Facebook Suggest Friends?

The “People You May Know” section on Facebook can be both obvious and bizarre. You may have come across people you’re friends with in real life as well as brief acquaintances. While, sometimes, Facebook suggests people you’ve never seen before in your life. This can make you wonder how Facebook suggests friends.

If you think Facebook leaves this up to destiny, you’re wrong. It has an unmatched algorithm that works with all the information you provide it with. This algorithm feeds upon several data like mutual friends and imported contacts. It then determines who your next friends on Facebook are going to be.

Within this article, we will be addressing most of the details on how Facebook suggests friends and how it doesn’t.

How Does Facebook Suggest Friends?

To know the details on how Facebook suggests friends, here are the answers to your most sought-after questions.

Mutual Friends

Facebook uses mutual friends as a basis for suggesting friends. If you share mutual friends with another person on Facebook, you will show up in their People You May Know. And, they will appear on yours.

This happens because Facebook’s algorithm deduces that you might know each other as you two have similar friends.

Imported Contact List

Facebook can tap into your imported contact list to come up with friend suggestions. The phone numbers and email addresses in your contacts enable Facebook to recommend people for you to add.

If you wish, you have the authority to change this feature. Or, turn it back on, in case you find this useful for networking.

User’s Calls and Text Data

As per the claims of Facebook, they have access to your calls and text data. Before you go into panic mode, you should understand that Facebook does not store the content of your calls and text messages. What it does collect are the calls and text history.

If you’re concerned about this information being sold to any third party, Facebook denies doing anything along these lines. So, your secrets are safe and Facebook will take them to the grave.

But, if you’re suspicious, you can choose to not give away this data by stopping the contacts from uploading.

Profile Information

Profile information is another data Facebook uses to line up a new list of users in your “People You May Know” section. This data includes your bio, education, work, current city, likes, interests, etc.

Based on these matches, you might see people from the same school or workplace as you in your suggested friend list.

Factors That May Not Affect Friend Suggestions

There seems to be a lot of guesses going around about how Facebook suggests friends. While most of them might sound convincing, they lack credibility. Here are the speculated factors that might not affect friend suggestions on Facebook.

Location Data for Friend Suggestions

Most people are wary about Facebook using location data to suggest friends. You may have also heard stories like how people who were dining at the same restaurant went home to later find the other person on their Facebook friend suggestions.

More than anything, you may be concerned about your privacy and safety in this matter, and, rightly so. Facebook claimed in 2016 that it used location data to suggest friends. But after serious backlash from the public and privacy advocates, Facebook withdrew its former statement.

The company, later, told that it didn’t access location data to suggest friends. So, you have no option other than to take Facebook’s word for it.

People Who Visited Your Profile

You may be dying to know who’s viewed your profile but Facebook doesn’t share that information yet. And, it probably won’t, in the near future. So, it is unlikely that it suggests friends based on that information.

Your Search History

Let’s face it, like most people, you too stalk other people on Facebook. It’s not that big a deal but it’d be crazy to see that person on your People You May Know.

This could make you believe that Facebook uses the data of your search history. But, Facebook denies it. So, there could be other undisclosed factors at play.

Third-party Apps

Most people have shared how their Tinder match showed up as a suggested friend on Facebook. If you have been through similar situations or even heard about it, you would form an opinion that Facebook uses data from third-party apps. But, a representative of Facebook clarified that they don’t use cookies from third-party apps for friend suggestions.

How to Manage Information Used to Suggest Friends

If you are someone who is very particular about your privacy, you may want to manage the information used to suggest friends. You can do so by controlling this information.

Prevent Uploading Contact on Facebook

The best way to avoid getting Facebook suggestions is to remove contacts from your profile or not upload them at all. Here are the ways to prevent uploading contact information on Facebook.

On Android

Tap on the Facebook menu (the three-line icon) in the top-right corner.
Select Settings & Privacy. Then, tap Settings.
Then, go to the Permissions. After that, tap Upload Contacts.
Tap next to Continuous Contacts Upload and you can turn this setting off.

On iPhone

Tap on the Facebook menu in the bottom right corner.
After that, select Settings & Privacy. And, go to Settings.
In Permissions, tap Upload Contacts.
Lastly, tap Continuous Contacts Upload and you can prevent from uploading contact on Facebook.

Set Your Friend List to Private

Facebook can keep suggesting casual acquaintances who you don’t wish to be friends with. But, you can limit this feature by choosing to keep your friend list private.

On Mobile

Tap on the menu.
Go to Settings & privacy. Select Settings.
Under Audience and visibility, select How People Find and Contact You
Then, tap Who can see your friends list?

On PC

Click on the menu button to the right.
Click on Settings & Privacy and select Settings.
Select Privacy.
Find Who can see your friends list? Select Edit.

Now, you can choose with whom you would be fine sharing your friend list. You can also set your friend list to Only Me if you want to keep it from everyone.

Change Who Can Add You As a Friend

By changing who can add you as a friend, you restrict random people from sending you friend requests. This will, in turn, help you control Facebook’s algorithm to stop suggesting people to some extent.

On Mobile

Tap on the Facebook menu.
Tap on Settings & Privacy
Then, tap on Settings.
Under Audience and visibility, select How people can find and contact you.
Tap on Who can send you friend requests?
Select Friends of friends.

On PC

Click on the Facebook menu.
Click Settings & Privacy > Settings.
Select Privacy.
Select Edit next to Who can send you friend requests.
Then, select Friends of Friends from the drop-down menu.

Control Who Can Look You Up Using Your Contact Details

If people have your email or phone number, they can search your profile using your contact details. Likewise, Facebook also uses contact lists to suggest friends. So, you can limit friend suggestions on Facebook by changing Who can look you up using email or phone number.

Click or tap on the Facebook menu.
Select Settings & privacy. Select Settings.
Click on Privacy.
Under How people find and contact you, you will see two options.
If you want to edit Who can look you up using the email address you provided?, click Edit to the right.
Then, you can set them to Friends or Only Me, as you like.

Remove Some of Facebook’s friend suggestions

You may not want to be friends with every person Facebook recommends. If you’re sick and tired of seeing certain people in the People You May Know time and again, you can avoid it.

You can remove a friend suggestion from Facebook with ease:

Go to the Friends section.
Click Remove next to their name.
If the friend suggestion shows up in your News Feed, click the cross sign on the picture of the person you want to remove.

Likewise, you can also remove the People You May Know from your news feed temporarily. The steps to removing it are:

Click the three-dot icon, next to People You May Know.
Then, select Hide People You May Know.

SAFE Project » Making Facebook Safer

Tools

Making Facebook Safer

Facebook is a popular social network. This article is about Facebook security-related settings.

Last updated: September 2021

A lot of people use Facebook not only for nostalgic virtual conversations and sharing photos from their summer cottages, but also for work. On Facebook, they find like-minded people, publish articles, read news, share plans, discuss joint projects and announce events.

To make Facebook safer, you can change how you use Facebook (and social media in general) as well as specific settings. Another article has been written about the principles. Let's talk about settings here.

Facebook developers like to change menu item names, headings, and other details much like the Moscow authorities like to change borders. What you see in the screenshots in this post may differ slightly from the current situation on facebook.com.

Facebook Settings: Getting Started
General
Security and entry
Your information on Facebook
Confidentiality
Face recognition
Profile and labels
Public publications
block
Geodata
Notifications
Mobile devices
Applications and websites
Advanced (outside settings)

Facebook settings: start

In the top horizontal Facebook menu on the right, click the down arrow. A dropdown menu will appear.

Select "Settings and privacy". A new menu will appear.

Select "Settings". By default, the "General" item will open.

General

Select "General" from the menu on the left.

To change the settings, click the "Change" links in the corresponding lines.

Name. According to the rules of Facebook, when registering, you must indicate the name that you are called in life. If you believe that identification can put the life, freedom, health, work of you, your loved ones or colleagues in real danger, it may be better to choose a pseudonym.
Contact information. It is indicated for a reason, it is a way to change the password to Facebook. Facebook will not allow you to completely get rid of the indication of contact information. But phone is worse than email. Perhaps you should remove the phone number if it is listed. Do not use your abandoned address, spam box, or email address in a jurisdiction where it is relatively easy for attackers to take control of it. The "Allow friends to include my email address when using the Download Your Info" box is best left unchecked.
Settings for remembered status. Here you can define Guardian . In the event of a user's death, limited rights to his account can be transferred to one of his friends (the Guardian), whoever the account owner chooses ahead of time.

In the general case , proof of identity is not required (and not recommended).

Security and entry

Select "Security and Login" from the menu on the left. A fairly large list of settings will open. Consider it from top to bottom, but skip the recommendations (first point). These are just selected security settings - part of what we are talking about in this material.

Where did you come from. Here you can see which devices have connected to your account. (Click "More" to see the full list). Is there an unusual device among these sessions? For example, the operating system is iOS, but you don't have an iPhone. Or a strange location? (Allow for VPNs and similar technologies if you use them.) If you find something unexpected, it may be that an attacker gained access to your account. You can always click the three-dot button at the end of the suspicious line and select "Logout" to close the session. Change your password as soon as possible. It is better to do this from a “clean” computer that is not infected with anything. Note that an attacker can also kick you out of Facebook. Therefore, if there are reasonable doubts, do not waste time.

This feature can also be useful if you logged into Facebook somewhere in a strange place (we don’t recommend doing this, but suddenly) and forgot to log out. Here you can terminate this session.

Password must be strong. (Learn more about password protection). Keep it in an equally safe place. For example, in the password manager Bitwarden or KeePassXC.

Saving login information simplifies the Facebook login process. Naturally, at the expense of safety.

With two-factor authentication , in addition to the password, you need to enter a special code to enter your account. A very useful option, we recommend enabling it. Do not use the SMS method, it is not particularly reliable. Better choose the "Authentication App" option: you will be able to enter the code from an application on your smartphone (without internet connection), such as andOTP, Google Authenticator or Authy. Do not forget one-time recovery codes as "insurance" in case the smartphone is not at hand (forgotten, seized, lost, stolen, out of order). Read more about two-factor authentication and password generators in a separate article.

Authorized logins. Frequent entry of additional code is tiring. You can make it so that some "trusted" devices (virtually) do without two-factor authentication. Use with caution and only in a safe environment. If some devices have already received a “trusted” status, you can see this in this paragraph and, if necessary, cancel it.

Application passwords. You can use a different password for each application installed on Facebook (if you have one). If you have two-factor authentication enabled, instead of waiting for a code, you can sign in to the app with the corresponding password. However, below we advise avoiding apps altogether.

Receive notifications of suspicious logins. Yes, it is better to have this feature enabled. Here are the possible ways to receive notifications. They complement, not exclude each other.

As for friends, I can hardly recommend this feature. It is better to invest in strong passwords and data backup than in such “crutches” that allow you to compensate for a forgotten password.

Encrypted notification emails. In principle, if you have a public encryption key (read more about public key encryption in a separate article), you can add it to your Facebook account. People will download your public key and use it to send you encrypted messages. You can also set up Facebook so that notifications from the social network are encrypted with your key. In my opinion, this is an excessive security measure.

Function restoring access to external accounts we do not recommend (as a general advice to avoid linking accounts wherever possible).

Finally, you can view recent Facebook posts, including those related to security. This might be helpful.

Your information on Facebook

Of all the listed options, let's pay attention to three: they are most related to security. The first is viewing information.

Convenient access to everything related to your account: publications, comments, pages, groups, etc. In fact, only a redirect to other Facebook service pages occurs from this place. However, the section is very useful for organizing and organizing everything on Facebook. Here you can see everything at once and take action, for example, remove yourself from unnecessary groups, clear your search history, etc.

The second option is to download information.

And finally, account deactivation.

The name speaks for itself. There are situations when this cannot be avoided (also for security reasons).

Privacy

Select "Privacy" from the left vertical menu. We skip the first "simplifies everything" section (our task in this material is to go through all the settings in more detail).

Who can see your posts. T from the same switch is right in the published new entry. The level of openness depends on your threat model.
The second option allows to view posts that you've been tagged in, but not (yet) posted to your own "timeline" (or, as Facebook now says, your "profile").
In the third paragraph, Facebook provides with the ability to restrict 's access to all previous publications at once (make them visible only to friends).
The complex wording that Facebook has chosen means literally the following. In the fourth paragraph, you determine who will see what (whom) you are subscribed to. (Except for the people you follow: they see it anyway). Set the value to "Only Me".

By default, friend request is available to all Facebook users. Can be changed to "Friends of Friends". Then you will reduce the number of unfamiliar (and completely unfamiliar) people who want to become your friends on Facebook, which means saving time and nerves if a troll turns out to be among your newfound “friends”. Remember that with the right setup, anyone can be your by subscriber (we'll see how to enable this feature later). This is smarter than "frenching" everyone in a row.
Disable showing list of your friends, so as not to make life easier for social engineers. (Option "Only me").
The ability for strangers to search and find you on a social network is relevant if you are a journalist for whom accessibility is a professional requirement. Or a public person, say, a well-known politician, writer, businessman. Or if we are talking about a corporate page that needs promotion and popularity. Otherwise, consider limiting to the maximum (as in the illustration).

This already applies to Facebook Messenger rather than a social network. The points are not directly related to threats and security, so I will not give unequivocal recommendations. In my opinion, choosing "Chats" as the option is more convenient, since the alternative, the "Conversation Requests" folder is hidden in the Facebook menu, and I repeatedly skipped such requests. But it's up to you (as always).

Face recognition

The function makes sense if you want to “trigger” the appearance of duplicate accounts on Facebook (accounts with your face in the profile picture and your name in the title, created, as a rule, with bad intentions). But I'm turning this feature off because I don't want Facebook to recognize me.

Profile and labels

In the left menu, select the "Profile and labels" item.

There are quite confusing and interdependent settings in this section.

Option "Who can post on your timeline" is available to friends by default. We advise you to select "Only me". This will protect you from accidentally or intentionally polluting your page with unpleasant, if not illegal, posts. No matter how carefully you choose your friends, you cannot rule out the possibility that an attacker will gain access to your friend's account. This is especially important for public people and civil activists. In the end, if a person wants to write something on Facebook, let him write on his own. Finally, in the comments.
When the first item is disabled, the second one loses its relevance.
Allowing others to share your posts in their Stories or not is a matter of taste, not security.
The last fourth item enables (or disables) the filter according to the words in the comments in your profile. Please note that this filter does not work for the authors themselves and their friends, so I would not seriously count on it.

What are tags made by your friends? Let's explain with an example. Have you ever seen this message: "Vasya is tagged in Masha's photo"? If Vasya got a photo published in her profile on the car, this photo can be linked to Vasya's account and duplicated in his profile. It might make sense to keep both filters associated with tags included in the "Only me" position. Then the excessive activity of lovers of marking will not create risks for you.

The first and third points I prefer to keep under control. But the second item (for some reason Facebook decided to post it here) is not even a setting, you can't switch anything. Facebook has hidden an option here that allows you to look at your account through the eyes of a regular Facebook user (not a friend). Click the "View As" link if you'd like to see it. It may be useful to evaluate the results of adjustments.

Public publications

Who can follow me. By default, this option is enabled for friends only. It is better to select the "Available to all" option. In this way, you will expand the circle of your readers and reduce the number of friend requests from people you do not know, that is, save your own resources (which also affects security). The "Subscribe" button will appear in the "header" of your profile. Now people will be able to subscribe to your publications.
Comments on public publications. If you don't want to have problems with malicious (and even illegal) comments being thrown at you, set this option to "Friends of Friends" or even "Friends". If you are a public figure and are interested in (and are willing to keep an eye on) the widest possible public discussion under your posts, then you may prefer wider access at the expense of security
Public posting notifications. "Available to all" is a good choice. This, despite the wording "Available to all", is not about public access to information. What this means is that you will be notified when someone shares, comments, or likes your post. Allows you to get more information.
Public profile information. It's better to set "Friends" or, in extreme cases, "Friends of Friends" (I would generally set "Only me", but, alas, Facebook does not offer such an option).

The remaining parameters do not directly affect security.

Block

Restricted access. To this list, you can quietly add those "friends" to whom you no longer want to show information that is available only to friends (but want to read what they write in their profiles). "Restricted" friends, unaware of this, will be able to read only those posts of yours that are available to all Facebook users. Fine tuning.
Block users. Here you can completely block certain users. That is, as far as Facebook allows, to block their access to you and your materials. (If you wish, you can unlock them later). It is better to block the villain directly from his page (in the profile header) in order to ensure that the namesake is not accidentally blocked. When you block a user, you stop seeing his profile and any posts, including comments, and he, accordingly, does not see yours.

Under the blocked list there are a number of other possibilities:

Blocking messages. Useful feature if one of your friends is bothering you with your Facebook posts and doesn't give in to arguments or requests, but you don't want to completely block them.
Blocking application prompts. Sometimes one of your friends is very active, trying to convince you to install this or that application. If you don't want to receive such invitations from this person again, add him to the list.
Blocking invitations to events. The same approach, but in relation to intrusive invitations to attend different meetings.
Application lock. The name speaks for itself.
Blocking pages. Like blocking users, only for pages.

Geodata

This item is closely related to the mobile application on your smartphone. If it cannot use the geolocation features, the log in settings will be unavailable. "Geodata Log" is off, and good. I advise you not to add location data to a fair amount of personal data that users report to social networks.

Notices

This item is indirectly related to the security of the Facebook account. For example, if Facebook sends email notifications of all events, including likes and comments on your posts, it can clutter your inbox and cause some important emails to go unnoticed. To disable this feature:

Select "Notifications" from the left menu.
Click on the "E-mail" field.
Select "About your account only".

Mobile devices

Contrary to what is sometimes said and written, it is possible to use the Facebook mobile app on a smartphone and not have a phone number in the account settings. For security reasons, we may well refuse the theoretical possibility of changing the password from the mobile application, and even more so, we do not need the SMS service.

Applications and websites

In the left column, select "Apps and Sites". A list of apps you have installed will open.

How did they get here? Once you became interested in a certain site, he offered to register, and as an alternative, "log in with Facebook." The second option seemed easier. "Login with Facebook" installs the application. The illustration below is an app for Airbnb, a popular travel booking service.

Applications are different - interesting, funny, useful. Applications have access to basic data of your Facebook account (for example, name, photo, gender). In addition, during installation, the application may ask for your permission to access certain information about you and your friends. Data can be different, for example, age, place of residence, education, circle of acquaintances, contacts. The application can tell your friends which country you have arrived in, where you are at the moment. It can look great (it's so nice to meet an old friend who suddenly finds himself in the same city). But do not forget that such "advertising" expands the possibilities of your ill-wishers.

In the following illustration, the Tripadvisor site (for travelers with information about hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc.) in response to an attempt to register by email offers (alternatively) to log in through Facebook:

If you are not logged into Facebook, you will receive an offer to enter the social network. If you are logged in, you will be asked to confirm:

Click the "Continue" button, in the next window "Skip". Next comes the question of access rights to your data.

You can click the "Change Permissions" link and deselect the items of your choice to avoid sharing such an impressive amount of information about yourself with the site. However, even in this case, basic information about your profile will be available to Tripadvisor and the accounts will be linked. The following illustration shows the Facebook settings item. Tripadvisor has been added to the already installed Airbnb application:

By clicking on the "Check" button, you can still check the permissions for each application. You can also remove the application from Facebook at any time (the "Delete" button).

For security reasons, I recommend:

At a minimum, view a list of already installed applications; remove completely unused and rarely used.
It's better to do the same; for the remaining applications, clarify the rights; develop rules for adding applications to Facebook.
No compromise - do not use apps on Facebook. To do this, scroll down the settings page a little, find the "Apps, sites and games" item, click the "Turn off" button.

Optional (outside settings menu)

Facebook is famous for more than just redesigning paragraphs and headlines. In this social network, some settings are not at all where you expect them to be.

You can reduce the amount of information about yourself a little more, if you select the "Friends" item in the horizontal menu and press the button with three dots (yes! there are two of them side by side! choose the one below).

In the drop-down menu, select the only item "Edit privacy settings". In the small window that opens, there are only three switches.

(The picture says it all.)

Facebook chat requests are also in a somewhat unusual place. And they can lie quietly there until you guess to look there. Click on the Messenger icon in the upper right corner (horizontal menu), then the button with the image of three dots, and in the vertical menu, find the "Message Requests" item.

An important function of Facebook is the ability to create lists of your favorite friends on your own. This is useful if there is any more sensitive information you wish to distribute to a restricted community.

When you open facebook.com, in the vertical list of options on the left, select "Friends Lists".

Here you can create separate lists of friends for different topics. Examples of practical application: residents of the same city as you; common hobby; NGO volunteers. Maybe you want to inform your friends about personal problems, but not all, but a select few.

I hope our tips will at least partially help to make your work and rest on the social network safer.

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Facebook encourages psychiatrist patients to make friends with each other.

How did he know? / Habr

Photo: Erendira Mancias / Fusion

Facebook's ability to find people "you might know" is sometimes surprising. Well, if this is a person with whom you have a lot of mutual acquaintances. But when Facebook recommends a former colleague from a job where you haven't worked for 15 years - what is it? The place of work is not indicated in the profile and there are no mutual acquaintances on Facebook. Or, all of a sudden, the girl you met once and never saw again. How does he know about her?

It is clear that Facebook takes into account not only mutual friends, but also many other things. It remains only to guess how this feature works, which cannot be disabled in the settings.

As usual, the Facebook help does not provide complete information. It only says that in the People You May Know section, “people are shown based on the fact that you have mutual friends, the information about your education or place of work is the same, you are in the same communities, and also based on contacts imported using Find Friends and many other factors. ”

"Many other factors" is a very broad wording. Given the huge array of personal data that Facebook collects, anything can be assumed. The social network can even compare a list of favorite sites, because Facebook registers the names of visitors to all sites that have Like and Share buttons. One need only look at the 98 targeting options that Facebook offers to its advertisers for targeted ads to understand the unprecedented scale of user profiling.

Charming journalist Kashmir Hill, editor of Fusion, told about one amazing case, which is generally out of the ordinary, even with the mighty power of Facebook.

The journalist was contacted by a woman who works as a psychiatrist (her name is Liza, this is a changed name). Lisa very rarely logs into Facebook, mainly to respond to a request to participate in an event. But last summer, she noticed that Facebook began to recommend her as new friends ... her own patients.

The woman explained that she did not share her address or phone books with Facebook, much less import contacts from her email account. That is, it is completely incomprehensible how Facebook calculated these people.

Lisa's patients are mostly elderly people with various health problems, but there is one exception - a snowboarder in her 30s. It was he who, with a laugh, told his doctor a funny story about which friends Facebook recommends to him. Often these are strangers, outdoor enthusiasts of a similar age who are snowboarding or skydiving. But lately, the guy has been getting more and more advice to make friends with some strange old people - there was a 70-year-old elderly gentleman with a rollator (a cart on wheels to facilitate walking) and another elderly man suffering from cerebral palsy. A cheerful snowboarder jokingly suggested: “Maybe these are your patients?”. The doctor could only look dumbfounded at the screen of the phone, because she really recognized these people as her patients, but she had no right to admit it so as not to violate medical confidentiality.

How did Facebook know about them?

The options are dropped one by one. Lisa says she hasn't added any of her patients as friends. Guest WiFi doesn't work in her office, so patients couldn't check in here. When she learned that Facebook was experimenting with recommending friends by location, she suggested that this might be the reason. Facebook saw that certain users often appear in the same place - which means they can become friends. But representatives of the company Facebook assured that the experimental feature was tested within the city for a small number of users. The experiment only lasted four weeks at the end of 2015 and is already over (thank God).

True, there are some doubts about the veracity of Facebook's words, because all too often he invites people who have recently met in real life as friends.

But in an official comment to Slashdot, Facebook reaffirmed that the company “does not use location data, such as phone coordinates and the location information you add to your profile, to guess people you may know. We can show people based on information about mutual acquaintances, information about the place of work and education, your communities, imported contacts, and other factors.

Facebook was unable to respond to Kashmir Hill's journalistic request to clarify "no further information about people who are recommended as friends," but the psychiatrist refused to share their personal details.

We can only guess how Facebook found these people. According to Kashmir Hill, the most likely version is based on a social graph compiled on the basis of phone numbers from the contact list on the phone. Many people don't realize that Facebook has access to their contacts if the phone has the Facebook mobile app installed. So, if there are people in your contact list who don't know each other, then Facebook could, in theory, invite them to get to know each other.

The doctor believes that there is a clear violation of medical confidentiality by Facebook. For example, one of her patients received recommendations as a friend of a man she saw on the stairs outside the doctor's office. And the social network helpfully suggested his name, along with all the other information from the profile. The doctor says that among her patients are people living with HIV, who have attempted suicide, who suffer from domestic violence. You can’t just invite them to make friends with each other.

It is also surprising that many users still do not know that Facebook bought WhatsApp and very soon their phone books from their smartphones will replenish the Facebook social graph, even if the phone does not have the Facebook mobile application installed. Users have a few days left to opt out of the terms of the new WhatsApp user agreement (new terms are offered with the latest update of the program).

Kashmir Hill does not know how to solve the problem in Lisa's particular case. Her medical facility is now recommending that privacy-conscious patients not log in to Facebook or other social media accounts while at the facility, but rather leave their phone in the car before meeting with the doctor. Good advice, but this is clearly not enough to hide from the caring supervision of the Big Blue Brother.