Facebook introduced a relationship service in last year’s F8. Now, it announced that Facebook Dating is growing to 14 more nations. Moreover, it introduced a feature called “Secret Crush,” which does literally what you would expect. You can make a specific list of Facebook friends you’re attracted to, whether they have a relationship profile or not. If they are also utilizing Secret Crush and they add you to their list too, Facebook notifies both of you that there’s a match.
Here’s how it’s supposed to function. If you pick the identical individual for your list, Facebook matches you together and will notify you about that. If the feelings are one-sided, the unanswered lover’s identity remains secret. The purpose of the affection is then left to wonder who may have a crush on them, with no way to find out. The feature will be available only in nations where Facebook has rolled out its Dating service, such as Colombia, Canada, Thailand, Argentina, and Mexico, along with 14 new countries in Asia and South America which introduced yesterday. If you don’t have a Dating profile, then you can not receive Secret Crush notifications.
Other contemporary dating apps have not tried this feature, yet that doesn’t mean Secret Crush is revolutionary. One of Facebook’s earliest social media competitors, Friendster, introduced a similar feature way back in 2012. The relationship site GoodCrush, first launched in Princeton University in 2007, also had a virtually identical assumption.
Facebook says it won’t utilize data from Dating or Secret Crush to generate content or advertising purposes. For instance, just adding somebody to your Secret Crush list does not indicate that you will see more of the posts in your News Feed. “All activity that occurs in FB Dating stays in FB Dating and will not be shared externally,” A Facebook spokesperson said in an email.
Unfortunately, for those of you from the US that want to use Facebook Dating or its new Secret Crush feature, still, it is not available here. It has been a year since it was first announced at F8 2018, but Facebook says it’ll finally be coming to the US by the end of 2019.