Facebook has just suggested I befriend Sarah Atkinson.
Sarah is (?was) a lovely woman who I went to church with 30 years ago, when I was a committed evangelical christian. I'm not friends with/following/interacting with anybody from that period of my life.
I have absolutely no idea how Facebook knows there's some sort of connection between us.
#Facebook #algorithm #tech #technology #surveillance #surveillanceTech
@aby @joepie91 they also use current geographical data to figure out who you're close to and prioritise showing you their posts.
once upon a time it dobbed me in to extended family while I was visiting, for posting a vent about how outback NSW was wildly racist. I was connected with them on FB but until that day it had *never* bothered showing me their posts, or them mine.
we, uh, don't really keep in contact anymore.
it's fine though, 'cause having seen a few reactions from that side of the family around queerness, I'm pretty sure they'd be extra weird about the trans stuff and thus I'm plenty happy being effectively no-contact with most of them since then.
@joepie91 - that's what I was wondering, except I don't have any connection to who I was then (different name, town, addresses, phone numbers, I didn't have email then etc).
I'm friends with two people I went to highschool with, but neither of them were connected to the church at all. I'm friends with my dead dad, but he also had no connection at all.
@joepie91 @aby more likely they're just using scraped contact lists imported from WhatsApp