Facebook announced Tuesday that it's rolling out a new feature allowing users to select "secret crushes" out of their friend's list, hoping to connect already acquainted users of its dating app who might not know they are both interested in each other.
Wired reports that the new feature would notify a user when someone selected them as their crush, without revealing the selecter's identity. If the admired chooses their secret admirer as someone they'd be interested in, the match will be revealed. If not, they're left in the dark.
The move is a throwback to Facebook in the college-focused days before it dropped the "the" from its name. It's hard to remember now that the website has become one of the two poles of the internet but Facebook grew out of a Hot or Not-style site for Harvard students. It's a bit of a homecoming, inasmuch as a corporate internet behemoth can have roots.
Facebook reps told the tech magazine that all of the information via the new feature (and Facebook Dating, in general) would not be used to by its content or advertising operations.
“All activity that occurs in FB Dating stays in FB Dating and will not be shared externally,” a spokesperson said.
Currently, the "secret crush" feature is only available in countries where the FB Dating app is up and running: Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Guyana, Uruguay, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, and Suriname.
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