Up until this point in time I have avoided being lured into the world of Facebook. For this reason I am completely inerudite as to it’s workings.
However, on a friends ‘page’ a ***name ***has popped-up, under the heading ‘People You May Know’. (And I am being coerced into looking like the dummy).
My question is; through what process/es does a ‘new’ name just pop up? (And theoretically be inviting some response?)
Would this ‘stranger’ necessarily be aware that his name might be sitting there, or could this just happen through a network of other interrelationships beyond his perception?
There have been many threads on this subject. A search may turn up more details.
But basically, FB has a huge algorithm that looks for connections between accounts. From your friends list, people you have common friends with, links you click on, things you’ve searched for, your geographic locations, places or events you’ve attended. They want you to engage in FB and finding new friends is one way they do that.
It will then suggest names from that algorithm that you might know as potential friends for you. These potential friends won’t see that you’ve been notified, but they might get your name as a potential friend suggestion as well. They won’t ever see that they showed up on your “People you may know” list.
The exception is if a mutual friend suggests to FB that you two may know each other - I think both parties get notified in that case.
Interesting. So I get a once daily email from FB that says “Do you know Yunus Azmi?” I usually yell at the computer that I don’t know this person and would you stop sending this email. Perhaps somewhere else in the world is Yunus Azmi yelling at his computer that he has never heard of Kelevra and would they stop bothering him.
Most of these algorithms (FB doesn’t share theirs and changes it frequently) have many levels of connections, from very close (friends of friends, tagged in photos together) to medium (belong to similar groups, same colleges/HS/employers) to tentative (check ins at same places, similar likes). At times the UI asks for something to fill the space so you get some crappy recommendations.
You can regulate the types of emails you get from Facebook, including getting none at all. You might have to Google how though as I did it so long ago I forgot how. I’m sure it’s a setting in notifications or something like that though.