FACEBOOK DATING LONG been the place where everyone from college students to divorcées scope out their romantic interests. Now Facebook Dating users can officially use the social network as a dating service—complete with specialized profiles, a matchmaking algorithm, and more. Facebook Dating, which began rolling out in other countries last year and launches in the US today, gives users ages 18 and up access to a suite of features designed to help them find a meaningful relationship. Plenty of them will be familiar to anyone with experience on other facebook dating, but a few options take unique advantage of Facebook's biggest asset—its extensive cache of data on you and all your friends.
Facebook Dating lives within the existing Facebook Dating sites, but to use it you need to set up a separate profile. The only information carried over is your name and age. The service will present you with potential matches based on your location, indicated preferences, and other factors. You can also choose to match with people who attend the same Facebook Dating events or are part of the same Facebook Dating groups. One thing it won't show you are your existing Facebook friends—that option is turned off by default.
Facebook Dating is also using Dating’s US debut to launch several new privacy and security features within the service. And, of course, it’s integrating Instagram into Facebook Dating. Which is not surprising since the company has been bringing its platforms closer together in various ways all year.
On most facebook dating sites, “people are forced to make a decision off this one profile that never changes and is extremely curated,” a Facebook Dating product manager at Facebook Dating. The social network wants to create a more dynamic and authentic experience. Starting today, users will have the opportunity to feature their permanent Instagram posts in their Facebook Dating profiles. By the end of the year, Facebook Dating says it will also allow you to share Instagram or Facebook Dating Stories. They won’t be Facebook Dating - specific Stories, but the same ones you already upload for your friends or followers; they will also still erase after 24 hours. The social network isn’t the first to have the idea: Tinder announced it would begin integrating Snapchat Stories in April.
Instagram will also become part of Secret Crush, an existing Facebook Dating feature that lets users select up to nine Facebook Dating friends they want to express an interest in—as long as that person indicates they have a crush back. Now your Instagram followers can be Secret Crushes, too—no choosing celebrities or influencers unless they follow you, sorry! If someone adds you to their Secret Crush list, you’ll receive a notification. If you then pick the same person for your list, Facebook Dating will match you together and reveal your names. If the feelings are one-sided, nothing happens.
Facebook Dating apps like Hinge have historically marketed themselves on their ability to match you with friends of friends—people with whom you already have existing social ties. Facebook Dating also allows you to do the opposite: You can preemptively turn off matching with friends of friends, which may be a welcome option for anyone who wants to date outside their network. The feature may also help LGTBQ+ people who are not out to their communities. You can also block people from seeing your Facebook Dating profile, even if you want them to still have access to your Facebook Dating or Instagram accounts.
Facebook Dating’s most exciting new feature builds upon a well-established safety practice for online facebook dating. Before meeting someone in person for the first time, many people—especially women—tell a friend or family member where they’re going and when they expect to be back, in case something happens. More recently, people have been sharing their location using tools like Apple’s Find My Friends. Facebook Dating will allow you to automatically open Messenger from Facebook Dating and tell a friend the name of the person you’re going on a date with, as well as the time and place where you plan to hang out. Fifteen minutes before your date happens, that person will receive a notification reminder and access to your live location. But unlike Find My Friends, your location is only shared for up to an hour, at least for now.
“We’re definitely playing around with the timing,” says Hung. “We did want to make sure that people weren’t accidentally sharing their live location longer than they intended to.”