Facebook killed their M chat bot a few months back because it was more artificially stupid than artificially intelligent. Unfortunately, it lives on as the equally unintelligent M Suggestions in Facebook Messenger. Here’s how to turn those off.
What is Facebook M?
Facebook M was a virtual assistant chat bot that actually used humans to do most things. Facebook’s plan was to use the humans to train the chat bot, and then phase out how much the humans had to do. This didn’t work.
A lot of noise was made in the press about Facebook M, but it was only ever available to around 2,000 Californians. The human end of things could never really scale to more.
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At the start of this year, Facebook pulled the plug on M as an independent chat bot. Instead, it lives on in M Suggestions based off what they learned from working with the chat bot. It doesn’t, however, seem like they’ve learned that much.
M Suggestions pop up based on the context of your conversations. It can do things like:
- Suggest some appropriate stickers for a reply.
- Pay or request money.
- Share your location.
- Help you make plans.
- Start a poll so you can get a group of people to decide what to do.
- Hail an Uber or Lyft.
If these sound like kind of things you can quickly and easily do with, say, an app or by using your words, you’d be right. I’ve found that M Suggestions are at best, irrelevant. At worst, they’re actively in the way, and I often tap them by mistake.
How to Turn Off Facebook M Suggestions
To turn off Facebook M Suggestions, open Facebook Messenger, and then tap your profile icon. On iOS, it’s at the top left of the screen; on Android it’s at the top right.
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Scroll down and select the “M Settings” category.
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To get rid of M suggestions, just turn the “Suggestions” toggle off.
And just like that, M will annoy you no more. If it ever does start being actually useful, you can always turn it back on.
If you are an avid Facebook Messenger user, you may have noticed that people you aren’t friends with will appear in your Messenger app as suggested people. Although this is intended to be a way for you and your potential Facebook friends to connect, at the same time, some people find it intrusive and an invasion of privacy. But don’t worry, there is a way to remove suggested people from appearing in your Messenger sidebar.
First and foremost, you should have the right to know how they got there in the first place. Without realizing it, you probably granted Facebook access to your contact book on your Android or iPhone and your contacts phone number would have been uploaded to Facebook.
After that, Facebook will begin suggesting people from your contact book’s friend list with whom you are not already friends and you might know them. In addition to being recommended as friends, they also appear in your Messenger sidebar.
These contacts you uploaded will help Facebook to make better suggestions for you and other people and help the platform to provide a better service.
Even if you did not grant Facebook direct access to your address book, you might have indirectly granted it when you signed into Facebook from the Settings preferences pane.
Here you can find a complete guide on how to remove suggested people on Messenger.
Sound’s good? Let’s get started.
- Open the Messenger app.
- Tap on your profile icon at the top.
- Select Phone Contacts > Manage Contacts.
- Next, tap on “Delete All Contacts”.
- It will remove the all suggested people.
- Last, don’t forget to sign out and in to messenger.
Important Note:
If you still see the suggested people, sign out of Facebook and Messenger on all of your devices and sign back in.
Logging out will clear the caches associated with Facebook and Messenger. If you hadn’t done so, the people might have stayed in your suggested list for few days until the cache clears automatically.
When you sign back in, you should no longer see suggested people in your Messenger sidebar who isn’t a friend of yours. As phone numbers in your contacts book previously uploaded to Facebook have now been de-linked from your account.
Prevent Messenger from Accessing Your Contacts Book
Next, ensure that Facebook and Messenger do not have access to your contacts book otherwise it will again start suggesting people.
Here’s how you can prevent it:
- Open the Messenger app.
- Go to your profile.
- Select Phone Contacts > Upload Contacts.
- Next, tap on “TURN OFF”.
- It prevent people from returning to suggestion.
Now Facebook Messenger will no longer be able to access your contact book. As a result, those suggested friends who appear in your Messenger sidebar on the desktop website or app will no longer appear.
You should also avoid clicking the blue Update All Contacts button. Tapping on it will sync your contact information with Facebook, which is the inverse of what you want.
Alternative Way to Remove Suggested People on Messenger
Open Facebook Messenger and then tap your profile icon to disable Suggestions. It’s at the top left of the screen on iOS, and at the top right on Android. Scroll down to the “Messenger Settings” section. To disable Messenger suggestions, simply toggle the “Suggestions” toggle off.
Final Words:
I hope guys, now you can easily remove suggested people on Facebook messenger. If you have any questions, then let me know in the comment section below.
Also Read:
Facebook Messenger is a useful application developed by Meta [originally name: Facebook] that allows us to chat and contact our Facebook friends in real-time. This app tries to keep you engaged at all times, and it is becoming smarter day by day.
Sometimes when you're using your messenger apps, you'll try to search something in the main search bar, and you'll get a list of suggested friends, and you'll wonder how the messenger is showing these lists, and if they're spamming you or are they real.
In this article, Ourtechroom will explain what Messenger Suggested List is and how to remove/delete those suggestions.
What is Messenger Suggested List?
Ans: Facebook Messenger Suggested list is nothing more than a suggested list of friends based on your interaction with those Facebook friends by liking their profile, commenting on their posts, interacting with the Facebook video they posted, friends near to you, friends online, friends who see your profile a lot, profile views, communication, liking similar posts, and so on.
The more you like a suggestion and click on it, the smarter the messager will be because they will know you better than you know yourself, and the more likely you will get an accurate and useful result in your messenger list.
Note: Messanger will not suggest any friends outside your mutual friends.
The messenger may interact with Facebook Apps, WhatsApp, Instagram, and other social media platforms for suggestions because these are owned by the same company. They could collaborate to operate more effectively and efficiently.
Also read: What is DM on Facebook? How to use it?
Messenger Suggested List might be on the basis of :
Note: These below points are on the basis of my research on different blog posts.
1 Communication
The more you use Messanger to communicate[audio/video/chat] with your friends individually or in a group, the more likely your friends will appear at the top of Messanger's suggested lists The more recent your interaction, the more likely they are to show in the suggested list.
2 Profile Views
If you look at the Facebook profiles of 'X' friends, you have a better probability of being in the top list of the suggested messenger on 'X' friend messenger.
3 Profile Interaction
if you react and comment on Facebook friends' posts, they are more likely to appear on their suggested list.
4 Post InteractionAll comments, likes, and tags, etc are included in the interactions. It could be a photo, a movie, or anything else.
5 Friends near you
If you have mutual friends located near to you then they may appear on your suggested list.
6 Online FriendsOnline Friends in the suggested list are represented by green dots along with their usernames on the side.
7 Both share some things in common like job, school history, Attending the same event, Group affiliation, etc.
8 Friends who tag you.
9 Your recent friends.
Also Read: How to hide likes and comments on Facebook profile?
Actually, Meta[initially Facebook] does not mention anywhere about what on the basis they are displaying those lists and what are the actual order but above are the few which messenger uses to show the list. The actual working algorithm is not known and may be a different time and again.
The list changes dynamically as you interact with different people over time.
Can we change the order of the Suggested Messanger list?
No. There is no way to change who appears at the top of your friend's list as they are generated by Messenger automatically and no actual algorithm is publicly known.
How to remove Messanger Suggested List?
Ans: Sometimes you might find that messenger are spammy and does not like those list then you can remove /delete them. Just follow the below steps:
1 Go to your phone settings ⚙
2 Click on Apps
3 Search for Messanger and Click on it.
4 Click on Storage Option
5 Click on Clear Data.
Once you have clear data then those searches from your phone will get deleted and removed. Now open your messenger apps and try to click on the search field and you will not get any friends in the suggested list.
Note that: They may appear again after some time. The New suggested list is auto-generated later.
FAQ:
Do people appear in your messanger suggested list even if they do not text you?
Ans: Yes, people can appear in your message history even if they haven't texted you or if both parties haven't communicated yet. It is based on a number of factors, as explained above with 9 points.
How do people get to the top of the suggested list on someone Messenger?
Ans: We don't know the exact Facebook algorithm, but if you interact with your friends through chat, video calls, audio calls, or any other media in Facebook and Messenger, there's a better chance you'll be on their suggested list in Messanger.
Conclusion:
In this way, we can clear or remove the suggested friend list from the messenger.