These are all real users. I recently checked out a similar issue when I noticed the large number of foreign likes and comments on the wall posts of tech people with large followings.
Turns out that as Facebook got hundreds of millions of new users in the Middle East and Indonesia (4th largest country now) they didn't separate out their recommendation system and were promoting US based tech people as someone to follow.
So now whenever somebody I follow, like Mike Arrington or Shira Lazar posts something, 80% of the comments and likes and most of their new followers are from people in these countries who often have no idea what they are talking about and don't know what is going on.
It has really made Facebook messy for these folk, since you can't easily delete 100,000 followers from Saudi Arabia[1]
So anyway, this has the graph all mixed up, because now Facebook thinks that all these people are 6 degrees closer to you than they really are, since they likely follow somebody that you follow - hence why they are shown the promoted post. This all goes back to an error made in the first few weeks of pushing new subscribers.
To add to that, there is a cultural gap in the translation of 'like' in some other languages. For eg. in some areas it is considered unpolite not to click the like button, while others use it as a form of 'mark as read', or 'seen this'.
The like and comment activity just happens to also be an antire magnitude higher from the people from these nations, and they happen to now only be a degree or two away from you in the Facebook graph because of a follow promotion error.
[1] They are also ridiculously friendly, I am sure I am not the only person who has received a message about 'want to make friends' from somebody at a Gulf or Saudi university.
> To add to that, there is a cultural gap in the translation of 'like' in some other languages. For eg. in some areas it is considered unpolite not to click the like button, while others use it as a form of 'mark as read', or 'seen this'.
I have a Facebook "Friend" from Japan who "Likes" literally every single activity I've made. Even if there's no way she understands it (since she doesn't understand English, and definitely not Swedish)
> they likely follow somebody that you follow - hence why they are shown the promoted post.
I always thought Promoted Posts are only promoted to people who have already "liked" your page.
Are you saying that if I follow Mike Arrington, and person X also follows Arrington, then if I promote one of my posts, Facebook will show it to person X merely because we both follow Arrington even though there is no connection at all between me and X?
Turns out that as Facebook got hundreds of millions of new users in the Middle East and Indonesia (4th largest country now) they didn't separate out their recommendation system and were promoting US based tech people as someone to follow.
So now whenever somebody I follow, like Mike Arrington or Shira Lazar posts something, 80% of the comments and likes and most of their new followers are from people in these countries who often have no idea what they are talking about and don't know what is going on.
It has really made Facebook messy for these folk, since you can't easily delete 100,000 followers from Saudi Arabia[1]
So anyway, this has the graph all mixed up, because now Facebook thinks that all these people are 6 degrees closer to you than they really are, since they likely follow somebody that you follow - hence why they are shown the promoted post. This all goes back to an error made in the first few weeks of pushing new subscribers.
To add to that, there is a cultural gap in the translation of 'like' in some other languages. For eg. in some areas it is considered unpolite not to click the like button, while others use it as a form of 'mark as read', or 'seen this'.
The like and comment activity just happens to also be an antire magnitude higher from the people from these nations, and they happen to now only be a degree or two away from you in the Facebook graph because of a follow promotion error.
[1] They are also ridiculously friendly, I am sure I am not the only person who has received a message about 'want to make friends' from somebody at a Gulf or Saudi university.