Don’t Trust Facebook With Your Love Life

On Thursday, Facebook announced the start-up in the United States of Facebook Dating, a product that allows users to search for love all without the hassle of leaving the app where your angry uncle continues to share recycled memes about “Crooked Hillary.”

The feature was first announced in 2018 and is up and running in 20 countries as of Thursday.

Most companies would consider it poor timing to roll out a feature offering to manage the love lives of its users the day after reports of a large data breach. But in defense of Facebook — which is constantly resetting its “Days Without an Embarrassing Privacy Failure” counter — there’s almost never a good time.

Yes, you absolutely deserve a lifetime of love and happiness, and yes, there’s a decent argument to be made that Facebook knows more about you than any rival dating service ever could. But even if Facebook has the kind of weapons-grade algorithms that might move fast and break your dry spell, trusting the company with your love life feels like a disaster waiting to happen.

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This may seem uncharitable. After all, the company is framing Facebook Dating as altruism. “Right now it’s a really feel-good mission. It’s just connecting people,” Nathan Sharp, one of Facebook’s product managers, told reporters on Thursday. “There are no plans for ads and no plans for subscriptions.”

No ads.

No revenue.

Just love.