Gadgetory

Facebook's f8 Developer Conference started off on a somber note this year over the past two months Facebook has been shaken by the Cambridge analytic a data privacy scandal which ultimately saw Mark Zuckerberg called before Congress to defend Facebook's data collection practices at the same time critics are raising hard questions about Facebook's impact on society with some calling it a breeding ground for misinformation and hate Zuckerberg started FA with a speech that addressed those questions head-on now I know that hasn't been easy being a developer in these last couple of months and that's probably an understatement but what I can assure you is that we're hard at work making sure that people don't misuse this platform so you can all keep building things that people love in the midst of that crisis of trust Facebook is rolling out one of its most socially ambitious projects and years a dating app we are announcing a new set of features coming soon around dating now this is gonna be it's gonna be for building real long-term relationships all right not just hookups where most dating apps focus on matching specific people Facebook's system focuses on common events and groups giving you something to do on your first date Facebook also promises not to match you with people who are already your friends an awkward situation that's unavoidable on most dating apps I want to be clear that we've designed this with privacy and safety in mind from the beginning your friends aren't gonna see your profile you're only gonna be suggested people who are not your friends who have opted into dating you feel your preferences although I can't promise that you're gonna get emai it's a really ambitious project potentially opening up a whole new side of Facebook but it also takes a lot of trust the new app is entirely opt-in and Facebook says it's built it with privacy in mind but it's hard not to worry that some dating profile pic won't find its way back on your Facebook wall or some old Facebook post won't somehow make it onto the act do we really trust Facebook to handle this right at the same time there are already a lot of dating apps including ones like tinder that use Facebook's social graph to connect Pete if you want an app that knows your Facebook friends but isn't run by Facebook you have a lot of options so how much of an advantage does Facebook really have here Facebook clearly thinks users will trust them here and you can see why the companies had a lot of bad headlines but people aren't leaving Facebook and they're making more money than ever at the most recent quarterly earnings Facebook reported adding half a million regular users every day so by the numbers it looks like Zuckerberg apology tour is working but if Facebook's bond with users is starting to turn sour you'd expect it to hurt projects like this the most it's really hard to launch a new app even for a company as powerful as Facebook past developer conferences are littered with good ideas that just never took off it's too early to say if Facebook's dating app will be one of those failures but if it is it might be because after so many bad scandals and bad excuses users decided they just didn't want to risk the thing is it would have been really easy for Facebook to delay this announcement pushing it closer to launch or outside the f8 cycle entirely but Facebook didn't do that they bet that the hangover from Cambridge analytic adjust wouldn't be a problem and they made that bet with dating one of the most private and sensitive things we do as people now we're gonna find out if they bet right thanks for watching would you trust Facebook's new dating app let us know in the comments and we just launched a new verge science YouTube channel we're gonna do some really awesome stuff there so go subscribe