Facebook knows everything

So, I made a FB page with a fake name to use to argue politics on various sites that require you to log in with FB. I didn't want that stuff on my real FB page because I avoid discussing politics with most friends and family.

I go on that page and it has suggested friends The first one is Carlos (Hawk518).
Now, this page has only 2 friends and one is my real page.
While I am now friends with Carlos on my real page, I wasn't at that time.
I didn't even know his last name and had never seen his page.
And can't see how it connected him to that page. There are no friends in common that I could find.
How dey do dat?

 

email address you used to register usually does it.

-jim

 

IP address?

 

Facebook figured out that Carlos and you are probing a good match? Seems like a no-brainer to me. In a hilarious kind of way.

 

Why post under a false identity? Doesn't say much for the validity of your words if you aren't willing to take ownership of them when that's the terms and conditions of the site.

 

I noticed that when an acquaintance I hadn't spoken to in about 6 months or more sent me a text and we exchanged a few text messages, the next time I looked at Facebook on my phone, one of his posts was the first thing I saw. And it certainly wasn't coincidence; the post was a few days old. I didn't even think we were Facebook friends because I can't ever remember seeing him post anything ever. Turns out, he was fairly active on Facebook posting pictures and whatnot, they just weren't showing up in my feed ... until he texted me.

 

Oh sweet irony

 

Can you guys not read?
I don't discuss politics with my friends or family, so I don't want that stuff showing up on my page.
Not my fault these sites connected themselves to FB.

 

The tracking cookies they installed on your computer is their first step.

 

When you installed the app you probably gave it permission to access the data on your phone. They probably use phone activity as a factor in promoting posts. The order in which feed posts appear is determined by a many factor algorithm. That's one reason the like button exists. If you get into advertising on Facebook you learn how truly clever they really are. Every feature on Facebook is designed to gather demographic and other data about you to better target advertising. They also correlate your Facebook data with information about you gleaned from outside sources. That makes it much more powerful than if they simply had their own data.

Web marketing in general has gotten noticeably better in the last 12 months or so. I remember clicking on a thread about vikram yoga here and then 2 days later getting an email advertising a vikram yoga class in my area. Pretty good stuff.

 

They will eventually find your fake name account and ban it. They do it all the time. Probably sooner than you think.

 

I'm sure it does (and I did) and I'm not overly concerned about it. It was just the first time I remember noticing it. And now that I do notice it, the majority of my Facebook feed is dominated by the people I talk to most frequently via text or otherwise on my cell. I'm OK with that.

 

You may be surprised at the number of individuals that Facebook suggest from the BBS.

 

I ate those.

 

oh yeah, facebook is gay!

 

Well, he already can't post on HuffPo anymore. Eventually he'll be useless anyway.
He is oddly lucky at WSOP for some reason, though.

 

Tracking cookies are a pathetic and rapidly dying technology. The means they can use to track you now are far more sophisticated. Facebook probably knows who posts on every BBS there is.

 

That has not been my experience.

 

Not surprised. I know about that. It connects friends of friends. But his experience seems particularly well targeted.

 

Hey Papa, you get around to my friend request yet? We're coming up on 2 years.