Facebook wants you to reconnect with ex-lovers, pets

Jacqueline DiOrio (Gnome_Queen) Reconnect with a dead loved one or a bitterly-divorce spouse today!

October 26, 2009 12:03 PM ET in News, ,

facebook_logoFacebook is constantly rolling out new additions to the popular social media site, but these additions aren’t always appreciated. That is true of a new feature which suggests new friends for users, or that they “reconnect” with current friends.

The Facebook system uses algorithms to suggest that people reunite with friends that they haven’t spoken to recently, but the system appears to be flawed. Many users are reporting that they are getting messages to reunite not only with lost friends, but ex-wives or husbands, and people that they actually do talk to quite frequently.

Facebook  has even suggested that users reunite with dead friends for whom pages still exist. Considering the distress that this has probably caused to some people, it seems clear that Facebook has missed their mark.

7 Comments:

  1. Gargoyle
    26 Oct '09, 4:46 pm

    Ouch, I hadn't thought of that angle. So far, I've liked the system. Searching for breakups and removing those from the possibilities definitely would have been smart. I don't think there's a "dead" flag for it to use, though.

  2. Gnome Queen
    26 Oct '09, 5:17 pm

    There have been a lot of twitter comments and facebook messages along the lines of "Facebook wants me to reconnect with my friend Dylan...who was murdered 6 months ago." and so on.

  3. Kwitko
    26 Oct '09, 5:21 pm

    They want me to reconnect with my brother who I spoke with earlier today.

  4. mertesn
    26 Oct '09, 6:21 pm
    Quoting Kwitko

    They want me to reconnect with my brother who I spoke with earlier today.

    That's forever in internet time.

  5. Grimnoc
    26 Oct '09, 8:54 pm

    Well, it does make sense that it would recommend users to reconnect with their dead friends. I mean, they haven't talked to them for awhile. Amrite?

    *On a more serious note, of course it is going to suggest friends that have passed away. Their account has been dormant but not deleted, and like somebody already said, no one is going to be flagging the account as deceased.

  6. ardichoke
    27 Oct '09, 5:15 am

    The deceased problem has always puzzled me. So many sites simply never expire accounts even after months or years of inactivity. At this point the Internet is rather young, but what happens a few decades down the line when many of the denizens of the tubes start dying? There's going to be all that meaningless data taking up space out there. These are the things that keep me up at night. Welcome to my messed up mind.

  7. mjollie
    29 Oct '09, 12:50 pm

    The deceased form on Facebook...

    http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased

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