Facebook Graph Search

In a presentation headed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it was announced that the Graph Search algorithm finds information from within a user's network of friends.

[3] After being made less publicly visible starting December 2014, the original Graph Search was almost entirely deprecated in June 2019.

[1] The Graph Search Features was launched in Beta in January 2013 as a limited preview for some English users in the United States.

[15][16] Graph.tips was a frequently used tool in the online intelligence community as an interface on top of Facebook Graph Search.

[17][18][4] In early June 2019, the feature was further deprecated, with the majority of URLs for graph search queries no longer working.

[4] Vice quoted Bellingcat's Nick Waters as saying: "Now that Graph Search has gone down, it's become evident that it's used by some incredibly important section[s] of society, from human rights investigators and citizens wanting to hold their countries to account, to police investigating people trafficking and sexual slavery, to emergency responders.

Results were based on the friends and interests expressed on Facebook, and also shaped by users’ privacy settings.

[23] Tom Stocky of the search team offered several examples of potential queries during the launch presentation, including, During its roll-out stage, bloggers showed how Facebook Graph Search could be used to uncover potentially embarrassing information (e.g., companies employing people who like racism) or illegal interests (e.g., Chinese residents who like the banned group Falun Gong).

[26] In May 2012, Bing launched a social sidebar feature which displayed Facebook content alongside of search results.

[27] The previously developed Instant Personalization feature integrated friends’ publicly available information, such as likes, into content on other external websites, such as Rotten Tomatoes and Yelp.

[31][33][34] The social media analytics company Crimson Hexagon reported that 19 percent of users discussing the launch of the feature were stating concerns about privacy.

[35] Facebook has alluded to these concerns and emphasized that the search operates within the pre-existing privacy settings: users can access only the information already available to them.