Facebook spies on its users by collecting data that is used to suggest new friends. The social network is not satisfied with the information provided to it but will look for it elsewhere, on Messenger, your smartphone, or even that of another user. They are concealed in ghost profiles which are hidden behind each account.
Facebook has set up a spy system for suggest new friends to its users. This allows an algorithm to exploit data that the user has not communicated to Facebook to feed the “You may know” functionality. Behind each profile, hides a second, inaccessible and much more complete. Partly based on the private messages of Messenger, which has just launched a payment option between friends, but also from information collected on the smartphones of other users, reveals the US version of Gizmodo. With its algorithm, Facebook is then able to carry out a real data-mining of the personal lives of its users and to create a precise diagram of their social relations, which are used, among other things, to suggest new friends.
Facebook ready to do anything to suggest new friends
This way of proceeding leads to strange situations. A social worker called by his first name by a client who had seen him in Facebook's “You may know”, without any contact information having been exchanged between the two. A lawyer who finds a legal advisor with whom he communicated exclusively by his professional email address. A woman whose father left her family 40 years ago who is offered the latter's mistress. Or a sperm donor who sees in his suggestions the child of the couple he helped years earlier. Cases among many others which lend credibility to the theory of the phantom profile.
Facebook defends itself by ensuring that it only uses information that the user provides himself. For friend suggestions, it is above all the network that determines the profiles that appear. If you tell Facebook the identity of family members, the company where you work, or the city where you live, it is possible that coworkers, distant family or neighbors will be suggested. The social network also explains that common contacts are important for the algorithm. A less well-known feature, you may be offered someone whose name you typed in the Facebook search bar without adding it, or even someone who has searched for you without your knowing it. On a smartphone, Facebook has access to your directory if you give it permission. In response to Gizmodo, Facebook indicated that cases that may seem strange actually have a logical explanation. Convincing? The social network is often the object of fantasies, which seem justified here.
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