Facebook anxiety
November 14, 2017 11:53 AM Subscribe
About a year ago, Facebook forced me to make a facebook page just so I could read a couple of people I was interested in.
So, under duress, I made a Facebook page using my middle name--which nobody knows me by--and my common last name. And that's it. I've never made ONE entry on the page. Not one. There is nothing about me, no photos, no nothing. In fact, I have no presence on facebook at all--not even on other people's pages. Indeed, I have no social media presence at all. I don't want any.
Also, I've only friended ONE person, on an impulse--a scientist I admire but who I've never met.
Over the last few months, I've gotten flurries of notices. And an occassional friend request from some Finns? who I have assuredly never met.
But in the last 24 hours, the friend requests have picked up. I've gotten at least four. I googled the people, and they're all interesting--a semi-well known writer, a psychologist, an artist, son of scientist, also a fighter whose first entry was a news article about being involved in a somewhat notorious crime. I have not a clue.
It occurred to me that maybe the name I used was inadvertently a famous person, so I googled my name. Nope. I'm really good at anonymity, I guess, since the top two or three entries were, believe it or not, obituaries.
So, I don't GET it.
my question is: WHY?
Why do people friend other people, in general?
And why would people friend somebody who not only doesn't really exist, but who is just a cipher--a name without a face or an identity?
This is beginning to give me social anxiety. I'm far too old for this.
So, under duress, I made a Facebook page using my middle name--which nobody knows me by--and my common last name. And that's it. I've never made ONE entry on the page. Not one. There is nothing about me, no photos, no nothing. In fact, I have no presence on facebook at all--not even on other people's pages. Indeed, I have no social media presence at all. I don't want any.
Also, I've only friended ONE person, on an impulse--a scientist I admire but who I've never met.
Over the last few months, I've gotten flurries of notices. And an occassional friend request from some Finns? who I have assuredly never met.
But in the last 24 hours, the friend requests have picked up. I've gotten at least four. I googled the people, and they're all interesting--a semi-well known writer, a psychologist, an artist, son of scientist, also a fighter whose first entry was a news article about being involved in a somewhat notorious crime. I have not a clue.
It occurred to me that maybe the name I used was inadvertently a famous person, so I googled my name. Nope. I'm really good at anonymity, I guess, since the top two or three entries were, believe it or not, obituaries.
So, I don't GET it.
my question is: WHY?
Why do people friend other people, in general?
And why would people friend somebody who not only doesn't really exist, but who is just a cipher--a name without a face or an identity?
This is beginning to give me social anxiety. I'm far too old for this.
facebook profiles with "real friends" are a valuable commodity. change your settings as per this page to friends of friends and then randos can't add you.
posted by noloveforned at 12:00 PM on November 14, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by noloveforned at 12:00 PM on November 14, 2017 [7 favorites]
I get friend requests all the time from people I don't know, on Facebook and other apps. As far as I can see, they break down like this:
posted by ubiquity at 12:01 PM on November 14, 2017 [8 favorites]
- People who want to sell me something.
- Spammers.
- People trying to drum up business for their page or blog.
- People trying to win some kind of "most number of friends" contest.
- Victims of mistaken identity.
- Actual people I know who have found me through some other friend's page.
posted by ubiquity at 12:01 PM on November 14, 2017 [8 favorites]
You can block notifications in your settings. The weird friend suggestions are FBs attempt to get you to engage on their platform. If you don't have any friends yet, the algorithm gets all wonky trying to figure out what you want. You can ignore these.
People friend other people to see what they're up to, to stay in touch with friends or family, or to keep track of bands, brands, artists, or relevant activities / groups that are of interest to them. I enjoy keeping up with my friends there, as I have a widely dispersed network of people in other states and countries whom I don't see or call very often.
It may be worth it to you to keep an empty FB profile to read things like you wanted originally, or not.
posted by ananci at 12:03 PM on November 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
People friend other people to see what they're up to, to stay in touch with friends or family, or to keep track of bands, brands, artists, or relevant activities / groups that are of interest to them. I enjoy keeping up with my friends there, as I have a widely dispersed network of people in other states and countries whom I don't see or call very often.
It may be worth it to you to keep an empty FB profile to read things like you wanted originally, or not.
posted by ananci at 12:03 PM on November 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
FB has at least your email address. Did you ever give them your phone number, for example to enable two factor authentication?
With these two things they can link you to quite a lot of people. Say your friend Joe, who uses FB, has your email or phone number in his iPhone contacts. Maybe Joe is friends with the people who sent you requests. Maybe HIS friends are friends with these people. Maybe Joe went to a conference with these scientists, and didn't even talk to them, but they were in proximity for a period of time so FB figures they know each other or have common interests.
If you're male or have a male sounding name, most requests from women are likely to be just spam.
posted by AFABulous at 12:08 PM on November 14, 2017 [6 favorites]
With these two things they can link you to quite a lot of people. Say your friend Joe, who uses FB, has your email or phone number in his iPhone contacts. Maybe Joe is friends with the people who sent you requests. Maybe HIS friends are friends with these people. Maybe Joe went to a conference with these scientists, and didn't even talk to them, but they were in proximity for a period of time so FB figures they know each other or have common interests.
If you're male or have a male sounding name, most requests from women are likely to be just spam.
posted by AFABulous at 12:08 PM on November 14, 2017 [6 favorites]
Also bots. There are more than a few entities trolling Facebook to build their own social graph for all sorts of purposes, nefarious and otherwise. And PIs often create fake accounts and friend as many people as possible so as to gain access to information about people who don't have their privacy settings restricted to allow only direct friends to see your stuff.
It's not necessarily that they are interested in you specifically, they are usually hoping to get access to your friends and eventually work their way back to their target with a bunch of their friends already friended.
posted by wierdo at 12:31 PM on November 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
It's not necessarily that they are interested in you specifically, they are usually hoping to get access to your friends and eventually work their way back to their target with a bunch of their friends already friended.
posted by wierdo at 12:31 PM on November 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: WCity Are you saying that it's ... pushy or something to 'friend' somebody, like I did with the scientist? Although he did accept me as a friend, I don't want to embarrass myself by doing that again. But not only did he accept me as a friend, one of the friend requests I got yesterday was from his son. This is what is befuddling me--how my ghost-like persona 'attracts' friend requests.
posted by Transl3y at 1:29 PM on November 14, 2017
posted by Transl3y at 1:29 PM on November 14, 2017
Facebook suggests friends to people who have similar interests or friends in common. Your scientist "friend"'s son likely saw that you are a friend of his father, and decided to make you a friend as well. As WCityMike describes, filling his address book.
posted by pammeke at 1:53 PM on November 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by pammeke at 1:53 PM on November 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
Just to be clear, Facebook downloads your phone's address book, text messages and call history when you install the app on your phone. That means Facebook knows about anyone you have called, texted or added to your contacts since you've owned your phone. It does the same with everyone else, so it also knows anyone who has called, texted or added you to their contacts. Facebook connects the two and then looks for commonality.
If you install the app on your phone, you've lost any hope of privacy or anonymity on the service, so don't do that! They have other ways of connecting people - location, comments, likes, friends and so on. But the one above is a primary method.
posted by cnc at 2:48 PM on November 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
If you install the app on your phone, you've lost any hope of privacy or anonymity on the service, so don't do that! They have other ways of connecting people - location, comments, likes, friends and so on. But the one above is a primary method.
posted by cnc at 2:48 PM on November 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Well, thanks everybody. You've answered a lot of questions. Facebook is fascinating. Or creepy. Or both I guess. The idea of getting into my address book though! It's a tentacled monster.
posted by Transl3y at 3:14 PM on November 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Transl3y at 3:14 PM on November 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
I've used fake accounts for various reasons and they always get a bunch of friend requests and it's usually somehow based on who I have followed. It doesn't mean anything. It's probably people/spambots who are trying to boost their own followers count by expecting you will follow them back if they follow you. "Friend request" is a weird way of putting it on Facebook's part -- it's really "following" someone's feed. Don't worry about it.
If you aren't comfortable with the idea of being on Facebook, I'd use a fake name and a throwaway email address that isn't connected to you. Review all the privacy settings too.
posted by AppleTurnover at 4:04 PM on November 14, 2017
If you aren't comfortable with the idea of being on Facebook, I'd use a fake name and a throwaway email address that isn't connected to you. Review all the privacy settings too.
posted by AppleTurnover at 4:04 PM on November 14, 2017
I've been on Facebook for years, and in the last few days have had a major uptick in rando accounts attempting to friend me. I don't know if Facebook's algorithm changed so I'm new to all these randos at once, or if it's just one of those things where spam occurs in waves with different strategies and it's facebook-friending strategy week for spammers and scammers.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:00 AM on November 15, 2017
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:00 AM on November 15, 2017
I happened upon this recent article today which explains a lot of weird behavior.
posted by AFABulous at 10:54 AM on November 15, 2017
posted by AFABulous at 10:54 AM on November 15, 2017
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If it is someone who does not know me, I assume it was because I came up in their Suggested Friends section. Usually that means we have one or more friends in common, but it could be because Facebook sees us posting from the same area or we both like the same random page. You don't have to friend famous people, you can usually follow them instead. Friending someone means both sides have agreed to be friends. Following is just so you see their updates and they don't have to approve you following them.
Facebook is likely tweaking their algorithms constantly and this means they look at changing criteria all the time. They may see that you were active at first and now just log on and read, with no interaction. They are trying to get you to interact more so they can show you more ads. No one is targeting you other than to try to show you ads. As we know, some of those ads have crappy content, but that is another issue.
posted by soelo at 11:59 AM on November 14, 2017 [1 favorite]