How Facebook knows who to suggest to you – And how to remove your contacts from Facebook

Have you noticed that the suggested contacts appearing in your Facebook feed are either so accurate you wonder how Facebook even thinks you could be connected, or so creepy that you wouldn’t ever have wanted to be connected?  Let me show you how, why and how to fix it.

First of all, you should never be surprised that Facebook knows people you might know.  After all, when you have a few friends, the whole six degrees of separation starts to play in, and it is pretty cool how it will recommend friends of friends who you might just want to connect with!

But – sometimes, it seems to go to far.

Imagine this, you just met someone – a builder, plumber, perhaps someone you have to contact about a non-personal activity.  You add them to your phone contact list – “let me grab your email – I’ll shoot you a note” you say. Or perhaps worse:

Then next time you login to Facebook, it’s recommending them as a friend!

This is happening because you’ve allowed Facebook to read and synchronise your contact list.

From that point on, when you add a contact, it uploads to Facebook and Facebook starts suggesting that person and others like them to you.

So – how do you get rid of it?

You need to do two or three things.  Firstly, stop Facebook from uploading new contacts.  Secondly, stop Facebook accessing your contacts and finally, go to Facebook and remove all the contacts of yours that they have.

On Android:

When you are in the “Friends” Tab on Facebook in the App – avoid that TURN ON button down the bottom, that’s the first step toward sharing contacts.

To remove it if you already accepted this (which you probably did without realising) hit the hamburger menu bar (Three horizontal lines) and then click APP SETTINGS

On this screen, turn OFF the “Continuous Contacts Upload”

On iPhone:

On the iPhone there are two places where you will have possibly authorised access.  Firstly, under SETTINGS then find FACEBOOK.

If you are signed in here, then untick the CONTACTS button.

If you are not signed in, and need to or want to do so, then when you do that, you’ll see this info:

To be clear, its pretty cool when Facebook Profile pics show on Phone calls or Text messages, but – you can probably do with out it.

In the Facebook APP itself, you need to go into the Settings area (Three horizontal lines bottom right) – choose Account Settings if you get a pop up selection option.

In here, choose GENERAL, then click Upload Contacts.

This is the spot to turn OFF the continuous upload feature.

And to clear out what’s there?

Now your phone is right, you need to look at what Facebook has on file already.

Go to the INVITES page on Facebook – you’ll find that here.

You’ll see a list of imported contacts (Creepy huh?:))

Click REMOVE ALL CONTACTS and things will clear out and you’ll be back to a less creepy style of friend recommendations.