How do I get Facebook to stop suggesting friends?

Having Facebook suggest people you may know can be annoying if it keeps recommending friends you don’t want to connect with. Here are some tips to get Facebook to stop suggesting certain friends.

Adjust Your Privacy Settings

The first step is to adjust your privacy settings in Facebook. This controls what information Facebook can access to make friend recommendations.

1. Click on the arrow in the top right corner and select “Settings & Privacy”
2. Go to the “Privacy” section on the left side menu
3. Click on “Limit Past Posts” under the “Your Activity” section
4. Set this to “Only Me” so that Facebook has less information to use for suggestions

Limiting past posts prevents Facebook from scanning old posts and profile information to find connections between you and other people. This makes it harder for Facebook to recommend friends.

Remove Connections on Your Timeline

Another option is to go through your timeline and remove tags and connections to people you don’t want suggested as friends.

1. Go to your profile page and click on “Friends” in the left sidebar
2. Go through the list and click on the “X” icon next to any connections you want to remove
3. Click on “Confirm” when prompted

Doing this deletes that connection so Facebook will no longer use it to recommend being friends. You can go back and add the connection again later if you change your mind.

Block Specific People

For individuals you definitely don’t want recommended, you can outright block them:

1. Go to the person’s Facebook profile
2. Click on the three dots in the top right corner
3. Select “Block”

This prevents that person from viewing your profile or being suggested as a friend. However, blocking too many people can seem aggressive, so use sparingly.

Turn Off Friend Recommendations

If you want Facebook to stop suggesting any friends, you can disable the feature completely:

1. Go to “Settings & Privacy”
2. Click on “Ads” in the left menu
3. Go to the “Ad Settings” section
4. Turn off “Ads based on data from partners”
5. Turn off “Ads based on your activity on Facebook Company Products that you see elsewhere”

This prevents Facebook from using any information from outside companies or your activity on Facebook to recommend friends. However, it also stops personalized ads, so you’ll see more irrelevant ads.

Remove Your Phone Number

Facebook may match your phone number to recommend friends who have you in their contacts. To stop this:

1. Go to “Settings & Privacy”
2. Click on “Settings” in the left menu
3. Go to “Contact Info”
4. Delete your phone number

Without a phone number, Facebook loses that signal for recommending friends. But it also prevents using your phone for two-factor authentication and notifications.

Remove Location Information

If Facebook has your location info, it can suggest friends based on people who live in your area or visit the same places. To disable this:

1. Go to “Settings & Privacy”
2. Click on “Location” in the left menu
3. Toggle location services to off

This removes access Facebook has to your location across all devices. However, you also lose features like location-based posts and friend recommendations when traveling.

View Friend Recommendations Less

If you view friend recommendations less frequently, Facebook will have less opportunity to display people you don’t want to see:

• Don’t click on the “People You May Know” box
• Avoid sections like “Friend Requests” and “Sent Requests”
• Log in to Facebook less often

Seeing unwanted recommendations gives Facebook a signal to stop showing them. Interacting less sidesteps the issue.

Submit Feedback to Facebook

When you are shown a friend recommendation you don’t like, let Facebook know directly:

1. Click on the three dots next to the name
2. Select “Give Feedback”
3. Choose “Irrelevant” as the reason

Repeated feedback helps Facebook learn who not to recommend in the future. Just be careful not to overuse this feature.

Use a Private Network

If you want to be extremely cautious about friend recommendations, use a private network like VPN or Tor when accessing Facebook:

• VPN encrypts your internet traffic so Facebook cannot see your activity
• Tor routes your traffic through intermediary servers for anonymity

This gives Facebook less signals to connect you with new friends, but can impact performance.

Create a Restricted List

You can create a custom list to restrict some connections from seeing certain posts:

1. Go to your profile and click “Friends” in the left menu
2. Click on “Create List” at the top
3. Give the list a name like “Restricted”
4. Search for and add friends to restrict

When sharing posts, choose to exclude this list. They won’t see your updates to inform friend recommendations.

Remove Mutual Friends

Look for mutual friends you may have with someone showing up as a suggestion. Removing shared connections makes it harder for Facebook to recommend them.

Clear Your Browsing History

Facebook can receive data about other sites you visit to recommend friends. Regularly clear your browsing history to delete this info:

1. Click the three dots in your browser toolbar
2. Go to History > Clear Browsing Data
3. Choose the time range to clear

This prevents Facebook from accessing comprehensive browsing information to improve friend recommendations.

Use an Ad Blocker

Browser extensions like AdBlock Plus block ads and tracking scripts that send your web activity to Facebook. This limits data Facebook receives from external sites.

Delete Facebook Cookies

Cookies store information about your Facebook activity and usage. Clearing them resets this data:

1. Click the padlock icon in the browser toolbar
2. Find and delete Facebook cookies
3. Refresh Facebook to generate new cookies

Without past cookies, Facebook loses a source of information for suggesting friends.

Create a Facebook “Finsta”

A Finsta is a secondary Instagram account with tighter privacy controls. You can create one just for Facebook too:

1. Sign up for a new Facebook account
2. Use it only for connecting with close friends
3. Limit info you share to prevent unwanted recommendations

This gives you a fresh start without past connections influencing who Facebook suggests.

Turn Off Facial Recognition

Facebook’s facial recognition setting identifies people in photos to recommend tagging. Disable this in your settings to prevent being recommended through untagged images.

Conclusion

Facebook friend recommendations can certainly get annoying, but there are many ways to reduce or stop them altogether. Adjusting privacy settings, blocking connections, submitting feedback, and restricting the information Facebook can access about you will give you back more control. With a mix of these techniques, you can tailor Facebook friend suggestions to see only relevant people you want to connect with.