Unraveling the secrets of the algorithms of the applications that we use in our day to day is a utopia, but that does not mean we are not going to stop wondering how they work. It is quite natural to question why people appear on Facebook that you may know on a recurring basis, and on many occasions it is true that we know them and that they are part of our immediate environment in real life, but this is nothing more than the application accessing information that we have previously provided.
The people we may know on Facebook appear fine because the application has access to our contact list and has found that the other person’s number is associated with an account or for other reasons that have to do with probability and not so much with probability. divination, which is what many tend to think. When we add a user and they accept us as a friend, it is likely that in the following days other friends of that person with whom we may or may not have something in common will appear in that suggestion section.
HOW CAN I PREVENT PEOPLE YOU MAY KNOW FROM APPEARING ON FACEBOOK?
As this section can be very intrusive by showing people on our wall that we may not want to appear, many want to know how I can prevent people you may know from appearing on Facebook . Certain profiles can even lead us into compromising situations if there is someone nearby watching, so it is convenient to hide them so that we can continue browsing the application normally.
A first step to prevent these profiles from appearing is to deny Facebook access to the contacts. This can be done when installing the app, by clicking ‘Deny’ when it asks for access.
In the event that you already have the application installed, you can withdraw this permission through the settings of your phone. Tap ‘Apps & notifications’, select ‘Facebook’, and in the ‘Permissions’ section make sure ‘Contacts’ is turned off. In this way, the application will not be able to access your address book to suggest acquaintances .
All this does not prevent this section from suddenly appearing when browsing the application, especially if you have few friends on Facebook . Every time a suggestion section appears that you don’t want to see, be it from people you may know, reels, page suggestions, etc., you just have to click on the icon with three dots that you will find on the right side and click on ‘ Disguise’. In this way, the application will show you these suggestions less frequently.
THE PEOPLE YOU MAY KNOW ARE THE ONES WHO LOOK AT MY PROFILE ON FACEBOOK?
There are several theories about the parameters that the social network uses to show us people we may know, but one of them has been going around the Internet for years: are the people you may know the ones who look at my profile on Facebook? It would be a very interesting way to locate those people who snoop on the information that we have public for the whole world. The developer Théodore Laurent published his experiences in this regard, although he assures that he has no reliable proof that the Facebook algorithm works like this.
Be that as it may, the reality is that all our activity on social networks is monitored in one way or another by applications. It is possible that Facebook shows us as friend suggestions the people who have previously looked at our profile, just as it is possible that it tracks our activity with the mobile (important in this sense is the permissions that we grant to the app) to show us to those potential friends we haven’t connected with yet. What is highly unlikely is that Mark Zuckerberg reveals the internal mechanisms of the Facebook algorithm, a secret as well kept as the Coca-Cola formula.