There’s something about Facebook that I can’t figure out. Maybe you can help. 
Background: I’ve been on FB for about a year or so. I’m a pretty selective user, that is I don’t “friend” everybody and anybody that I might have shared a cup of coffee with since I was six-years old—the type of user I call a “Facebook slut” who promiscuously links to hundreds of others. (Hey, if the shoe fits….) I’m linked to about 50 or so people, mainly old friends from high school and college, and a few former professional colleagues.
Recently, however, Facebook has suggested that I “friend”—I’ll never get used to using that as a verb—some people who are new acquaintances. And what’s puzzling me is that these are individuals who I’ve been introduced to in a strictly professional context, and there are no pre-existing social webs between us that I’m aware of.
My question: How does Facebook know that I know these people?
Of course, at its techno-heart, social-networking websites such as Facebook and Linkedin are just extraordinarily powerful relational databases. That’s how they can recognise and suggest other people that you might know. If you’re a friend of John, and John is a friend of Mary, it’s a pretty short logical leap to suggest that you might be a friend of Mary’s, too.
Likewise, if I graduated from Kegger U. back in 1979 (the parties! You wouldn’t believe!), and you attended dear old K.U. at the same time, there’s a good chance we might know each other. (Whether we can remember anything is a different question.) All Facebook’s computers have to do is seek those similiarities and match us up. It’s the same for jobs—look for people who toiled, say, at Superior Frostbite Technologies, Inc., at the same time and then suggest they link to each other.
But let’s look at these two new acquainteances that Facebook has proposed to me. We have no shared educational experiences, work histories, or social overlaps that I’m aware of:
- Person No 1 is a real-estate agent who lives 100 miles from me, in northwest Connecticut. Late autumn, I contacted her to explore the possibility of purchasing a plot of land adjacent to a summer cabin I own there. We have since spoken on the phone maybe a half-dozen times and exchanged less than a dozen emails. (Nothing ever came of my real estate bid, btw). In fact, I have never met this woman face-to-face and I’m unaware of any mutual friends or acquaintances. She happens to have a rather unusual last name, however, and earlier this year, Facebook plucked her from the 3.5 million people who live in Connecticut and popped her name up on my screen.
- Person No. 2 works at a non-profit organization in New York where I have been doing some pro bono work since April. Since then, I’ve emailed him a couple of times week to let him know when I’ll coming into the office. No other social/professional cross-over that I’m aware of. Yet somehow Facebook has pulled him from its ranks of 200 million registered users as being “friend-worthy”.
What flummoxes me is how the hell does Facebook know of my connection to these people?
I can think of three possible explanations:
- This is an ultimate case of six-degrees of separation and there are deep, hidden connections that I am unaware of but that Facebook’s all-powerful Brainiac-like digital cortex can easily discern. (Why, your great-great uncle Albert is a dead ringer for the no-good ice man who ran away with my second-cousin, once-removed, Bertha, who later was lost on the Carpathia in 1918. Wait a minute!….)
- Pure chance. Call this the Rick Blaine explanation: “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.” Possible, but unlikely outside of Casablanca.
- Somehow Facebook is reading my email, or has gained access to the address book located on my home iMac.
Explanation No. 3 is not impossible. Indeed, a few months ago I downloaded a piece of third-party software that allowed me to download my friends’ Facebook profile pictures to my iMac address book and trusty Palm PDA. (Yeah, at my advance age I often forget what my friends look like.) I was unaware of granting any license, however, to Facebook to record on its servers the contents of my personal contacts list and use it for it for FB purposes.
But that’s the only plausible explanation I can think of. And if it’s true, I think it qualifies as a significant invasion of privacy.
Does anybody out there have any other ideas? I’d love to hear ‘em.
Brave New Whirl 