[HN Gopher] 'People You May Know' helped Facebook grow exponenti...
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'People You May Know' helped Facebook grow exponentially
Author : one-possibility
Score : 77 points
Date : 2020-02-26 18:34 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (marker.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (marker.medium.com)
| interlocutor wrote:
| In the early days, Facebook logged into user's email accounts and
| stole contact information without users' knowledge or
| authorization. This was possible because people used the same
| password for their email and Facebook, a practice common
| especially back in those days. This is one of their sources for
| PYMK.
|
| In fact Facebook has used this technique very recently too:
|
| A security researcher noticed the tech giant was prompting some
| users to type in their email passwords when they opened an
| account to verify their identity. And after they were caught...
| Social networking giant Facebook said on Wednesday evening it may
| have "unintentionally uploaded" the email contacts of up to 1.5
| million users on its site, without their permission or knowledge,
| when they signed up for new accounts since May 2016.
|
| Read more about this: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-
| news/facebook-says-it-unin...
| uoaei wrote:
| "Unintentionally uploaded"
|
| Because you just happened to accidentally interact with the API
| in just the right way and downloaded the information to just
| the right database and deployed a service to production which
| just happens to access that data...
|
| I don't understand how that statement right there isn't
| literally incriminating evidence. They admitted to uploading
| the data explicitly, and "unintentional" is a straight up lie
| based on how software works.
| bluedino wrote:
| LinkedIn does the same thing. The first week of my new job I even
| started getting the spouses of my new-coworkers in my LinkedIn
| "people you may know" feed.
| Yhippa wrote:
| Paywalled so I'll just barf my opinion about my feelings on that
| feature. I get recommended the most random people who are
| friends-of-friends I've never met. There have been so many bad
| suggestions that I assume they're all wrong.
|
| I guess everyone else had the complete opposite experience based
| on the article title
| hbosch wrote:
| It is, or was, much more relevant about a decade ago when
| Facebook was still the de facto online gathering place for
| young people. In college, for me, the People You May Know feed
| was uncanny in how it suggested people that I had met in class
| or at a party.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I think they just err on the side of false positives. You can
| always ignore the friend suggestion if it's someone you don't
| know. If they fail to suggest someone you do know, that's a
| missed opportunity.
|
| Some of this is inevitable. For example, their algorithm was
| eager to suggest one particular person to me, and it did so
| multiple times even though I did not know the guy. It was
| someone who had worked at the same company as I did, in the
| same department, but quit the company slightly before I was
| hired. So he and I had easily 10 Facebook friends in common.
| Facebook had good reasons to suspect that I knew the guy. Even
| though I didn't, I might have, and they have no way of knowing
| for sure, so they might as well just ask.
| Havoc wrote:
| It's also freakishly location sensitive lately. Like people
| sitting <5 meters of me rather than the previous...in same part
| of building level
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > A sex worker found Facebook recommending her clients, who did
| not know her true identity. A sperm donor got a suggestion for
| the biological child he never met. A psychiatrist learned that
| Facebook was recommending that some of her patients friend each
| other on the service.
|
| It is amazing how little pieces of information that are likely
| innocuous by themselves can be combined to develop a pretty
| thorough understanding of relationships.
| SilasX wrote:
| Relatedly, Venmo has given me the identify of people I've
| contacted before by phone.
| toohotatopic wrote:
| But we don't know if these are false positives. The connection
| between all those examples doesn't have to be the suggested
| link. E.g. the patients could be suggested because they have a
| common friend.
| wpietri wrote:
| Since the system is both aggressive and intentionally opaque,
| it doesn't much matter to me whether the positives are false
| or true. If Facebook would like people not to feel threatened
| by it, then they could either not do it or make it much
| clearer what's going on.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Yeah, the psychiatrist seems the easiest to explain since
| when choosing a medical professional people may ask their
| friends who they recommend.
| Seenso wrote:
| > Yeah, the psychiatrist seems the easiest to explain since
| when choosing a medical professional people may ask their
| friends who they recommend.
|
| IIRC, connections like those were often explainable by
| addressbook data. Please _assumed_ Facebook didn 't have
| access to that when it actually did (I'm pretty careful
| about this kind of stuff and found mine had been slurped at
| some point, for instance). It's not inconceivable that a
| psychiatrist and patient may have exchanged emails or phone
| numbers.
| hbosch wrote:
| The first and last must just be geolocation based, right? Like,
| these two people are in a room together every _X_ day for _Y_
| hours... they probably know each other.
|
| The sperm donor guy, though... facial recognition? No idea.
| rococode wrote:
| There's gotta be more to that sperm donor story. "Oh that
| must be my biological kid from that sperm bank trip 20 years
| ago" is not the natural train of thought when you see someone
| who _maybe_ vaguely looks like you as a suggestion on
| Facebook. And whatever the other context was - maybe one of
| them searching for the other - probably gave Facebook what it
| needed to make the connection.
| axlee wrote:
| More likely adress book / phone contacts import.
| titzer wrote:
| The geo thing is really happening.
| Slartie wrote:
| I also have the theory that they are using WiFi names /
| AP MAC addresses as well. If you happen to be connected
| to the same private WiFi network, you probably know each
| other.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Facebook has a patent for using dust and scratches on
| photos to track which camera they came from. But they
| claime(d) not to be using WiFi or Geolocation for the
| PYMK feature - https://gizmodo.com/facebook-knows-how-to-
| track-you-using-th...
| paxys wrote:
| As one of the factors probably, but they don't recommend
| random people who are nearby. There has to be _some_
| actual connection (friend-of-friend, address book, in the
| same group etc.)
| titzer wrote:
| > but they don't recommend random people who are nearby
|
| I think that's probably true. You need to spend
| sufficient time near someone--like within a few feet or
| so.
|
| I had an interesting experience where Facebook
| recommended me as a friend to someone I sat next to on an
| airplane, with whom I had a conversation with. My phone
| was in airplane mode. Not sure how that happened, TBH!
| itronitron wrote:
| so a stalker will get recommended to a 'stalkee' ?
| Loughla wrote:
| I mean, part of the use case there is that the 'stalkee'
| will at least be notified that the person s/he has seen
| four or five times is definitely stalking them. So that's
| good, I guess.
|
| This post is obviously sarcasm.
| [deleted]
| aaron695 wrote:
| > The sperm donor guy
|
| How did the Sperm Donor know it was his child?
|
| Find that and that's how Facebook knows.
|
| To look at a friend suggestion and know it's your child means
| you have been in contact with someone past the donation
| stage.
|
| Nothing about how Facebook offers suggestions are secret to
| my knowledge.
|
| All that's happening is people are not aware how easy it is
| to find information from networks
| rhizome wrote:
| I see those as BIG pieces of information! The number of people
| that I "might know" because we've exchanged email with the same
| person is horrifying in this context. There's a dystopic story
| to be written (which often means it already has been) about law
| enforcement using this second-order conntection as Reasonable
| Suspicion, a "why did we find your business card in this bad
| guy's wallet?" connection.
| choward wrote:
| They kept sending me "do you know [person I probably don't know]"
| as notifications on my phone! This was the last straw that made
| me delete the app and my account entirely a few years ago.
|
| One of the big annoyances in life is being notified or bugged
| about something I don't need to be notified about. This keeps
| getting worse with modern tech all the time which has slowly led
| me to stop using anything I don't have full control over.
| krilly wrote:
| >This was the last straw that made me delete the app and my
| account entirely a few years ago.
|
| Why not just disable notifications, or just uninstall the app
| without deleting your account? Facebook can still be of use to
| you without you being of use to it.
|
| I've long used Facebook only for messaging and managing events
| because it's an effective and ubiquitous platform for both of
| these things.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Why not just disable notifications_
|
| Possibly because some combination of his
| device/platform/Facebook didn't honor his request after a
| while. At one time it wasn't unheard of for an app to self-
| update and reset notifications and other settings.
|
| _or just uninstall the app without deleting your account_
|
| Revenge, probably. And/or to punish FB microscopically, but
| in the only way we can.
|
| _I 've long used Facebook only for messaging and managing
| events because it's an effective and ubiquitous platform for
| both of these things._
|
| Good for you. Not everyone lives the same life that you do.
| cgriswald wrote:
| > Why not just disable notifications
|
| Many apps provide useful notifications but some genius
| somewhere realized they can get more eyeballs if they abuse
| the notification system. So you have to take the bad with the
| good or throw them both out.
|
| What's worse is some apps provide "fine grain control" which
| is supposed to allow you to decide what types of
| notifications you get. Some other genius had the idea to be
| very loose with what belongs in what category.
|
| And yet another genius had the idea to spam email if phone
| notifications are disabled.
|
| And they'll let you disable that too... but yet another
| genius had the idea to "accidentally" forget all these
| settings.
|
| So... I don't know. Disable them, sure. It's the advice that
| keeps on giving, I guess.
| harikb wrote:
| In case anyone hasn't seen the John Oliver episode on it [1] ,
| it is worth your 5 minutes
|
| 1. https://youtu.be/kxatzHnl7Q8?t=16
| smacktoward wrote:
| The one that got _me_ to delete the app was when I went out one
| night on a first date with a woman, and then both the woman and
| I immediately started showing up in each other 's "do you know"
| prompts.
|
| There is probably an explanation for this that doesn't boil
| down to "FB watched our GPS and noticed our phones sat next to
| each other at the same location for several hours," but it
| still felt sufficiently creepy to make me uninterested in
| sticking around to figure it out.
| cosmotron wrote:
| If one person searched for the other by name (you know, just
| to see if they're on FB and what stuff is publicly shared),
| then they may appear in PYMK.
| r0m4n0 wrote:
| Yea this I believe to be true as well. A few people I've
| matched with on tinder repeatedly showed up on PYMK soon
| after. Leading up to a date would only make sense that they
| would search by name on Facebook. More likely that than the
| information between the services
| jetrink wrote:
| > There is probably an explanation for this that doesn't boil
| down to "FB watched our GPS and noticed our phones sat next
| to each other at the same location for several hours," but it
| still felt sufficiently creepy to make me uninterested in
| sticking around to figure it out.
|
| That's exactly what happened[1].
|
| > "Location information by itself doesn't indicate that two
| people might be friends," said the Facebook spokesperson.
| "That's why location is only one of the factors we use to
| suggest people you may know."
|
| 1. https://splinternews.com/facebook-is-using-your-phones-
| locat...
| ConsiderCrying wrote:
| If only that applied to everyone. Most people will get ten
| crappy notifications with one good one and go "Oh, well, not
| too bad." I think I used the 'People You May Know' feature a
| bit when I first joined but, as time went on, it really just
| became "This one guy who once worked at the same place as you
| and maybe knows someone you know". These algorithms are very
| smart and that's their problem - they overestimate the number
| of connections an average person makes.
| anticensor wrote:
| A normal human can sustain relation with 40 relatives, 150
| friends and 1000 acquittances. FB algos are (deliberately)
| tuned for twice those numbers.
| wolco wrote:
| I understand your point but honestly humans are varied.
| Some can handle more some less. People self regulate.
| r00fus wrote:
| I can tell you my kids' school is now driving a program to
| improve what I like to call "digital skepticism" (defense
| against dark arts?) - these are elementary school kids
|
| I think Facebook's tactics were a landgrab before the global
| populace starts to build an antibody to pervasive
| advertising/spam/surveillance.
|
| Clearly this needs to be bolstered by legislation/regulation.
| wh1t3n01s3 wrote:
| A good % of those were clearly people you are not friend with
| who had simply looked @ your profile. The fb algorithm
| chooses the ones that rarely log, to receive those as
| notifications. So you get addicted. Example: 'that woman/man
| has probably looked @ my profile, I need to open the app and
| see whe she/he is' I quitted too, what a wise choice!
| fortran77 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure Facebook used to suggest people who searched for
| your name as a "Person You May Know".
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This quote from Zuckerberg is something else:
|
| > "We don't view your experience with the product as a single-
| player game," he says. Yes, in the short run, some users might
| benefit more than others from PYMK friending. But, he contends,
| all users will benefit if everyone they know winds up on
| Facebook. We should think of PYMK as kind of a "community tax
| policy," he says. Or a redistribution of wealth. "If you're
| ramped up and having a good life, then you're going to pay a
| little bit more in order to make sure that everyone else in the
| community can get ramped up. I actually think that that approach
| to building a community is part of why [we have] succeeded and is
| modeled in a lot of aspects of our society."
|
| This attitude of "we know what's good for you" is apparent in
| more and more modern tech products. I find it pretty gross,
| especially when applied personal data. It's also a convenient
| after-the-fact moral justification for decisions that improve the
| bottom line of the company at the expense of its users.
| Seenso wrote:
| > This attitude of "we know what's good for you" is apparent in
| more and more modern tech products. I find it pretty gross...
|
| It's even grosser than that. The attitude here is really "we
| did what was good for us, but we think you're dumb enough to be
| convinced we did it because it was good for you."
| ciil wrote:
| I think at least some engineers genuinely believe they're
| doing what's best for the users and that it just so happens
| to also be either the best for their personal bottom line or
| the easiest route to go with their product.
| rhizome wrote:
| In my experience engineers don't care a whit about users
| except as a means of revenue, or more specifically as
| gasoline for the company engine.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| As Richard Feynman said: "The first principle is that you
| must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to
| fool."
|
| (To write something slightly more original than the "will
| not understand if livelihood depends on it" quote)
| choward wrote:
| If you pay people enough they can easily be brainwashed
| into believing what they are doing is right.
| Kaze404 wrote:
| I know this might be off topic but a billionaire making a
| comparison to wealth redistribution almost reads like a parody
| to me.
| jariel wrote:
| That's bad, but the worst part to me is the total confluence
| of both the legitimacy and wellbeing he makes with his own
| product.
|
| 'Using Facebook Is A Kind Of Wealth' is what he says
| basically.
|
| 'The whole world benefits so much when they use my product'
|
| This is Trumpian level of delusion.
|
| 'It's important that _every American_ gets a chance to stay
| at home of my resorts. They 're so nice! So I'm going to
| offer a government-backed tax rebate so that everyone can
| come and stay. Studies have shown people who stay at resorts
| are in better health, more relaxed. These tax rebates are
| Good For America'.
| reaperducer wrote:
| The same billionaire who spends tens of millions of dollars
| bulldozing houses around his in order to increase his
| privacy,+ then tells the commoners that wanting privacy isn't
| normal.++
|
| + https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Zuckerberg-to-
| raze-4-hou...
|
| ++ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/facebooks-zuckerberg-
| the_n_41...
| mrlala wrote:
| Physical privacy vs virtual privacy are two very different
| things, so it's disingenuous to pretend they are exactly
| the same.
| whymauri wrote:
| The impact that virtual privacy can have on lives is
| quickly approaching the impact that physical privacy can
| have. Further, part of the attack surface on physical
| privacy is virtual privacy, anyways.
| wpietri wrote:
| Nobody said they were exactly identical. If you're going
| to argue, please argue with what people actually say.
| solotronics wrote:
| He tapes over his camera on his laptop because he doesn't
| trust it. I do too and don't think this is odd behavior.
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-
| zuck...
| mrlala wrote:
| That is physical privacy.. it's so someone can't SEE YOU.
| Not track your online activity.
| rhizome wrote:
| I don't understand your point, that they're "different?"
| Well no shit.
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| I know I know...but it worked. "Everyone" is on FB and they are
| worth a gazillion dollars.
| gretch wrote:
| It goes farther than that - the comment parent author doesn't
| even realize they are exhibiting the same behavior:
|
| "This attitude of "we know what's good for you" is apparent
| in more and more modern tech products"
|
| Billions of people used PYMK and are generally happy with it
| and Facebook in general. Who are you to tell them it's a bad
| thing?
|
| If FB is so bad why don't more people leave? Lots of people
| on HN leave FB and I respect that choice - and lots don't and
| enjoy using FB with it's pros and cons. What's wrong with
| that?
| zaat wrote:
| > Billions of people used PYMK and are generally happy with
| it and Facebook in general.
|
| You might be right, but that isn't necessarily so. I'm on
| Facebook, I hate many of it's features, the product design
| decisions and I think they are hostile and predatory.
| Wherever a knob was made available I changed it from the
| default to the more private setting. But I'm still on
| Facebook because I have no other option for effective
| communication with my globally distributed family and with
| the local tech community.
|
| In short, I hate PYMK and many many other things, and
| generally I'm not happy at all with Facebook, but you
| counted me along the "Billions of people" because I'm
| (almost) daily active on the platform.
|
| I believe you have no idea what portion of the users is
| happy with the platform, what portion is unaware of the
| privacy implication and what portion is unhappy about the
| platform's privacy but, as accurately put by the Zuck
| himself, pay the necessary tax.
| mc32 wrote:
| I'm not sure id hi as far as qualifying PYMK as an invasion of
| privacy, but there are common situations where you DO NOT want
| to connect with others or others you know/knew connect with
| you.
|
| Exes, Stalkers, People who can't let go, Friends who are bad
| influences, etc...
| brlewis wrote:
| Suppose A has contacts B and C. If A chooses to share
| contacts with Facebook, and Facebook suggests B and C to A, I
| can see why you'd say that's not an invasion of privacy. If
| Facebook suggests A to C, that's arguably an invasion of
| privacy. If Facebook suggests B and C to each other, that's
| unarguably an invasion of privacy.
| choward wrote:
| > "If you're ramped up and having a good life, then you're
| going to pay a little bit more in order to make sure that
| everyone else in the community can get ramped up
|
| > This attitude of "we know what's good for you" is apparent in
| more and more modern tech products.
|
| The attitude that this also demonstrates is "our loyal
| customers are locked in, so it's time to screw them over to try
| to make more money".
| SeanFerree wrote:
| Great article
| romwell wrote:
| Ah, the wonderful feature the spies on my location to suggest me
| friends that are in my phone book, but aren't connected on
| Facebook in any way whenever I get to actually hang out with
| them.
| david_draco wrote:
| Infected people helped spread the coronavirus
| Keloo wrote:
| Infected People You May Know, got you infected.
| barrenko wrote:
| You got a product when your users interact with other users while
| you sleep.
| hnick wrote:
| Perhaps we should rename social media to viral media.
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