Is facebook stalking you?

Anyone else having “recommended friends” be people you have never met before or even heard of other then their name here at T-Nation? DixiesFinest showed up the other day and I think SolidKhalid just “friended” me as well. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if facebook is accessing browsing history to find similarities amongst people to increase social networks. Just wondering if anyone else has been having this happen lately? Other people that it suggests all seem to have some sort of mention in the strength and conditioning world either something that points to EFS or points to T-Nation.

I think it attempts to suggest people that are in your extended network (friends of friends) that are linked perhaps to each other but perhaps not you. Also if you’re linked to major names in T Nation (Thibs or Wendler for example) it’s conceivable it’s suggesting those names to you and they are on here as well.

To your other point about accessing browsing history, invading privacy I wouldn’t put it past them.

This is a perfect situation for a “In Soviet Russia” meme. Alas, I’m not competent enough to pull it off myself.

Thing is that Dixie and I shared absolutely no mutual friends or friends of friends and if SolidKhalid just friended me (looks like same person as in his avatar) then we also have no friends of friends. Either way I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re logging browser history though how they’re doing it without their own browser I don’t have a clue. Also on my facebook I have absolutely nothing related to T-Nation or efs or any other lifting site. It’s literally my name and contact info and I think one quote from a rowing movie so it’s not like they’re linking “things people like”, at least not in my case. All and all just goes to show you that truly nothing you do online is private.

maybe he did a search for you on facebook or something. It wouldn’t shock me one bit if you were right though. The advertisements on facebook if I come from t-Nation are build muscle fast bullshit or if I come from my CPA site it will have an accounting advertisement so theyy do it in that context its not that far of a leap for them to try and connect two people who visit similar sites. But overall god bless facebook.

I don’t know about stalking perse, but it did recommend that I like the magazine Original Plumbing. I’m a plumber, that’s true, but what fucking interest do I have in ‘the original trans-male magazine’??!!

I had something like that happen to me. I have an old gmail account that I log into every now and again to keep in touch with old girlfriends and stuff. But my FB is under my main account(different Gmail). I must not of logged off old account gmail before logging into FB…BAM all the old GF’s popped up under “recommended friends”. Freaked me out at first. Got to be some kind of browser shit!

[quote]Mad HORSE wrote:
I don’t know about stalking perse, but it did recommend that I like the magazine Original Plumbing. I’m a plumber, that’s true, but what fucking interest do I have in ‘the original trans-male magazine’??!![/quote]

LOL. Is there something you’re not telling us? Quick, over to SAMA :stuck_out_tongue:

Who cares? You can be my buddy if you’re a solid T-Nation member.

You are not the only one noticing this. They are all trying to make connection with your info and all that crap. It’s blowing up right now

Well if you insist Nards…

I added one of the guys off here on facebook to talk about something, and the friends list it showed on the left side of his profile was literally composed entirely of a bunch of the other old BOI guys (Holymac, Waylander, DOHCrazy etc). I wonder if it just displays people with similiar interests or how it determines that.

lol, someone could’ve told me I’m being discussed… easiest way to get an answer.

Didn’t do a search as I don’t know your real name, you did come up as a “people you may know” however and I had no idea it was LM.

If your not happy about it, deny it, I’m not offended. Its the internet after all.

Agree about facebook accessing history though.

Keep in mind that your “likes” and “tweets” are also factored into the algorithm of who is recommended. So if you are a Fan of T-Nation on FB, or if you have tweeted links or liked individual articles, some of that will get factored in. Enough similar interests and FB will recommend you to others with the same interests.

This topic is of my interest. I have “liked” T-Nation and in the recommended friends section I only get Estonian names (I just have like 30 friends in my FB), but I will keep an eye on that.

I don’t feel comfortable at all by having FB (I created the account just few weeks ago and I use a different family name), so this kind of things are of my concern.

[quote]LiquidMercury wrote:
Anyone else having “recommended friends” be people you have never met before or even heard of other then their name here at T-Nation? DixiesFinest showed up the other day and I think SolidKhalid just “friended” me as well. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if facebook is accessing browsing history to find similarities amongst people to increase social networks. Just wondering if anyone else has been having this happen lately? Other people that it suggests all seem to have some sort of mention in the strength and conditioning world either something that points to EFS or points to T-Nation.[/quote]

I started a thread about this in GAL a little while ago but I think people thought I was talking about bubbling pictures or something. Anyway, here is a youtube vid of a TED talk lecture talking about “Filter Bubbles”. I hope it helps explain the FB thing.

Interesting clip, CH! Just imagine what’s coming next, now that FB has integrated face recognition into its product.
Firefox holds all your browsing history ain a local DB, and allows information harvesting.
I wonder if the new “privacy” mode will reset this trend.
By the way, the reason Google is studying us is for showing us relevant ads. There is nothing that google does that is not intended to sell more clickable ads. That is what google does. Anything else they do is secondary, subservient to that goal.

Very nice video indeed.

Tailoring the searches and information to the user only leads to even more bias and ignorance. It’s like people just reading one newspaper and believing, 100%, what it says, without comparing to other sources, points of view, etc.

I read different newspapers with different political views and sometimes I read some news about something “important” that happened and I already know it may not appear in the other newspapers. I’m often right about this. You wouldn’t want to upset 90% of your readers would you?

Am I the only person who noticed that on the 5 profile pics (the ones on the front of your profile), whenever there is a clear shot of MY FACE the picture seemed to be zoomed into it.

For example, there’s one picture with me and another guy, I’m standing to the far right and yet in the preview, my face is in the centre…

Freaky.