Facebook is getting smarter in the way it interacts with people. You might have noticed the “People you may know” feature wherein Facebook suggests some random persons across the globe whom you may know directly or indirectly. You might wonder how Facebook is so cognizant about whom I may know on this vast social network. Well, you won’t have to look that deep for an answer. It is quite possible that you only have told Facebook about these contacts. In today’s post, we will guide you on how to see and delete the contacts that you have shared with Facebook, possibly unknowingly.
See contacts you shared with Facebook
By any means, if you have shared your email and phone contacts with Facebook in the past, these can be used to facilitate a more familiar “People you may know” list. Now, you may not remember sharing these details, but it is quite possible that you got convinced somewhere, sometime in the past, to hand over these contact details to Facebook.
Here’s what Facebook has to say regarding this:
You can choose to upload contacts and info about them from your phone and store them on Facebook’s servers where they may be used to make friend suggestions for you and others and to help us provide a better service.
Nevertheless, there exists a way to check the contact details you accidentally shared with Facebook. You can see the phone and email contacts on this page that you might have uploaded to the social site while using Facebook Messenger.
If you’ve chosen to continuously upload your address book to Facebook, you may have uploaded more than just the email and contact number. If this is the case, you can view and download your information uploaded on Facebook. Additionally, you can turn the Continuous uploading feature off in the Facebook app for your Android/iPhone by turning off the Upload contacts set.
If you do not want this to happen again, open the settings on your Facebook Messenger app and turn off Contact Syncing.
Delete contacts you shared with Facebook
You can see the email contacts you’ve shared with Facebook here. If your primary concern is privacy, you can choose to delete the contacts you’ve uploaded to Facebook. Select the contact you want to wipe out and click the Delete selected button on the top bar. In addition, you can select all contacts at once and delete them from Facebook servers by selecting the Remove all contacts option.
You can make sure you delete your uploaded contact details to Facebook, but that doesn’t necessarily make you invisible. If some of your friends have uploaded their contact details to Facebook, which includes you, then Facebook is aware that you both know each other. Hence, your privacy is not entirely in your hands here.
Check this post if you want to turn off Facebook pop-up Conversations Chat tab feature.+
How to turn off continuous contact uploading on Facebook?
Click on the three-line or hamburger menu on the top right of the Facebook app. Then go to Settings & Privacy > Settings. Locate the permissions section, and tap on the Upload Contacts. Then tap next to Continuous Contacts Upload to turn this setting on or off. Similar settings are available for iPhone, iPad, And Android apps.
Can I use Facebook without uploading contacts?
Facebook uses contact upload to suggest friends based on the phone number. So, it is not a compulsory feature. You can use Facebook without uploading contacts, and you can add friends manually. However, Facebook prompts you for contact upload many times, and you need to be careful about not giving permission.
