Facebook takes a swipe at dating, raising privacy fears

Facebook dating has raised concerns about users’ privacy being protected.

Facebook says it aims to help users start meaningful relationships through things they have in common.

Mark Zuckerberg is playing matchmaker with digital singles. Facebook Dating, which officially launched in the US in September, is now in 20 countries, with Australia cited as a potential market.

Concerns about data privacy thwarted its launch in Europe last Thursday — the day before Valentine’s day. Facebook postponed it after the Irish Data Protection Commission learned that the ­social media giant failed to conduct a data processing impact ­assessment, The Wall Street Journal reported. Facebook told the newspaper it had completed the assessment when requested.

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Facebook Dating takes a different approach to other online relationship services, particularly the popular Tinder, which raked in a reported $US1.2bn ($1.78bn) in revenue last year for parent company The Match Group.

Facebook says it aims to help users start meaningful relationships through things they have in common — declared interests, events and groups.

“It takes the work out of creating a dating profile and gives you a more authentic look at who someone is,” a Facebook blog says.

Facebook Dating shapes as a major threat to other online relationship services.

Dating profiles exist separately to regular Facebook profiles. Facebook Dating uses your first name and age from your regular Facebook so you are anonymous to a point. The app says your dating profile and conversations are not shared with anyone outside of dating.

You are matched against a wider pool of people who match your preferences.

Users can opt into groups to see daters with similar interests. If you are a keen horserider, or love the opera, you can opt into events and groups with those interests and see if compatible people there are dating.

However, users can explore romantic relationships within their extended circles, such as Facebook friends and Instagram followers.

The service offers a subtle way of approaching friends called a “secret crush list”.

You can select up to nine people. A person will know someone has added their name to a crush list but won’t know who, unless both add each other.

With Tinder, users can view hundreds of photos of prospective partners, swiping right to signal interest and left to say “no”.

Often the dating information is scant, so people make initial contact choices overwhelmingly on looks in photos. Other users will never know you have chosen them unless they choose you, or you pay a premium.

Facebook’s dating service is already available in 20 countries.

On Tinder, if you have unrealistic expectations that don’t match those of prospective partners, you could swipe right for weeks and no one would notice.

Senior lecturer at UTS Babak Abedin says Facebook faces a headache with young people ­rejecting it as a platform for oldies. A dating service may be a way to win them back.

“Teenagers don't feel that Facebook is as cool as before, simply because their parents are there,” Abedin says.

“Facebook may become cool again with this online dating.”

The service was first tested in 2018 in Colombia. It now available in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Laos, Malaysia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, Suriname, Thailand, Uruguay, Vietnam and the US.

It doesn’t charge users to access premium services such as boosts and “super likes”, which rake in the cash for Tinder.

Facebook Dating seems to be expanding its traditional business model — getting users to interact with its site and its ads for longer, and leveraging marketing information from dating activities.

Maybe you’ll get ads to buy flowers, or periodic invitations to buy a box of chocolates after a new match. Facebook seems clear about protecting people’s data from other users but unclear about leveraging dating details commercially.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Picture: AFP

Facebook has been clear to other dating services seeking to advertise on its platform: it won’t allow ads for apps with “couple” or “group” options or apps that promote “casual dating”, “hook-ups”, “affairs”, or “mail-order brides”. One rival, #open, has started a petition against the restriction. Some claim Facebook is out to frustrate the dating competition.

Associate professor Emma Jane (formerly writer Emma Tom) from the school of arts and media at UNSW says there’s no way Facebook would offer users anything “if they weren’t reaping in a profit on that somehow”.

“The longer they can keep you there, looking at their ads, then the more money they’re making,” says Jane, who researches the ethics and social impacts of emerging technology.

But researchers don’t discount Facebook as a good way to find ­romance.

It may prove a better option than the “ruthlessly efficient” ­Tinder, which doesn’t offer much of an exchange of text and conversation, Jane says. Abedin says dating success will depend on how accurately people represent themselves on Facebook.

Facebook Dating app sign-up

He says Facebook may offer security and privacy tools. Would you want your employer and friends to know who you are dating? How would you feel about a new date leaving amorous messages on your Facebook page, visible to your friends, family and workmates? Things could get messy.

So it seems your dating life and regular Facebook interactions are separate, but Abedin warns that too few people are aware of the protection options.

It might be tempting to cut, paste and share some of your Facebook posts within the dating app, but this could compromise personal security.

Abedin says he is concerned about the security of teenagers using the dating platform.

Could a date access your digital fingerprints and personal information, and discover where you live?

He also worries that real-time video streaming could prove an issue on the dating platform.

Sample screenshot. Picture: Facebook

Jane says Facebook may prove a good place to find a date, but “I find Facebook really terrifying in terms of the way that it’s using our data, and I find it absolutely outrageous that Facebook insists on being so opaque about it. Facebook refuses even in the context of government inquiries to reveal what it's doing.”

But she says some Facebook dating tools look helpful, such as being able to unlock events available via the dating part of the Facebook platform, see other compatible daters who are going and talk with them before they go. “I would definitely give that a whirl,” she says.

“I don’t think the entry of Facebook into the market is necessarily a terrible thing.”

The service has received mixed reviews. Some are pleasantly surprised by the opportunities it offers, according to their Twitter posts. One person apparently was matched with friends of his or her parents, another an inmate.

Some American users describe it as like Walmart – pedestrian. It’s been branded as “old fashioned”, a death knell if it’s aiming to be “cool” to young users.

Nevertheless as Abedin says, dating online is now becoming today’s reality, but the issue of data privacy might determine whether you swipe Zuckerberg’s service left or right whenever the matchmaking service does head down under.

Facebook Dating secret crush feature. Picture: Facebook