Many German users have already longed for the flirt function of Facebook. Now the time has come. The social network wants to declare war on the competition of Tinder and Co. with its own dating service.
Data protection concerns in Europe eliminated
It’s been a while now since the king of social networking announced his own dating feature. After the flirt function was put through its paces in 2018, the release in the USA took place in the fall of last year. Now, CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s company is also releasing the function in Germany. European data protectionists were initially more than skeptical. After all, the dating feature was supposed to celebrate its premiere in spring of this year. Now that the fronts seem to have been cleared, Facebook has received the green light for its virtual partner search throughout Europe.
How does Facebook Dating work?
For Facebook dating you first have to fulfill an important requirement: You must be of legal age. If this is the case, you only have to create a separate profile and you can start dating. If you should be using the Facebook app, you will now find the new menu item “Dating” in the upper right corner of the main menu. When you create a profile, the social network automatically adopts the name you have in your regular Facebook account. Facebook uses your interests and activities to show you suitable dating partners. Now the social network brings together the people who theoretically match each other. According to Facebook, they pay a lot of attention to security. So it is not possible to simply send each other photos, links or videos. To stop fraudsters, you can also not send payments. Anyone who annoys or even harasses someone else can be blocked or even reported. Facebook also uses Instagram and its popular video chat function for its dating function.
The way to the secret swarm
Of course, in the age of Tinder and Co., Facebook dating needs to come with a unique selling point. This could be the so-called Secret-Crush function. This is where the social network makes use of its gigantic number of users. As the name already suggests, with its help you can find secret admirers among your Facebook friends. But how does that work? You can choose a maximum of nine people from your Facebook friends who could be potential dating partners. This group of people is then placed on a hidden list. If one of the secret swarms also uses Facebook Dating and has created a corresponding list with you as Secret Crush, it is immediately a match. Then both users will receive a corresponding info. If this is not the case, the secret crush remains secret and everything remains secret.
No separate app necessary
Conveniently, Facebook Dating does not come in a separate app. Instead, the social network simply integrates the new service into the existing app. To find people in your area, the feature uses the GPS signal from your smartphone. Conversely, the application for lovers and those who want to become lovers can’t be used on a PC either. Not yet at least. To make sure you find a suitable match, the app asks you some interesting questions. There are 20 of them. They all include preferences and interests. You can round off your personal profile with photos. But Facebook doesn’t only want to find suitable partners for you. The social network also uses the collected data for advertising purposes. It is not without reason that there has been trouble with the European Data Protection Act.
Ambarrassing moments should be avoided
The topic of dating is lined with many faux pas that one likes to put one’s foot in. Facebook Dating knows about this problem and would like to prevent some embarrassment accordingly. A particularly praiseworthy step is that you can only send photos if there has been a “match”. If you want to get in contact with people who are not an explicit “match”, you can only use text and emojis for communication. But to avoid annoying pressure being built up by text, Facebook relies on blocking further messages if necessary. If the contacted person simply doesn’t answer, a further letter is no longer possible. Facebook automatically filters out these people so that you don’t accidentally date your best friend or colleague from work. Of course, this also happens with people blocked on Facebook. If there is still interest, the “Secret-Crush-Function” comes into play again.
