Earlier this year, Facebook as one of the world’s most influential social-media platform, announced about its launch of a dating service. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook aims to turn itself into a platform where people can start “meaningful and long-term relationships”, but not just “hookups”. In addition, he stressed that this service will be conducted under the premise of not compromising customer privacy or data safety. The matching services will operate under a separate section on the site, where names of the users will only be visible to those also using the services (instead of general friends), and there won’t be news feeds about this showing on users’ profile pages.
Needless to doubt, the amount of data held by Facebook is massive. It is not exaggerating to say that for users who have been using the service for years, their whole growing experience has been witnessed and recorded by Facebook. The sources from where it gathers data vary widely from personal posts, shared posts, status updates to private messages. Personally, I think when comparing to other types of platforms, social media sites as such is in fact the most suitable medium to perform the matchmaking function. Unlike most of the specialized dating apps that only let users make matches based on one or a few aspects (e.g. appearance, professions, interests, and geographical proximity), social-media platforms are capable of utilizing its multifaceted data. Such data constitutes a much more accurate portrait of individual users. The actions of swiping left and right that have so far always been performed manually by humans will then be taken care of by robots, while the results tend to be more satisfying. Overall, the efficiency and effectiveness of the matchmaking process are likely to increase.
However, is such move made by Facebook (as well as other tech firms that will soon follow) really desirable? Letting robots predict what is most suitable for us, or in other words, what we are supposed to like/do, makes it feel like one of the greatest enjoyment of living has been taken away. After all, life is all about individuals making their own choices, isn’t it? If people all followed the options that algorithms or robots chose for them, the fascination of discovery and diversity would diminish. There would be less surprises, chances for people to discover new areas of interests would also reduce. Regardless of whether it is a music streaming service like Spotify, video streaming like Netflix, book suggesting service like Amazon, or matching-making service that Facebook is about to bring out, robots might use existing information to tailor a ‘package’ for us, but I believe that humans have far more unpredictable potentials. Especially for actions as important as finding a lifetime partner, robots can help, but shall never replace humans from the driving seat.
Sources:
http://www.ftchinese.com/interactive/12707?exclusive#adchannelID=1100
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/01/facebook-dating-app-mark-zuckerberg-f8-conference
https://econsultancy.com/why-data-will-win-the-dating-game-now-facebook-is-in-the-market/
For some time, I had taken a bit of interest in online dating technology, which seems to “accelerate” the process of starting a relationship. And I do agree, that Facebook, of all other social media platforms, is the best one to integrate with online dating feature, for the reasons you have mentioned above.
However, I believe this launch of the feature isn’t done during the right timing.
First, we know that there are (still) concerns regarding privacy issues. It was “ridden with hackers” (as claimed by Facebook’s reps) and users’ data are vulnerable. Combine that with how sensitive Europe has been lately with privacy issues, Facebook (with its new dating feature) with face tighter regulatory scrutiny from the government.
Second, Facebook itself has been losing its grip over its users. According to eMarketer, less and less young people are inclined to use Facebook despite its utilities. This year, it is predicted that US youth users of 11-year and younger will decrease by almost 10%; users age 12 to 24 will decrease by almost 6%. Seeing that people in those ages are the primary targets for dating feature, Facebook might have to reconsider its decision.
Dear He Liu,
Thank you for your opinion on this topic and for sharing this information that I actually had not heard about yet.
What is interesting here is to know to what extent our interactions on the social media relate to our actual tastes, behaviors and opinions. Such a dating possibility on Facebook will surely make this gap clearer and will thereby foster a deeper reflexion on the coherence between our actual personality and our online behavior, and our potential desire to keep it different.
Furthermore, I’m quite concerned with the issue of privacy and safety, especially harassment. It is interesting here to see that even if consumers are increasingly looking for platforms that integrate as many services as possible, this might be different in this case. I think that a fear has appeared towards Facebook in terms of privacy, and people might want to separate clearly their activity on Facebook from the ones on other social media/ services, especially when it’s more personal such as dating. This is comparable to a fear of seeing your different (and sometimes incoherent) versions of your life overlapping.
Moreover, I would like to raise an additional question: according to you, what impact will that initiative from Facebook have on the other dating options, such as apps? Do you believe Facebook will stop providing data about their members to these apps? What will be the main competitive advantage of these apps, and how can they ensure a sustainable position in this market? (or in other words, what will be the main weaknesses of Facebook?)
Thank you in advance for your answer and for sharing this!
Kind regards,
Sabrina
Thanks for sharing He Liu!
In my opinion, Facebook’s new approach to dating, using its massive collection of customer data, is what the future of dating will look like. However, I do not believe this implies we should trust Facebook with this service.
Especially, in the sense that we might question whether it is beneficial to let Mark Zuckerberg be the one to take care of your love life, in regard to all negative attention Facebook has gotten lately. As Lomas (2018) states, Facebook’s advertising business relies heavily on tracking their users and their behaviours. As harming your privacy is what Facebook makes their money with, getting into the dating market might just be a new way of them to extend the data they collect of you. As such, the dating service’s goals of ‘creating meaningful relationships’ might just be a marketing tool to allow Facebook to track your whereabouts. Therefore, it might be required to think again before allowing Facebook’s robots to take over due to Facebook’s history of privacy hostility. Moreover, allowing Facebook to take on the dating service, might further monopolise its online position. Facebook’s entering in this market might have negative long-term consequences to the diversity in this market. In addition, one might argue that this move drives value resources of the company away from problems they should actually be focusing on at this moment instead.
In conclusion, various factors might cause us to argue against Facebook becoming a matchmaker.
Reference
Lomas, N. (2018). Seven reasons not to trust Facebook to play cupid. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/22/seven-reasons-not-to-trust-facebook-to-play-cupid/