10👥 Facebook notifications in 2+ weeks: 1👤 accepted 1👤 w 16 mutual 1👤 w 6 mutual 7👥 no mutual friends Of the 10 Facebook friend notifications since I'd last checked over two weeks ago, one was an acceptance from someone I’ve known for 10+ years, one friend request from someone I've also known for years yet had only 6 mutual connections, one request had 16 mutual friends but is someone I cannot recall meeting (nor did search engines find any web pages that mentioned both of us), and **seven** were friend requests from people I have never heard of and had zero mutual friends with. 70% of Facebook friend notifications were spam, or appeared to be enough for me to ignore them (slightly higher % if you just consider friend requests). Just one anecdotal data point over a short period of time, but still. I’m curious if there is an option to block friend requests from people who have zero connections with you. This also makes me think we’re on the right track in the IndieWeb with the Vouch protocol. https://indieweb.org/Vouch It also reminded me of when the 2004 Gmail beta required someone to invite you to Gmail, you could not just sign up out of the blue. Perhaps there was something to that “protocol” as well.

10👥 Facebook notifications in 2+ weeks:
1👤 accepted
1👤 w 16 mutual
1👤 w 6 mutual
7👥 no mutual friends

Of the 10 Facebook friend notifications since I'd last checked over two weeks ago, one was an acceptance from someone I’ve known for 10+ years, one friend request from someone I've also known for years yet had only 6 mutual connections, one request had 16 mutual friends but is someone I cannot recall meeting (nor did search engines find any web pages that mentioned both of us), and **seven** were friend requests from people I have never heard of and had zero mutual friends with.

70% of Facebook friend notifications were spam, or appeared to be enough for me to ignore them (slightly higher % if you just consider friend requests). Just one anecdotal data point over a short period of time, but still.

I’m curious if there is an option to block friend requests from people who have zero connections with you.

This also makes me think we’re on the right track in the IndieWeb with the Vouch protocol.

https://indieweb.org/Vouch

It also reminded me of when the 2004 Gmail beta required someone to invite you to Gmail, you could not just sign up out of the blue.

Perhaps there was something to that “protocol” as well.