Facebook uses location to suggest new friends | Hacker News Reader

Facebook uses location to suggest new friends

fusion.net

92 pointsbraythwayt59 comments

I'm not sure if it is either new or surprising.

I did an experiment some 3 years back from within a corporate network -- the difference being that it was done on a desktop, not mobile. The sequence of events was roughly:

- Spin off a new VM

- Create a brand new email address with fictitious identity

- Sign up to Facebook using the newly created fictitious identity

Result: The suggested "friends" were folks in that building (who were on the same network).

(The experiment was performed to demo how creepy such networks are.)

Nice:)

How awkward would it be when the FBI agents parked in the van outside your house keep popping up on your suggested friends list?

Genius. Let's write that screenplay!

I don't understand why people use the Facebook native app at all. Their mobile website works quite well and should avoid many of the issues with the app (location sharing, battery drain, etc).

Facebook recently disabled their messenger platform on the website, when you click the messages tab it brings you directly to the app store to install their app. This means you have to use the App to message people. The app requires such egregious permissions that I absolutely refuse to install it. It's a shame because it worked perfectly in the past.

I've been able to use https://mbasic.facebook.com from an Android device for messaging. Not ideal, but better than installing one of their apps.

If you have Chrome for Android (only browser/device I've tested this on) you can check request desktop site for https://m.facebook.com. You'll stay on the mobile version, maintain all of the mobile functionality of the website plus access to messages without the download redirect.

Yeah I've been trying to use mbasic now, it's obviously a really poor experience. I also like the ease of video calling on Messenger, but I'm still keeping it off my phone. Hopefully Google Duo is better. My phone got very laggy after I installed Messenger as well. I'm very suspicious of Facebook.

I agree with your assessment of Messages and I also don't have either the FB or Messages mobile app installed.

That said, messages are still working for me in Metal (third party FB app) and in my mobile browser. Even if/when they stop working that way, I figure I'll be able to tick the "desktop mode" box in my mobile browser to set the user agent and get it that way. Barring that I can just check those handful of messages I get via my desktop computer.

I guess I just don't depend on FB messaging for anything important so it's less an issue for me. If someone wants to reach me, they can call or text and Hangouts works fine across mobile and desktop on Android, iOS, Windows, OSX, Linux, etc. for group messaging.

They must be A/B testing; I can still access messages on the mobile site (Safari on iPhone 5s).

And, given privacy issues and anecdotal reports of battery drain, I'll just forgo messages on that platform if they make the mobile site change permanent.

It can't be too long until we can run VM's on our phones and isolate all our apps from the main phone OS? This seems like a great need to be filled.

And how long would your battery last?

Paper on iOS includes Messenger functionality in the same app (I'm not a fan of the constant app switching) and seems to avoid the power drain of the regular app.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper-stories-from-facebook/...

It still works, you just have to fight it steering you to the app store every step of the way.

I had to borrow someone's phone 2 days ago to send a quick FB message and it took about 10x longer than it should due to it trying to hide the native interface "it's going away soon, install messenger".

Is this an Android vs iOS thing? The Facebook page on my iPhone works very similarly to the desktop page. It doesn't steer me to the app store for any features.

It may be, this was in Chrome on an Android phone. Go to the inbox and it'd pop up app store. Close it, and the browser would be displaying the message about soon having to install messenger instead of inbox. Close that message and the process would repeat.

Only by visiting my friends profile and hitting the message link could I actually break out. It'd still take me to the app store but on close my friend's messages were visible along with the box to send a message.

When exactly did the function disappear for you? I'm still using the website messenger with no issues, but I wonder are my days numbered.

They've also recently added WebNotifications support to the website messenger functionality which leverages the phone notifications as an app would.

I run Android with Chrome and Firefox. On Chrome browser messaging has been disabled from the mobile website, on Firefox it still functions just fine (still redirects to the Play Store frequently however).

You can still use the website for messaging if you use Firefox as your browser (android only).

What about on iOS with fine-grained permissions? Messenger works just fine for me. I've revoked everything except background updates to get notifications.

When will these fine-grained permissions come to Android?

Android 6.0 Marshmallow has fine-grained permissions.

And also Messenger doesn't have end to end encryption, so every message remains in Facebook.

You could use messenger.com with a desktop user-agent. That site works fine on a phone screen.

Because it offers a far superior user experience...for the times I find myself in self-loathing after checking Facebook for the nth time, at least I want to not be struggling with the interface.

The thing with Facebook is that I use it when I know I want to give away information. For example, when I'm at an airport about to takeoff to an unfamiliar city but I'm not sure which of my casual friends (too casual to send out an email blast) are at the destination, I appreciate the location-based feature of Facebook that detects that you're at an airport and makes it easy to autofill origin and destination. I want my location to be known and so, I might as well use the native app.

I don't understand why people use Facebook at all.

In case you're not being facetious, adoption begets adoption.

People use it because some people they like to follow aren't on Twitter

People use it to communicate with people who aren't on [insert competing messaging platform] because it's easier than convincing every friend to move to your preferred one.

People use it to track events because it has wider adoption than Eventbrite/etc. (and that platform choice lies largely with the organiser rather than attendees)

etc.

Because we have social lives? It's where events are organized, photos are posted, current issues discussed, and friends stay in touch. It's really not that hard to understand.

I really thought this was already a well-established and known fact. I saw friend suggestions quite often after attending events where I ran into very loose acquaintances I never spoke to but share a few friends with. That by itself isn't too surprising, but the fact that this happens after we were geographically close led me to believe that this is common knowledge.

Goddamned Facebook!! Creating environments filled with unintended consequences everyday of the week.

There are so many untrained, misguided, semi-literate people in the world, who just get thrown into these environments totally unprepared. It literally sickens me.

Sorry I woke up today morning to read this - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/salem/21-yr-old-woma...

Parents get blamed. Police get blamed. Govts get blamed. Blame goes around. People get defensive rather than constructive. What a mess! Seriously how the fuck is anyone supposed to be prepared technically and socially to deal with this stuff?

That's a shitty story, but blaming Facebook for it seems a bit of a stretch. By that logic, photo editing software is responsible; computers; electricity, etc. A horrible society is definitley responsible for that one.

Yes, horrible society that overvalues a social networking site in every aspect in our lives.

Linkedin does this too. It suggested that I connect with an academic copy editor. My only other connection? We sat next to each other at a co-working space. Of course Linkedin was not using geo-location. They must have noticed that we were both on the same network.

> Unsubscribe from LinkedIn

> Delete email account

> Sell house, live in woods

> Find bottle in river

> Has note inside

> It's from LinkedIn

Source: https://twitter.com/darylginn/status/590664399041519617

agree, LinkedIn suggestions are really, really good/creepy, way more than Facebook, at least for me.

I can't think of a single reason to use LinkedIn's native app.

linkedin's IP based tracking includes their website, and doesn't require you to share your location through the browser. They've been doing that for years. If you share a network gateway with someone, LinkedIn will suggest that person as a contact.

> Facebook uses location to suggest new friends–which could be a privacy disaster

No, the privacy disaster happened when Facebook was allowed to collect all that data in the first place.

What if I moved out from a neighbourhood because I had enemies there, we didn't like each other? Now I'm coming back to my parents house and facebook reminds me about them and them about me?

If you have actual enemies, it might make sense to block them on things like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc..

Do you have enemies? Does a typical person have enemies?

It's not unheard of to have people in your extended network who you would rather not have alerted to your whereabouts. Examples: abusive ex, clingy co-worker, mother in law, etc. "Enemy" is a rather melodramatic term but you get the idea.

I don't expect anything to Facebook when it comes to privacy.

Well, there are several levels of non-privacy to expect:

  - Facebook collects data about me
  - Facebook shares my data with big corporations who want to sell me stuff
  - Facebook shares my data with my friends
  - Facebook shares my data with people who aren't my friends

For many people, this is a surprising escalation of their expectations. For some, it is outright dangerous.

Because people expect services as robust and useful as Facebook to be free? Based on how much time people spend using their service, the user's data is hardly a large price to pay. Have certain types of things you like, profession, education, gender, demographic and expect your profile able to be targeted (anonymously) with advertising. Share something public (including anything above), expect any corporation to be able to see or mine it.

I think your comment is in line with mine. Many people think they are making a trade-off: The use of the service in exchange for data that corporations can mine.

Some even consider this a win-win, as they believe that they will receive advertising for things they may actually want to buy.

However, not everybody expects the data to be shared with other users of the service. This is why I suggested that this may be an unexpected escalation of expectations. Facebook is quite transparent about sharing your data with advertisers.

It is less transparent about sharing your data with other individuals.

And how do you explain shadow profiles?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/14/facebook_trust_dumb/

just because you shrug it off, doesn't mean they are above the law.

Just yesterday somebody warned that Facebook does location-based friends suggestion (was suggested to friend a taxi driver) and promptly accused to be tin foil hatter.

That's just how it goes every time.

They probably aren't using location but IP block. In fact, I'm almost certain your IP block is used for both suggested friends and your Newsfeed.

I used to see my coworkers all the time in my Newsfeed, but now that I don't work there (and therefore we don't share an IP anymore) I suddenly started seeing them a lot less.

I go to their page and see they are posting, and after interacting with a few posts they started showing up again, but I have to go to their page and interact every few weeks to get them to keep showing up.

Also, whenever I go and visit the old office, if I use Facebook there, all of a sudden I get them all showing up in my Newsfeed again.

"Location information by itself doesn’t indicate that two people might be friends" - interesting, and guessing it was IP based so they might put more weight behind it, but I keep getting this for an ex-housemate. Nothing else in common, no common friends, just the fact we were both regularly in the same place/same network.

The man from the article attended a common event with the other man who appeared on his friends suggestion list. Maybe facebook has a rule that if the event is small, the attendees can be assumed to have met IRL.

I love it. I've wished this feature implemented for quite some time.

They also suggest friends based on who has viewed your profile.

Or it may result in real-world friendships.

Too bad I don't have the Facebook app installed any more.

i never use facebook on mobile devices, i have a different "supervised" profile on Chrome for facebook use and nothing else.

i use it because of how many people are on there, but i wont let them snoop on me

Do you need anybody else to snoop upon you if you're using Chrome?

Has Google stopped identifying a given Chrome installation using unique IDs?

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