What the Hell Am I to Do With Facebook’s Suggested Friends?

I have about 20 “suggested friends” in my Facebook friend requests inbox and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with them. I understand the basic concept. One person is introducing me to someone that they think I should touch base with. What am I going to say to that person though? “Hey John, Mary suggested that I ping you. I have absolutely no idea who you are or what you do but hi!”

The suggested friends section has to be one of the most useless features on Facebook. I don’t mean to insult the person who came up with the idea at Facebook. Seriously, I understand the purpose behind it, but as a form of personal introduction it’s horrible. Typically if somebody thinks you should get in touch with another person they’ll send an email introduction which includes a qualification about each individual and explains why the two should touch base.

Facebook’s suggested friends feature does none of this. All it does is add confusion to my life. Occasionally people introduce me to me to an attractive female and for a brief moment I actually consider adding that person (yes, I am a guy), but then I thought about it from about it from their end. You are a random person that just added them as a friend and they have no idea who you are: kind of creepy. So here’s my new policy on friend suggestions: I’m deleting all of them.

Yes, I always enjoy finding new friends but if you choose to awkwardly introduce me to someone without any formal introduction, it’s pretty much useless.

Update
A commenter suggested that you use the feature to introduce people who already know each other. That’s a great point. I initially assumed it was similar to LinkedIn’s feature that allows you to suggest two people connect. Do you use this feature at all? Do you think it’s useful? Currently I know none of the friends suggested to me.

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397935 Comments2009-02-17+19%3A16%3A53Nick+O%27Neill »

"I understand the basic concept. One person is introducing me to someone that they think I should touch base with."

I don't think you do, and this might be because how your friends are using this feature. To me it only makes sense to suggest friends to people when I know both parties already know each other OUTSIDE of facebook, but are not yet friends ON Facebook. Using it for any other reason, or assuming it should be used for another reason… well I'm not sure what to say about that… besides… umm… weird.

Comment by Facebook User — February 17, 2009 @ 10:44 am
If you go to suggest a friend to someone you will see the following text…

Select friends of yours who know Mike

This will help Mike get started on Facebook. Selected friends will get a suggestion from you to add Mike as a friend.

Notice "Select friends of yours who know Mike". This reiterates what I said in my previous comment, and shows Facebook's intentions when creating this feature. They are trying to strengthen their social graph. If they were trying to do what you were getting at, they would be weakening the social graph by creating very loose connections that have little to no value.

Comment by Facebook User — February 17, 2009 @ 10:57 am
I have had two types of people suggested to me as friends, and both cases were useful.

The first case: someone I know in real life joins Facebook, and a mutual friend of ours be-Facebook-friends them, then sends me a friend suggestion to be-Facebook-friend them. That's very useful, since it informs me about an actual friend who is now on Facebook.

The second case: one of my friends has a friend that she thinks I should meet. So she sends a friend suggestion, as well, as a message to both of us explaining why she sent the suggestion. Very useful.

Comment by Dan Jones — February 17, 2009 @ 10:57 am
I totally thought it was purely to suggest friends who already know each link up. And if it was someone I totally didn't know, I would simply ignore the request.

Comment by lizriz — February 17, 2009 @ 11:30 am
"The suggested friends section has to be one of the most useless features on Facebook".

I totally and emphatically disagree. This feature is a perfect way for first-movers or early-adaptors to be alerted to early-majority og late-majority users – not to mention the "laggards", who tend to drip in unexpectedly.

Comment by Peter — February 17, 2009 @ 12:11 pm
I only use it to introduce people who know each other already. Like former classmates for instance.

Comment by Another Facebook use — February 17, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
Before I saw the update, I was going to say I find this feature very useful as the only people who have been suggested to me is people I know but had only just signed up to Facebook, so I was able to add them as soon as they were suggested to me.

It has been useful, to me, in this respect.

Comment by Facebook User — February 17, 2009 @ 4:00 pm
What lacks is the text field explaining the intro.

xing (www.xing.com) has done this in a great way, it allows you to introduce two existing xing contacts, or a xing contact to an email you received (for a person that's not on xing yet).

they also allow you to make this visible only to one person, allowing "hey check out this guy" messages.

Comment by Flavio Rump — February 17, 2009 @ 7:16 pm
I do find this useful occasionally. Most of the suggestions I get (I get very few) are for me to add someone I already know who just joined Facebook.

The feature is useful for getting someone new to the system quickly connected in with everybody else. In fact, when you friend someone who is really new to FB, a box comes up asking you to click on other friends of yours who know this person. These people then get friend suggestions to add the new person. Very nice feature.

Comment by Jeffrey — February 17, 2009 @ 8:59 pm
I absolutely love this feature, for the same reason the commenters above are mentioning – it's a great way for me to suggest friends to new users who might not have figured out the best way to trawl friend lists for their contacts yet.

I'd love it if they could roll it out to all users, not just suggesting friends to new users.

Comment by Henry Elliss — February 18, 2009 @ 3:16 am
I had people suggesting few friends that I know outside. So still don't have issue adding suggested friends that I don't know.

Comment by Facebook User — February 18, 2009 @ 4:25 am
I have to concur with other commentors. I only use the feature to link up people whom i know know each other. In general it's family members. I think introducing two people who don't know each other doesn't just misinterperate the intention of the tool, but of Facebook it's self. There's plenty of other site for making random online friends, but everyone I know on facebook i have met via other means, be they online or offline, but there is always a pre-existing connection.

Comment by Steven Jones — February 18, 2009 @ 5:02 am
I've used it extensively. It's especially useful in cases like mine, where you have a large existing social network that is gradually migrating to Facebook. In my case, I'm involved with a loosely-connected group of probably several hundred people on LiveJournal, most of whom are (due to peer pressure) getting FB accounts. So as people join, this helps us put them in touch with appropriate other members of the community…

Comment by Mark Waks — February 18, 2009 @ 10:22 am
Nick, I think you were just trying to get a reaction out of the twitter world and fb world. Clearly from the comments most people, and probably you, know that friend suggestion is supposed to be people you think the other person knows. Why would I take the time to suggest any volume of friends to someone if I don't think there is a pre=existing relationship. That is sort of reverse spamming…. connecting you with strangers for no apparent reason? Today I connect two people on FB that did not have a pre-existing relationshp because person one posted a need for a certain resource, I commented back…do you know SoandSo, She can help, then did a friend connection, then went to SoandSo's account and left her a message that I had sent the friend suggestion over to connect them because I thought she had a service/product/knowledge to help that guy. Then I realized that she only had about 12 friends, and I have many more, and many that I was just certain she must know, so I made about 10 suggested friends….all of which I thought she already knew. One such friend called 5 minutes later thanking me for connecting them because they didn't know she had a fb account. That is how it works. I'm fairly new at fb, but seems sort of natural that way.

Comment by Karen Rands — February 18, 2009 @ 3:44 pm
I always click ignore for new suggestions… unless I really know the person.

Comment by Guillermo Carrion — February 19, 2009 @ 4:18 am
As far as I'm concerned, the idea of FACEBOOK is totally worthless!!! It does NOTHING but provide innumerable people an opportunity to obtain your identity, your private life and any dignity you might have acquired, and lay all of those before scores of others and allows them to do whatever they desire with the information: a collective garbagepail and gossip-mongering opportunity.

No disrespect to those who I truly consider to be friends, but whatever I need to do, I desire to be released from any connection I have inadvertantly acquired with FACEBOOK.

Comment by Bob D Brady — February 19, 2009 @ 8:33 am
Henry Elliss: They actually do have the feature for everybody now. Go to a friend's profile, and scroll down to the bottom of the left-hand column–the one that has the photo, abbreviated info, and friends. You will see the words "Suggest friends for …." Click it and you can select people who might want to get a suggestion to add the person as a friend.

Comment by Jeffrey — February 19, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
I have to disagree with your original post, albeit you've acknowledged the usefulness now.

I find this feature incredibly useful, for most of the time.

For example, I've 'introduced' lots of people who already know each other, like my aunts, uncles, cousins, workmates etc…

It's their choice if they both accept.

Most importantly, lots of those people (lots of people in facebook in general) aren't that web/ict-literate and so wouldn't have made those connections otherwise, not through lack of desire.

Also, people I've lost touch with have been suggested to me, I wouldn't have found them (via name or email) otherwise, so I've been very happily surprised!

Finally, I do get a (very) few random suggestions, in this scenario an 'intro' field when someone suggests a friend would be very useful. Especially since the suggested friend may be someone who I met at a party and got on really well with, and our mutual friend is introducing us. But since I often can't see their profile, may not recognise their name, and since they may have a 'undescriptive' profile picture, I'm often left wondering. But it's not the end of the world to ignore them, or message them politely, or wait and see; I'd rather have this feature still, for all its huge benefits!

Comment by John — February 26, 2009 @ 4:54 am
i'm wondering how two people that i know ended up on my "suggestions" list. Nobody that I know or have on my list know these two people. Is it possible for them to suggest themselves to you? What I mean is, could it be possible for someone to suggest themselves to you as a friend? That would be pretty stupid, though. I wouldn't understand why they couldn't just add you as a friend in the first place. Does anybody know?

Comment by lynn — June 11, 2009 @ 7:10 pm
I had a couple of suggested friends who are the people I do NOT want to get in touch with.

How do they go about selecting this people whom I know but do not have anything in common (friends) in Facebook. A bit eerie I thought.

Can anyone share how facebook select suggested friends? Some are straight forward friends of my friends. But others, like I mention earlier, have no apparent link, or is there?

Comment by wally — June 12, 2009 @ 1:30 am
Lynn. Same thing happened to me. Not sure how these suggestions lists are set up? Would like to know. Someone i knew from awhile back ended up on suggestions list but we had no mutual friends. Its amazing how they randomly show up as a suggested friend. Trying to figure it out. Lots of people in world and they show up on there.

Comment by wondering — June 12, 2009 @ 4:56 am
People keep suggesting friends for me and it drives me nuts. If I wanted to be their facebook friend, I would just find them and add them. Now I look like a jerk for ignoring the requests. Why do people feel the need to be make me be facebook friends with every single person we both know? Frankly, I’d like to only be facebook friends with about 10 people whose daily lives I’m actually interested in.

Comment by If I wanted them as friends I would add them — June 20, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
I just opened a facebook account because I got two invites from people I know.

Then, once I looked around, I deactivated the account.

For whatever reason, two months later, I open it to find two dozen “SUGGESTED FRIENDS” and to my astonishment, I saw one person I hadn’t talked to in ten years who wasn’t a friend at all. I saw one person I know only through business and never met and who I’ve only spoke to once on the phone. I saw other people I knew, also.

So, being new to this, would someone explain to me where these people came from?

The two people who sent me invites did NOT know the lady I referenced from ten years back nor the business contact who I’ve never met. So, they could NOT have suggested them as “friends.”

Anyone care to help me understand this ?

Comment by casey — June 25, 2009 @ 5:30 pm
There's also a contradictory factor, which facebook will reprimand you if you befriend too make too many people. But, how does facebook know who to select – is it random? There was one person that showed up on my "friend suggestion" list BY facebook, however this person is a "has been" from my past which we are not linked to anyone mutual. Anyway, I find it creepy as well…

Comment by Deb — July 2, 2009 @ 7:05 am
I am new to this board and discovered it because I had the same exact question as the above 6 questions. It appears as though FB has started something new which may be somewhat illegal.

Today, two people who I know outside of FB showed up as “suggested friends”. Neither have any of my friends on their list. Also, neither of them are from the organizations that I listed (schools, work, etc.). HOWEVER, both of them are on my regular email list. So, it would seem that FB somehow connects your email list to other people’s email lists outside of FB and connects them. This may be a HUGE infringement on privacy because it would mean that FB is tracking private email lists.

Comment by Jedijake — July 2, 2009 @ 10:28 pm
1. Facebook somehow connected me with someone from my past. 20 years ago past., and suggested that they become my friend. How did they know to do this?

2. Facebook somehow connected me with a current business customer, and suggested that they become my friend.

How did they know to do this?

This is a privacy issue.

Facebook needs to answer.

Comment by marty radford — July 25, 2009 @ 6:01 pm
I have mysteriously had names I know appear in my 'suggested friends' place.

One is a profile I once visited and one is someone I do not know but lives near me and probably works with a friend. I need to ask her if she asked him to look me up!

I do think face book is, perhaps accidentally, showing who has looked at your profile.

Comment by lucy — July 29, 2009 @ 9:25 am
Thinking harder, Its probably people who have your email address who have looked you up via that

Comment by lucy — July 29, 2009 @ 9:31 am
either way, it’s still a privacy issue!!

Comment by marty radford — August 24, 2009 @ 7:51 am
I'm new to this. If I delete a suggestion for a friend, does the person who made the suggestion get a notice to that effect or am I just telling Facebook to not suggest that person again? Is it possible to suggest oneself to another person as opposed to asking to be their friend? How likely is that? There has been a family feud. It made no sense to ask the person in question if she would be my friend as she has kicked me out of her life. In horror, I deleted the suggestion. Now I wonder if I've created more problems. I have brain fog from an illness. Would appreciate informed thoughts on this. Thanks. moigo

Comment by moigo — August 27, 2009 @ 5:39 am
There appear to be two different functions being intermingled here. One is the "friend suggestion" that may appear in your Requests, and the other is the "suggestions" that appear on your "Home" and "Friends" pages.

When you make a suggestion for someone, that appears in their requests and it indicates who it was that made the suggestion.

When someone is suggested by Facebook it is based on mutual friends or on a contact list that you uploaded. Yes, that means an email list. But no, it is not able to access your private email lists — if it uses email it is because you clicked the button to allow it to import your email lists to search for existing FB members and/or suggest people for you to invite to FB.

At least that's the official FB story…

But seriously, both at signup and when you go to the Invite Friends page there is an option to import contacts from various services like GMail, AOL, Yahoo Mail — you have to explicitly give it permission to do so, after which it will compare the addresses you import against the user registrations to find FB members that are in your contacts.

If you object to the use of your contact lists for this purpose, don't authorize FB to import them.

And moigo – No, Facebook does not notify you about whether a suggestion was ignored or accepted. But I don't believe you are setting up a permanent "do not suggest" situation either — you're simply declining that specific request.

As for suggesting yourself to someone … no, that wouldn't work, because: (1) you can only make suggestions to people who are already your friends; and (2) you can only suggest people from your friends list, and as far as FB is concerned you are not your own friend 8-}

Comment by QubiQ — September 2, 2009 @ 9:02 pm
Wow, did I click that button? Whoa. Puzzled. Thanks for your response, QubiQ. It's very helpful. moigo

Comment by moigo — September 8, 2009 @ 12:47 pm
Guys,

Firstly, Facebook is a 'social networking site' which means 'to make new contacts'. Another word for it is 'networking'.

Taking myself. I love people, even if it's strangers. Ive not met any weirdos as I quickly pick them up and don't add them.

I actually met people in person I just added on facebook which lives in another country, on another continent!!

Facebook is a powerful tool, if you use it right, and suggested friends at to that power!

For one. I also work with human rights and want to make the world aware fo concerning issues. Once again, the friends I have on facebook, nearly 3000, is my 'project' to get the word out there around the world.

Open your minds and see it as an opportunity!

Add me if you like

Comment by Henri Le Riche — January 30, 2010 @ 3:32 am
You know what IS really stupid about the suggested friends? I will tell you.
What if you click to be a friend with that person, and they click the link that says that they don't know you.
If you get enough of those you get your profile banned.
All because you used the bloody feature supplied by Facebook itself in the first place!!!!!!!!!
How do you ever widen your cirlce of friends if you run the risk of being banned trying to make new friends!

Comment by facebook user — November 8, 2010 @ 7:16 am
People, people, people. GULLIBLE people!!! It means that anyone suggested as a friend is "SOMEONE WHO HAS VIEWED YOUR PROFILE" already. As simple as that.

Comment by Anon E. Moose — January 26, 2011 @ 1:46 pm

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"I understand the basic concept. One person is introducing me to someone that they think I should touch base with."

I don't think you do, and this might be because how your friends are using this feature. To me it only makes sense to suggest friends to people when I know both parties already know each other OUTSIDE of facebook, but are not yet friends ON Facebook. Using it for any other reason, or assuming it should be used for another reason… well I'm not sure what to say about that… besides… umm… weird.

Comment by Facebook User — February 17, 2009 @ 10:44 am

If you go to suggest a friend to someone you will see the following text…

Select friends of yours who know Mike

This will help Mike get started on Facebook. Selected friends will get a suggestion from you to add Mike as a friend.

Notice "Select friends of yours who know Mike". This reiterates what I said in my previous comment, and shows Facebook's intentions when creating this feature. They are trying to strengthen their social graph. If they were trying to do what you were getting at, they would be weakening the social graph by creating very loose connections that have little to no value.

Comment by Facebook User — February 17, 2009 @ 10:57 am

I have had two types of people suggested to me as friends, and both cases were useful.

The first case: someone I know in real life joins Facebook, and a mutual friend of ours be-Facebook-friends them, then sends me a friend suggestion to be-Facebook-friend them. That's very useful, since it informs me about an actual friend who is now on Facebook.

The second case: one of my friends has a friend that she thinks I should meet. So she sends a friend suggestion, as well, as a message to both of us explaining why she sent the suggestion. Very useful.

Comment by Dan Jones — February 17, 2009 @ 10:57 am

I totally thought it was purely to suggest friends who already know each link up. And if it was someone I totally didn't know, I would simply ignore the request.

Comment by lizriz — February 17, 2009 @ 11:30 am

"The suggested friends section has to be one of the most useless features on Facebook".

I totally and emphatically disagree. This feature is a perfect way for first-movers or early-adaptors to be alerted to early-majority og late-majority users – not to mention the "laggards", who tend to drip in unexpectedly.

Comment by Peter — February 17, 2009 @ 12:11 pm

I only use it to introduce people who know each other already. Like former classmates for instance.

Comment by Another Facebook use — February 17, 2009 @ 12:23 pm

Before I saw the update, I was going to say I find this feature very useful as the only people who have been suggested to me is people I know but had only just signed up to Facebook, so I was able to add them as soon as they were suggested to me.

It has been useful, to me, in this respect.

Comment by Facebook User — February 17, 2009 @ 4:00 pm

What lacks is the text field explaining the intro.

xing (www.xing.com) has done this in a great way, it allows you to introduce two existing xing contacts, or a xing contact to an email you received (for a person that's not on xing yet).

they also allow you to make this visible only to one person, allowing "hey check out this guy" messages.

Comment by Flavio Rump — February 17, 2009 @ 7:16 pm

I do find this useful occasionally. Most of the suggestions I get (I get very few) are for me to add someone I already know who just joined Facebook.

The feature is useful for getting someone new to the system quickly connected in with everybody else. In fact, when you friend someone who is really new to FB, a box comes up asking you to click on other friends of yours who know this person. These people then get friend suggestions to add the new person. Very nice feature.

Comment by Jeffrey — February 17, 2009 @ 8:59 pm

I absolutely love this feature, for the same reason the commenters above are mentioning – it's a great way for me to suggest friends to new users who might not have figured out the best way to trawl friend lists for their contacts yet.

I'd love it if they could roll it out to all users, not just suggesting friends to new users.

Comment by Henry Elliss — February 18, 2009 @ 3:16 am

I had people suggesting few friends that I know outside. So still don't have issue adding suggested friends that I don't know.

Comment by Facebook User — February 18, 2009 @ 4:25 am

I have to concur with other commentors. I only use the feature to link up people whom i know know each other. In general it's family members. I think introducing two people who don't know each other doesn't just misinterperate the intention of the tool, but of Facebook it's self. There's plenty of other site for making random online friends, but everyone I know on facebook i have met via other means, be they online or offline, but there is always a pre-existing connection.

Comment by Steven Jones — February 18, 2009 @ 5:02 am

I've used it extensively. It's especially useful in cases like mine, where you have a large existing social network that is gradually migrating to Facebook. In my case, I'm involved with a loosely-connected group of probably several hundred people on LiveJournal, most of whom are (due to peer pressure) getting FB accounts. So as people join, this helps us put them in touch with appropriate other members of the community…

Comment by Mark Waks — February 18, 2009 @ 10:22 am

Nick, I think you were just trying to get a reaction out of the twitter world and fb world. Clearly from the comments most people, and probably you, know that friend suggestion is supposed to be people you think the other person knows. Why would I take the time to suggest any volume of friends to someone if I don't think there is a pre=existing relationship. That is sort of reverse spamming…. connecting you with strangers for no apparent reason? Today I connect two people on FB that did not have a pre-existing relationshp because person one posted a need for a certain resource, I commented back…do you know SoandSo, She can help, then did a friend connection, then went to SoandSo's account and left her a message that I had sent the friend suggestion over to connect them because I thought she had a service/product/knowledge to help that guy. Then I realized that she only had about 12 friends, and I have many more, and many that I was just certain she must know, so I made about 10 suggested friends….all of which I thought she already knew. One such friend called 5 minutes later thanking me for connecting them because they didn't know she had a fb account. That is how it works. I'm fairly new at fb, but seems sort of natural that way.

Comment by Karen Rands — February 18, 2009 @ 3:44 pm

I always click ignore for new suggestions… unless I really know the person.

Comment by Guillermo Carrion — February 19, 2009 @ 4:18 am

As far as I'm concerned, the idea of FACEBOOK is totally worthless!!! It does NOTHING but provide innumerable people an opportunity to obtain your identity, your private life and any dignity you might have acquired, and lay all of those before scores of others and allows them to do whatever they desire with the information: a collective garbagepail and gossip-mongering opportunity.

No disrespect to those who I truly consider to be friends, but whatever I need to do, I desire to be released from any connection I have inadvertantly acquired with FACEBOOK.

Comment by Bob D Brady — February 19, 2009 @ 8:33 am

Henry Elliss: They actually do have the feature for everybody now. Go to a friend's profile, and scroll down to the bottom of the left-hand column–the one that has the photo, abbreviated info, and friends. You will see the words "Suggest friends for …." Click it and you can select people who might want to get a suggestion to add the person as a friend.

Comment by Jeffrey — February 19, 2009 @ 12:23 pm

I have to disagree with your original post, albeit you've acknowledged the usefulness now.

I find this feature incredibly useful, for most of the time.

For example, I've 'introduced' lots of people who already know each other, like my aunts, uncles, cousins, workmates etc…

It's their choice if they both accept.

Most importantly, lots of those people (lots of people in facebook in general) aren't that web/ict-literate and so wouldn't have made those connections otherwise, not through lack of desire.

Also, people I've lost touch with have been suggested to me, I wouldn't have found them (via name or email) otherwise, so I've been very happily surprised!

Finally, I do get a (very) few random suggestions, in this scenario an 'intro' field when someone suggests a friend would be very useful. Especially since the suggested friend may be someone who I met at a party and got on really well with, and our mutual friend is introducing us. But since I often can't see their profile, may not recognise their name, and since they may have a 'undescriptive' profile picture, I'm often left wondering. But it's not the end of the world to ignore them, or message them politely, or wait and see; I'd rather have this feature still, for all its huge benefits!

Comment by John — February 26, 2009 @ 4:54 am

i'm wondering how two people that i know ended up on my "suggestions" list. Nobody that I know or have on my list know these two people. Is it possible for them to suggest themselves to you? What I mean is, could it be possible for someone to suggest themselves to you as a friend? That would be pretty stupid, though. I wouldn't understand why they couldn't just add you as a friend in the first place. Does anybody know?

Comment by lynn — June 11, 2009 @ 7:10 pm

I had a couple of suggested friends who are the people I do NOT want to get in touch with.

How do they go about selecting this people whom I know but do not have anything in common (friends) in Facebook. A bit eerie I thought.

Can anyone share how facebook select suggested friends? Some are straight forward friends of my friends. But others, like I mention earlier, have no apparent link, or is there?

Comment by wally — June 12, 2009 @ 1:30 am

Lynn. Same thing happened to me. Not sure how these suggestions lists are set up? Would like to know. Someone i knew from awhile back ended up on suggestions list but we had no mutual friends. Its amazing how they randomly show up as a suggested friend. Trying to figure it out. Lots of people in world and they show up on there.

Comment by wondering — June 12, 2009 @ 4:56 am

People keep suggesting friends for me and it drives me nuts. If I wanted to be their facebook friend, I would just find them and add them. Now I look like a jerk for ignoring the requests. Why do people feel the need to be make me be facebook friends with every single person we both know? Frankly, I’d like to only be facebook friends with about 10 people whose daily lives I’m actually interested in.

Comment by If I wanted them as friends I would add them — June 20, 2009 @ 1:00 pm

I just opened a facebook account because I got two invites from people I know.

Then, once I looked around, I deactivated the account.

For whatever reason, two months later, I open it to find two dozen “SUGGESTED FRIENDS” and to my astonishment, I saw one person I hadn’t talked to in ten years who wasn’t a friend at all. I saw one person I know only through business and never met and who I’ve only spoke to once on the phone. I saw other people I knew, also.

So, being new to this, would someone explain to me where these people came from?

The two people who sent me invites did NOT know the lady I referenced from ten years back nor the business contact who I’ve never met. So, they could NOT have suggested them as “friends.”

Anyone care to help me understand this ?

Comment by casey — June 25, 2009 @ 5:30 pm

There's also a contradictory factor, which facebook will reprimand you if you befriend too make too many people. But, how does facebook know who to select – is it random? There was one person that showed up on my "friend suggestion" list BY facebook, however this person is a "has been" from my past which we are not linked to anyone mutual. Anyway, I find it creepy as well…

Comment by Deb — July 2, 2009 @ 7:05 am

I am new to this board and discovered it because I had the same exact question as the above 6 questions. It appears as though FB has started something new which may be somewhat illegal.

Today, two people who I know outside of FB showed up as “suggested friends”. Neither have any of my friends on their list. Also, neither of them are from the organizations that I listed (schools, work, etc.). HOWEVER, both of them are on my regular email list. So, it would seem that FB somehow connects your email list to other people’s email lists outside of FB and connects them. This may be a HUGE infringement on privacy because it would mean that FB is tracking private email lists.

Comment by Jedijake — July 2, 2009 @ 10:28 pm

1. Facebook somehow connected me with someone from my past. 20 years ago past., and suggested that they become my friend. How did they know to do this?

2. Facebook somehow connected me with a current business customer, and suggested that they become my friend.

How did they know to do this?

This is a privacy issue.

Facebook needs to answer.

Comment by marty radford — July 25, 2009 @ 6:01 pm

I have mysteriously had names I know appear in my 'suggested friends' place.

One is a profile I once visited and one is someone I do not know but lives near me and probably works with a friend. I need to ask her if she asked him to look me up!

I do think face book is, perhaps accidentally, showing who has looked at your profile.

Comment by lucy — July 29, 2009 @ 9:25 am

Thinking harder, Its probably people who have your email address who have looked you up via that

Comment by lucy — July 29, 2009 @ 9:31 am

either way, it’s still a privacy issue!!

Comment by marty radford — August 24, 2009 @ 7:51 am

I'm new to this. If I delete a suggestion for a friend, does the person who made the suggestion get a notice to that effect or am I just telling Facebook to not suggest that person again? Is it possible to suggest oneself to another person as opposed to asking to be their friend? How likely is that? There has been a family feud. It made no sense to ask the person in question if she would be my friend as she has kicked me out of her life. In horror, I deleted the suggestion. Now I wonder if I've created more problems. I have brain fog from an illness. Would appreciate informed thoughts on this. Thanks. moigo

Comment by moigo — August 27, 2009 @ 5:39 am

There appear to be two different functions being intermingled here. One is the "friend suggestion" that may appear in your Requests, and the other is the "suggestions" that appear on your "Home" and "Friends" pages.

When you make a suggestion for someone, that appears in their requests and it indicates who it was that made the suggestion.

When someone is suggested by Facebook it is based on mutual friends or on a contact list that you uploaded. Yes, that means an email list. But no, it is not able to access your private email lists — if it uses email it is because you clicked the button to allow it to import your email lists to search for existing FB members and/or suggest people for you to invite to FB.

At least that's the official FB story…

But seriously, both at signup and when you go to the Invite Friends page there is an option to import contacts from various services like GMail, AOL, Yahoo Mail — you have to explicitly give it permission to do so, after which it will compare the addresses you import against the user registrations to find FB members that are in your contacts.

If you object to the use of your contact lists for this purpose, don't authorize FB to import them.

And moigo – No, Facebook does not notify you about whether a suggestion was ignored or accepted. But I don't believe you are setting up a permanent "do not suggest" situation either — you're simply declining that specific request.

As for suggesting yourself to someone … no, that wouldn't work, because: (1) you can only make suggestions to people who are already your friends; and (2) you can only suggest people from your friends list, and as far as FB is concerned you are not your own friend 8-}

Comment by QubiQ — September 2, 2009 @ 9:02 pm

Wow, did I click that button? Whoa. Puzzled. Thanks for your response, QubiQ. It's very helpful. moigo

Comment by moigo — September 8, 2009 @ 12:47 pm

Guys,

Firstly, Facebook is a 'social networking site' which means 'to make new contacts'. Another word for it is 'networking'.

Taking myself. I love people, even if it's strangers. Ive not met any weirdos as I quickly pick them up and don't add them.

I actually met people in person I just added on facebook which lives in another country, on another continent!!

Facebook is a powerful tool, if you use it right, and suggested friends at to that power!

For one. I also work with human rights and want to make the world aware fo concerning issues. Once again, the friends I have on facebook, nearly 3000, is my 'project' to get the word out there around the world.

Open your minds and see it as an opportunity!

Add me if you like

Comment by Henri Le Riche — January 30, 2010 @ 3:32 am

You know what IS really stupid about the suggested friends? I will tell you.
What if you click to be a friend with that person, and they click the link that says that they don't know you.
If you get enough of those you get your profile banned.
All because you used the bloody feature supplied by Facebook itself in the first place!!!!!!!!!
How do you ever widen your cirlce of friends if you run the risk of being banned trying to make new friends!

Comment by facebook user — November 8, 2010 @ 7:16 am

People, people, people. GULLIBLE people!!! It means that anyone suggested as a friend is "SOMEONE WHO HAS VIEWED YOUR PROFILE" already. As simple as that.

Comment by Anon E. Moose — January 26, 2011 @ 1:46 pm

What the Hell Am I to Do With Facebook’s Suggested Friends?

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