Facebook's "Do you know"

I'm getting notifications for... it's not even a suggested friend, I'm getting notifications from Facebook suggesting people I have absolutely no connection to. Even suggesting people I have no relation to is ridiculous, but making it into a notification is simply spam. And there's no way out of it.

There are already people asking about this on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10100159977166278
https://www.prod.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10202848125832153
https://apps.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=1423549331211571
https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10151786149817341

Facebook: Block apps from Activity Log

Justification

If you click on your profile in FB, then Activity Log, you'll see a list of posts from apps you've used, depending on the app. Candy Crush is particularly spammy.

• This list shows people what you've been doing
• I don't think this shows up in people's News Feeds, but if it does, it's irritating to them

Method

We're not going to prevent apps from posting, just make their posts only visible to the account owner. Since FB keeps changing, this method may not work for long.

1. On the left, below "All Apps", click on "MORE"
2. Click on the app you want to hide
3. On the top right (circled in red), change it to "Only Me"

Actually I just discovered this, so I haven't tested it yet.

Do you know ___ outside of Facebook?

For a time, if you declined a friend request on FB, it would ask the above question. Apparently, if too many people answered "No" to someone's requests, that person would be penalised. If you answered "No", it also gave you the option of blocking that person. However, this question seems to have been removed.

Facebook And iOS Contacts

I noticed some of my contacts on iOS weren't syncing with friends in Facebook. After checking, I realised this is because Facebook no longer syncs friends without contact data (phone numbers or email). Not sure if this change was by FB or iOS. So, to summarise:

• FB friends with no contact info - will not appear in iOS
• FB friends with contact info, that you do not have as a contact in iOS - will appear in iOS
• FB friends with contact info, that you do have as a contact in iOS - will appear, may not be linked properly, can be linked manually

I also noticed some contacts in iOS have an outdated FB picture (and no "F" on the picture). I suspect these contacts were once synced, then removed their contact details so the sync is broken. But the old picture remains.

I can't remember if I was able to sync friends with no contact details before. If this were the case, maybe they didn't have contact details all along, and the new rule broke the sync.

Facebook And Birthdays

Facebook seems intent on telling you about your friends' birthdays. To be fair, the iOS 6 problem is probably not Facebook's fault.

The problem this time is, if you have Facebook notifications delivered by SMS (text message), you'll get messages saying "Today is _'s birthday. Reply to write on his timeline." I don't want to hear about every single person's birthday!

There doesn't seem to be any way of turning this off. I've already disabled "Everything else", which you'd expect to include birthdays. For what it's worth, the earliest such message I received was on the 9th of December 2012.

Pictures in Facebook

Why is it sometimes when you click on a picture in FB, it opens a JavaScript pop-up (in the same window), but sometimes it goes to the picture's page? I wish I knew which is going to happen. I prefer the pop-up, then I don't lose my position in my News Feed.

Take control of your FB News Feed and Notifications

For all FB's privacy and notification shortcomings, at least they make it quite easy and consistent to get rid of things you don't like. Most of the time, there are options to hide it on the right.

News Feed

You can hide all posts by a page. This means you can like a page, but not have its posts show up in your News Feed. I do this to support pages, but whose posts don't concern me (e.g. Commonwealth Bank Australia).

To turn them back on, click on the pencil to the left of News Feed (on the left of your screen) then Edit Settings.

Notifications

Similarly, you can easily turn of notifications from apps. This works great when you comment on someone's status, and they proceed to have a conversation with someone else on that post, and you keep getting notified.

Block "recently read" in Facebook

Facebook has an annoying new "feature", where it shows what your friends have recently read in the News Feed. It also takes the liberty to:

• put this at the top of your News Feed
• without you asking for it
• and not having an easy way to be removed

Here's how to get rid of it:

 This is the irritating, unwanted post. Mouseover the app name.

 

When the box pops up, click on the app's name to go to its page.

BLOCK that interloper!

Works for:

• Yahoo
• The Guardian

It's making me angry that FB messes with my News Feed without asking for permission or letting me undo it easily. If you think it's not that bad, keep this in mind: now everyone can see what you're reading, without you having to allow them!

As an aside, FB has a "new" feature which lets you choose between highlighted or recent first, which is pretty much exactly the same as the top stories or recent sorting they had before the latest update. Way to make a change, backtrack, then tout it as a new feature!

Facebook privacy scenarios

Updated 16 Nov 11

I've always wondered about the privacy settings on Facebook. They're so complicated, are you sure they behave like you expect them to? Recently they changed something so that friends of people tagged in your photos can see that photo too, which may not be what you want. One of my friend's photos was set to "Friends", but the friend of someone tagged in the photo could see it too.

Here are some questions about their privacy settings. I realise they keep changing things, so the answers may not be up to date. It's like a cat and mouse game, or using a more nerdy term, a Red Queen situation.

• Is visibility based on most restricted or most open? e.g. if I tag a "Friends" photo, can the tagged's friends see it too? If I tag a "Public" photo, and the tagged person's settings say do not let friends know when that person's tagged, will their friends be notified?
• My friend had a "Friends" photo. I tagged myself in it. My friends, who originally couldn't see the photo, now can. So it looks like it overrode the setting. I think it's either 1) most open or 2) most recent.
• If I make a comment on a post, and the owner hides that post, can I still see it?
• Who exactly can see what I comment on and like in their ticker? All my friends? The set intersection of my friends and people who can see the root comment? - so far I think it's the latter, I haven't seen any updates about posts I shouldn't be able to see.
• What exactly do people in a list see for the privacy settings of a post only visible to that list?