The “People You May Know” feature on Facebook has long been a source of curiosity and speculation when it comes to how exactly Facebook generates the list of recommended friends. Some common theories are that these recommendations are based on your contacts, friends of friends, location, networks, workplace, school, events attended, pages liked, and more. But one persistent question is whether the “People You May Know” list includes people who have viewed your profile. Let’s explore this in more detail.
What is the “People You May Know” feature?
The “People You May Know” feature appears on the right side of your Facebook News Feed. It recommends new people for you to connect with on Facebook. The list typically includes a mix of friends of friends, coworkers, classmates, and other connections.
Facebook introduced this feature in 2011 as a way to connect users with new friends and grow its network. The social network leverages the vast amount of data it collects on users, including profile details, online activity, networks, facial recognition in photos, location data and more, to generate algorithmic friend recommendations.
Who can see the “People You May Know” list?
The “People You May Know” section is visible to anyone who is logged into a Facebook account. The list of recommended friends is personalized for each individual user. You will see a different set of friend recommendations in your “People You May Know” than another user will see in theirs.
Common theories on how “People You May Know” works
There are a few popular theories on how Facebook generates the algorithmic “People You May Know” recommendations:
- Friends of friends: People who have several mutual friends with you may show up as suggestions. Facebook maps out connections between users to identify these potential friend overlaps.
- Networks: People who went to the same school or work at the same company as you may get recommended. Facebook maps out these real-world connections.
- Location: People who live in your area, visit the same places or travel to the same locations may get recommended. Facebook uses location data from devices to identify geographic connections.
- Interests: People who like or join the same Facebook groups, events, or Pages as you may appear as potential friends. Facebook analyzes your online activity and interests.
- Facial recognition: People who appear in the same photos as you, or who have user-uploaded photos that resemble photos of you, may get recommended. Facebook’s AI analyzes photos to detect similarities.
In essence, Facebook aims to use any data points it can to suggest potential real-world connections between users. The idea is that you’re more likely to know and want to be friends with people who share connections and similarities with you. But does viewing someone’s profile factor into the algorithm?
Does viewing someone’s profile add them to “People You May Know”?
Many Facebook users have wondered whether simply viewing someone else’s profile triggers that person to show up on your “People You May Know” list later. Intuitively this makes sense – if you view someone’s profile, Facebook might assume you know that person and want to connect.
However, according to Facebook, profile views are not directly factored into the “People You May Know” algorithm. Facebook officially stated in 2011 that “the list of people Facebook recommends you add as friends is based on mutual friends, work and education information, networks you’re part of, contacts you’ve imported and many other factors.” Noticeably absent is any mention of profile views.
Why profile views are not directly used
There are a few reasons why Facebook likely does not directly factor profile views into “People You May Know” recommendations:
- Minimizing spam connections: Spammers and bots could intentionally view random profiles to trigger friend recommendations. This creates a bad experience for users.
- Stalking concerns: Using profile views might enable stalkers or harassers to force a connection. Facebook wants to avoid facilitating unwanted contacts.
- Ambiguous intent: Viewing a profile doesn’t necessarily indicate wanting to connect. The intent behind views can be unclear.
- Data privacy: Not tracking views directly respects user privacy and data preferences more.
While views don’t directly factor in, they may indirectly influence suggestions in some cases. For example, if you view the profile of a close friend of a friend, that 2nd degree connection on Facebook may make them more likely to get recommended anyway.
Other indirect factors
There are a few other indirect ways that profile views could potentially play into “People You May Know” suggestions:
- Location tracking: If you view profiles of people in your geographic area, it may strengthen location signals.
- Network analysis: Multiple views of people in the same social circles may indicate stronger network ties.
- Facial recognition: Views of people who appear in your photos could marginally improve facial analysis.
- Page likes: Views of people who like the same Pages as you might boost those interest signals.
- Public visibility: If your profile viewing activity is visible to others, this provides additional data points for Facebook to analyze.
So in summary, while Facebook officially states that profile views are not directly used to generate “People You May Know” recommendations, in practice there are probably some indirect ways that viewing activity feeds into the mix, among the many other factors Facebook considers.
How to see who viewed your Facebook profile
Since Facebook doesn’t notify you of who specifically is viewing your profile, many people understandably want to try to figure out who has “stalked” them. There are a few tactics people attempt to see profile viewers, but with limited success:
- Facebook view tracker apps: Third-party apps claim they can show your visitors, but this is often inaccurate.
- Adjusting settings: Some try restricting views to friends only, to force requests. But this is easy to circumvent by logging out.
- Notifications: You could comment on your own content to trigger notifications when people view that post, but this doesn’t reveal profile viewers.
- Social media monitoring: Using Google Alerts or other tools to monitor name mentions online. This reveals some public viewing activity.
Overall there is no perfect method to reliably identify Facebook profile visitors. Because Facebook intentionally keeps this data private, any third-party tactics tend to be speculative or come with significant limitations. The closest option is using social monitoring tools to spot some cases of public viewing activity.
Pros and cons of seeing profile views
The ability to see exactly who is viewing your Facebook profile would certainly satisfy curiosity. But it also comes with some drawbacks:
Potential pros
- Satisfy curiosity about who is looking at your profile
- Identify people taking interest in you romantically or professionally
- Monitor for unwanted attention or harassment
- Give a sense of your popularity and influence
Potential cons
- Enable stalking, tracking and unwanted contacts
- Damage privacy and make people uncomfortable
- Cause misunderstandings about intent behind views
- Promote competitive social comparison about popularity
There are reasonable arguments on both sides. Facebook likely keeps view data private to balance the benefits of insight versus the risks of misuse. But the curiosity instinct remains strong for many users.
Facebook’s approach
Facebook not showing profile views directly is a deliberate product decision to balance several factors:
- User privacy
- Misuse prevention
- Data minimization
- Relevance of recommendations
- Reducing stalking behaviors
The downside is it leaves users guessing about who may be viewing them. But overall Facebook seems to have decided this guessing is preferable to opening a Pandora’s box of potential risks if view data became fully transparent.
As Facebook’s algorithm evolves over time, it’s possible they could find ways to safely and responsibly incorporate profile viewing activity to improve recommendation relevance and transparency. But widespread abuse of such data would likely lead Facebook to quickly remove or limit this functionality.
For now it seems Facebook has landed on a compromise – profile views influence “People You May Know” in indirect, limited ways, but are not revealed outright or used explicitly. This balances the benefits of data-driven recommendations with user privacy and safety.
Other social networks
The approach to profile viewing data varies across social platforms:
| Platform | View Data Shown? |
|---|---|
| No | |
| No | |
| No | |
| LIMITED – Only number of profile views shown in last 90 days | |
| Snapchat | Yes – Shows number of viewers for stories |
In general most major social networks take the same approach as Facebook and do not reveal exactly who viewed a given profile. LinkedIn and Snapchat offer some visibility into overall view counts, but not individual viewer identities. This suggests the risks of showing this data often outweigh the benefits across the industry.
Conclusion
To conclusively answer the original question – no, people who simply view your Facebook profile do not directly get added to the “People You May Know” recommendations. Facebook intentionally keeps profile viewing data private. This prevents misuse while arguably still allowing them to leverage the data in indirect, aggregate ways to improve relevance.
The curiosity around who is looking at you on Facebook will likely persist, but the social network seems committed to keeping that information private. While some visibility into views could be helpful, Facebook has likely made the right decision to minimize risks and respect user privacy. Unless technology offers foolproof ways to prevent abuse, it’s unlikely we’ll see Facebook reveal who is creeping on our profiles anytime soon.