People you may know: is Facebook’s friend-finding algorithm putting you at risk?
The girl you went on a date with two months ago. Your therapist. The personal trainer you haven’t seen since January. Your lawyer, barber, maybe even your drug dealer. Scrolling through Facebook’s curated suggestions of “People you may know” will often leave you feeling like the social network can read your mind. Don’t worry, it can’t. But it is reading your address book. Most people are unaware that if you give Facebook access to your phone and email contacts (you can check if you’ve done so here and here) then it will use this information to recommend you “Friends”. In fact, simply having a phone number linked with your account means Facebook can and does mine your contacts. Although many users find it creepy and mysterious, this is why your Tinder date or the man you once sold a coffee table to will pop up in your sidebar from time to time. But what about the other – seemingly random – people listed under “People you may know”? According to Fusion.net, you may be more connected th
5 Sep 2016 ... “We show you people based on mutual friends, work and education information, networks you're part of, contacts you've imported and many other ...