The weird ways of Facebook
July 28, 2015
A friend asked if I thought Facebook was doing data mining, because of the weird connections it was making.In particular, he was asked if he knew Paul Schindler. I am not on Facebook, but my nephew is. My response:
"Ah, well, the Paul Schindler shown is my nephew. But, yes, I think Facebook is doing some data mining. I used to think it was networking links; people your friends know may be friends of yours. Usually they stick to the first degree, but I'm not on Facebook, so this is odd. They also, I think, do it based on employment. Like the Google algorithm for displaying pages, or the Netflix recommendation engine, it is powerful, mysterious, and sometimes crazy."