Facebook Graph API Returns Inconsistent Number of Friends With Facebook Profile

Question

I've noticed that using the new Facebook Graph API to fetch friends of users returns a number of friends that is close to, but not always exactly, the number of friends displayed on the user's profile.

Documentation here: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api

For example, on that page, I click on https://graph.facebook.com/me/friends, and see the JSON for 477 friends, whereas my profile page on facebook shows a count of 478.

Does anyone know why there is an inconsistency?

Answer 1

If you have friends that have opted out of the Facebook Platform, they will not show up in the API response.