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Comment by anysz | Hacker News Reader

+1 This happened to me at the supermarket.

Super cute cashier girl. No idea what her name is.

As I'm heading out I open up my news feed and what do you know? There she is in recommended friends. WTF

This is a solid example, in relation to the OP comment. Since you didn't know her name. But...there is still a possibility that you had mutual friends and her face popped up. I used FB a lot and FB cycles many friends multiple times, in the hope that someone connects with you. I'm really good a remembering faces and well, this was what happened to me, numerous times. I might not knew the person in January but in July, I'd randomly meet them. FB showed me their photo probably 5 times in the process but it wasn't until the 5th time that I requested.

We had no mutual friends. I actually have 0 friends on Facebook. I use it as a media outlet.

All my recommended friends come from my iOS Contacts, by phone number. So the fact she popped up is absurd

woah this almost seems like Facebooks version of Hot Single Girls Near you. Except they might actually be near you.

How is this possible even in principle? Location tracking might be one explanation - they certainly have access to the data - but it seems implausible for Facebook to be suggesting you friend every goddamn person you walk past. They couldn't have known you thought she was attractive, so what gives?

My guess:

Since anysz mentioned he has 0 friends, there will be no social graph recommendations. Thus less-confident recommendations will show up, including spending some minutes in the same location as someone. It could then consider other factors—opposite genders, relatively close in age, maybe similar interests.

Healthy skepticism aside,

> They couldn't have known you thought she was attractive

Are you so sure? To me (no ML experience) that seems a somewhat solvable problem if you have a competency in ML and Facebook's data.

Just imagine if Tinder shared data back...

So, since people largely agree on who is attractive, does this mean FB would be recommended this poor lady to all the schlubby loners who wander through her checkout line? "The digital pimp, hard at work."

Probably only the ones that meet her rough demographic profile.

There's something scary yet fascinating in the idea of a proactive automated matchmaker.

As long as there is nothing forcing people into it, I think it could be great.

We don't know what we don't know to paraphrase that famous romantic Donald Rumsfeld. Who knows if the person behind you on the rollercoaster or grabbing a taco might be the yin to your yang.

I just wish Waze could tell me who my ideal carpool partners might be.

You probably don't use your real name for the FB account, do you? (Ruling out the "she saw your name on your moneycard and googled you on Facebook" hypothesis)

Hmm. That's bizarre. Heck, innovation isn't stagnant. Maybe they did do this. Could become bad PR for FB, if proven.

Had the same thing happen to me after a date. We met on a dating site, agreed to meet for drinks. I never even knew her last name. The date didn't go well, so we ended it early. Afterwards, she showed up on my recommended friends list, and I assume I on hers.

Creepy.

I think FB does matching with phone number, if they have your presumed phone number in your contacts, it will link you in the graph

Could you and the girl have shared the same IP address at some point (because of store Wi-Fi, or CGNAT with your cell carrier) ?

Disclaimer : I'm a former FB engineer but have no specific knowledge of this area. I suspect that IP addresses could be used as input for the PYMK feature though (in the absence of anything better, as you had 0 friends), as they are for security systems.

Nothing to complain about :-)

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