Facebook

I ignore them all. Very occasionally I do see a face I recognise and click on it just to be nosy, but don’t send a friend request. I do wonder how often I pop up on someone else’s screen. Not that I’m bothered. My settings are for Friends Only and I never do the ‘competitions’ to see what my IQ is or what my colour is as they inevitably imply on the screen before the quiz that my details will be shared.

I’m also getting fed up with the companies which say if you like and share you may win whatever it is they sell. Very tempting but it’s just a cheap way of advertising.

Oh that’s nothing mrsmopp just leave them sitting there you don’t need to even look at that button unless a friend tells you they are going to request your friendship then they ll be top of the list they ll just sit there doing nothing unless you activate them I don’t know why you have all those I ve only had an odd one or two I didn’t know but unless you click on the accept button nothing will happen They can’t see your page or timeline or anything

OK, here's the thing. At the bottom of the screen there are 4 icons. Newsfeeds, Requests, Notifications amd More.
Under Requests there is a long list of People You May Know.
I don't know them but here is an option to delete them, but as fast as I do that, even more names pop up.
Under Notifications there's another long List. You have a New Friend Suggestion - and no option to delete these. I don't know those people either.
Star bird, I hadn't noticed tat little arrow before so will see if that works. Also I did not intend to imply that people from abroad were sinister but that I don't know many people from abroad, so they are less likely yo know me.

Three of my GCs have been to uni and have many multiracial friends, spain, india, china, greek, chile, to name just a few. Not necessarily anything sinister!

The little boxes are text or pictures which are in a format that the phone or laptop cannot display.

There is a difference between actual "Friend requests", which are sent deliberately by people who would like to be linked to you after seeing you on Facebook, and those parades of photos of strangers that Facebook shows on your page as "people you may know" .
The first kind will become friends if you accept their request, but will vanish if ignored.
The second kind are friends of friends, flagged up by Facebook because for some reason it thinks that you would want to be friends with all your friends' friends. You can ignore those too - they didn't choose to be shown, and they have no input into your page. If you recognise them and YOU want to befriend THEM you can send them a friend request.

Mrsmopp I find this very strange can you tell me where are these requests showing up are they on your timeline?? or are they in messenger as message requests ? or are they in the friends request section ?
Are you using your phone to use fb as I have never seen any names with boxes besides them except when I sent a picture to my friends old phone which obviously didn’t have the capacity to read pictures and the picture came out as a series of little boxes
Have you asked your daughter who set it up for you what she thinks is going on I ve had odd times strangers asking to be my friend which I decline but to have dozens sounds very abnormal

I am wondering why you get requests from men you don’t know - maybe you are a glamourous granny who looks young? or more worryingly, they may be hoping you will post family photos of your children/ grandchildren which as a friend they would get to see, and if said grandchildren have their own facebook page, they could try to become their friend for reasons I do not have to spell out. I am sure most of us grans are fb wise by now but many younger people seem to be incredibly gullible.

I will probably adopt privacy settings after Elegran's advice. Thanks Elegran.

You may also get posts that come from fb itself as suggestions of something you may like. You can use the arrow at the top right of the post, which gives you a drop down box with options to delete or “see less of things like this”. I have also chosen latter option fot things some friends send which are just time wasting, hoaxes, or false news. You have to be discerning as it is easy to get drawn in to silly things like pseudo quizzes etc, However, I have enjoyed some charming short videos of dogs! .

Thanks for reassuring me. I have privacy settings done so hopefully they will dwindle now. I couldn't believe all these young Asian men wanted to be friends with me. ?
Incidentally some of them don't even have names - just a row of little squares or question marks where their names should be. Very odd.

Ignore them and they ll stop it’s just because you’re new FB is just giving you suggestions but they can’t see anything on your timeline unless you accept them as a friend Don’t be nervous they are not ‘seeing’ you or anything you do
Enjoy finding your way round and connecting with your family and friends The main way you get hacked is by clicking on videos that you don’t know who is sending them avoide things like that and you ll be fine

They crop up as "people you may know" sometimes we have mutual friends others seem purely random, I think they are from FB. I don't get friends requests from individuals.
They aFB on my timeline amongst the various groups I belong to i.e. local history page, Over 60's (Australian)

They are a "suggestion" post, automatically done by FB and they contain people who are either friends with people you know, or just seem to scroll through random folk. Just ignore them. They work in the same way with the adverts that show up.
I don't have anything about requests at the bottom of my page so not sure on that.

If you get genuine requests from people who want to be friends you will get a notification at the top right of your timeline (showing two heads). You can then choose to accept or deny those as you want.

There are two lists, at the bottom of the FB page, one is Requests, which can be deleted but more people get added all the time. Then there are Notifications - You have a new friend suggestion, and I don't see any way to delete these. I have checked my settings and can't see how to stop these requests. Is it just FB making these connections, because if I don't know these people then I'm sure they don't know me.
They are not my friends.
Am tempted to shut FB down as this is bothering me. I'm only in touch with a couple of friends on FB anyway.

Going round Facebook at the moment is a "fun" thing asking you to post how old you will be in ten years time and how old your oldest child will be. I wonder whether the people who respond to it realise that anyone reading their replies will be able to trace and order their birth certificate, which gives their exact date of birth - something often used as a security extra. Their Facebook page will have other facts about them, and the whole info would be very useful to a hacker wishing to break into their account, or adopt their personality.

Although I thought I was very careful, my Facebook account was still hacked! I permanently deleted my account, and now only use messenger, which I restarted once my account was gone from FB.

Mrsmopp Facebook can be very useful but you do have to be careful and ignore friend request from people you do not know. Make sure you go through your privacy settings thoroughly and regularly. I use FB for various groups I run, for family and friends contact and for marketing the charity I work with and never have any problems. If you want me for a friend PM me here.

No idea then Nina I ve never had it happen as I say in ten years I get the odd person sending me a message asking to be my friend which I ignore could you have been hacked
Are these messages coming up on your timeline ? if your privacy is set to highest there should only be family and friends that can post on your timeline
Are they adverts ?
Are they coming from fb itself making suggestions as you are new ?
I m not sure I understand where they are showing up ?

I just ignore the post, scroll on past it. No point in deleting them as it just keeps going. If you have your settings put to just friends seeing your stuff they cannot read your timeline, as long as you don't actually agree to add them there's no problem.

What nina said.

BlueBelle my privacy settings are as tight as possible. Or so DD tells me

I ve never had that happen in the ten years I ve been on FB so the first thing to do it check your privacy settings and set them to just family and friends I ve had odd folks try to be friends just delete or ignore but never more than one now and then over the years
I m guessing you have it set to public check your privacy settings out before you do anything else what you describe is not normal

What Sue said. I get them every time, I just scroll past.

I just ignore them. They're often just friends of friends. Make sure your privacy settings are screwed down tight.