How Facebook’s People You May Know Work and How to Get Rid of It
Have you ever wondered how the people you may know feature on Facebook work? Do you often wonder how facebook get the names or list of people they suggest to you as people you may know even when you’ve never come in contact with such persons?
In this post, we will be discussing some possible ways we think Facebook uses to gather these names suggested to you. So, if you’ve ever wondered how the people you may know feature on Facebook actually works, then stick around and read this post so you can learn how to reduce the number of data you put out on Facebook.
How Facebook’s People You May Know work
Read also: How to Download Video from Facebook without Software
Table of Contents
What Do People You May Know Mean on Facebook?
The people you may know option on Facebook is a feature built into the Facebook algorithm to allow Facebook to suggest other users who you may wish to add as friends base on recent activities within Facebook. These persons are suggested to you so you can connect more closely with them through the social media platform. While this feature is sometimes helpful, some persons find it weird and usually imagine how Facebook gets the list of people suggested to them as people you may know especially when they’ve never searched for such persons on Facebook or even come in contact with the suggested persons.
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How Does Facebook Really Get the People to Suggest for you as People you May Know?
If this question has ever crossed your mind, then here are our thoughts on that.
From the above explanation, you may have noticed we used the text “recent activities on Facebook” but the fact is some of the people suggested to you actually has nothing to do with your recent activities on Facebook rather they are connected to activities done outside Facebook.
How Facebook’s People You May Know work
For example; you may have sent an SMS message to a person on your contact list who you don’t have as a friend on Facebook and the next few minutes, they appear on your people you may know. Sometimes, the person might be a person you sent a mail through your Gmail, Yahoo mail, live mail, etc, or even a person you registered on your appointment list using Google Calendar. All these make up the list of activities which due not explained by Facebook, form the means through which the list is accumulated, and then dished out from time to time.
Read also: How to Retrieve a Deleted Post on Facebook
Various Ways Through Which the People You May Know List is Formed
Here is a summary of some of the ways through which the list of people you may know is formed.
- People you search for – this is the primary method and this history can be deleted because it is part of your activity log and you can always access them under your account settings.
- People who search for you
- Friends of connected social media accounts
- Being tagged in a friend’s photo or album with other people in it
- A large number of mutual friends
- Network affiliation (school, work, city)
- Group affiliation
- Attending the same event
- Email addresses and phone numbers from your mobile (when you use the Facebook mobile app and allow access to your contacts)
- When your email addresses or phone numbers are saved in someone else’s mobile
- Phone number and email addresses connected with your profile
- Friends of people you may have blocked
- Opting to upload your email contacts by temporarily providing FaceBook your login and password to an email account.
- Login with Facebook on other forums and Apps
Read also: How to Move Facebook Photos to Instagram
Does Facebook Spy on My Contact to Suggest People I May Know?
While we can not say yes or no to the above question, we can simply remind you that the internet is a huge web with too many complexities and the tech giants are exploring several ways to collect data both for improvements and adverts and in order to do these, the cookies and mobile apps installed on your phone are utilized as a means to gather enough information as possible for every activity done over the internet and this is not only applicable to Facebook alone so you have to be more careful with the information stored on your internet-enabled devices.
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How Facebook’s People You May Know work – How to Get Rid of People You May know on Facebook
There is actually no permanent way to get rid of the people you may know suggestion on Facebook, however, the option I think would most likely help you reduce the number of unknown persons appearing on your list are as follows;
- Use Facebook on browser than then downloading the mobile app
- Don’t give access to your contacts if you must use the Facebook app
- Don’t use Facebook login option on forums and other platforms
- Have a special device to access your Facebook and reduce the number of contacts and internet activities down with such a device.
Now that we have carefully answered the question “how does Facebook people you may know work” and also give suggestions on “how to get rid of people you may know on Facebook” it is left for you to keep your eyes open as to the information you share and how best to use your device. Please leave your comments through the comment section.
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