Facebook dating feature: Will you trust Zuck & Co. with intimate personal details?

Facebook is taking “connecting people” to the next level. Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a dating feature during the company’s F8 developer conference in San Jose, California.

The world’s largest social network is adding dating app features to its app and is expected to take on major dating platforms such as Tinder and OkCupid.

Already, Facebook has an advantage over these platforms owing to its 2.2 billion active users. Another advantage is that the social network is offering the dating service for free while most platforms have paid plans.

That’s not all:

Unlike other dating platforms, the Facebook features will also connect people through shared events.

A present, Facebook allows people the option to broadcast whether they’re single or in a relationship. This dating feature takes it a notch higher by letting those hoping to find love to create a separate profile, list interests, indicate location, professional life, personality, and other personal information.

The features allow you can view photos on their dating profiles, reach out to people with whom you share interests or those planning to attend the same events you’re interested in.

In case you are worried about your profile getting in front of the wrong eyeballs say, close relatives or parents, only other people on the service can see the dating profile, meaning it’s hidden from your friends and family.

This announcement comes at a time when Facebook is still reeling from the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal that hit the social networking site recently.

The glaring trust issues

Many Facebook users across the globe expressed privacy concerns but Zuckerberg and Co. have assured users that they will safeguard their personal information. Zuckerberg emphasized that the dating feature has been designed with “privacy and safety in mind”.

While Facebook is yet to announce the roll out date, there are signs that the road ahead may not be easy. First, the platform’s reputation has been tainted severally. Just recently individuals and groups emerged and urged people to disable their Facebook accounts. The #DeleteFacebook movement that took place in early May was an example of an effort to encourage people to stop using the platform.

Things seemed to get thicker at some point as the search phrase “How to delete a Facebook account” recorded a significant search volume. This is according to Google Search Trends.

In mid-may, it was revealed that a huge new data leak had exposed intimate details of 3 million users. A New Scientist investigation found that Facebook users who used myPersonality, a popular personality app, shared private intimate details that were left exposed online for anyone to access. The highly sensitive data included results of psychological tests.

The self-inflicted privacy headache is yet to go away. In early June, Facebook admitted that about 14 million users who thought they were sharing privately with their friends may have shared with everyone because of a software bug.

It is reported that the software bug was live for about 10 days in May and changed the privacy settings of affected users. Specifically, it updated the audience for some users’ posts to “public” without any warning. Facebook typically lets its users select the audiences who get to see posts. This can only change if manually updated.

It is fair to say that this has been Facebook’s worst year to date. They may get through this but not without dents. Visible dents. The kind that is not easy to forget.

To be fair, Zuck & Co. promise that they are not just sitting pretty watching as the cookie crumbles;

Facebook is working hard to regain your trust.

To cope with the reputation problem, Facebook suspended myPersonality from its platform. It was among at least 200 apps suspended recently.

Just recently, Facebook announced a plan to suspend hundreds of apps that had access to your data. This will involve a comprehensive review to identify every app that has access to Facebook data. As at now, the giant social network company says that it has investigated thousands of apps and suspended about 200 of them.

The better part yet?

Facebook has also introduced some features that will help boost privacy. The “Clear History” is a great example of a newly rolled out privacy-focussed feature. This feature gives users control over how much personal information the social media site can access.

But, that does not mean that Zuck and Co. are off the hook yet; concerns have been expressed over the misuse of dating platforms by scammers.

These platforms welcome scammers and cons whose sole mission is to take advantage of the lonely by tricking them and extorting money from them. Online dating is not exactly a safe haven and the Tinder rape cases are examples of things that could go wrong with online dating. Will Facebook be a safe haven for daters? On that, we will have to wait and see.

Finally, there is the fear that Facebook wants to use your intimate personal details to strengthen ads targeting.

While Facebook makes most of its money from selling targeted ads, it stated that it does not have plans to show ads on its new dating platform. They also affirmed that they do not plan to use information gathered from dating profiles for ads in your News Feed.

But, let’s be honest; we are very forgetful.

Such issues are easily forgotten up until a new scandal is exposed. There’s a new norm; There’s always a new incident to overshadow the previous one. Exhibit A the Kanye West tweets and controversial slavery comments will soon be forgotten. They left us with raised eyebrows but someone else is bound to screw up soon. The next big scandal is cooking.

Reception

It is apparent that people are divided on the new features. Some are not sold to the idea of the FB dating feature while others do not mind giving it a try. The Verge on their Facebook page asked the question: Would you use FB’s dating features?

Here is a sample of the comments:

Marsha Lanier – Ewwwwww. Bad algorithms. FB, you can’t even get my groups and pages on my News Feed right. How you gonna go and match up life partners. Hahahaha! What a joke.

Saima Tahsin –I don’t need to ruin my fb social life

AC Monroe – Great, now Facebook is gonna become Grindr and Tindr. As if those apps weren’t spammy and botty enough! Facebook is going to create a whole new world for Catfish! Good job Mark Zuckerberg! 🤦🙄