BENGALURU: Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Facebook will be rolling out their new feature, the dating section to allow the existing users to build long term relationships, has garnered some mixed reactions from Bengalureans. “It’s just damage control for Facebook which has been under scrutiny for privacy issues. It’s a convenient move for them as it is coming off as the most significant personal privacy scandal in the company’s history,” says Meghna Bhalla, 20, a a degree student.
While the announcement by Facebook led to steep drop in shares of a popular dating app by 17 per cent, Maitree Shah, a 19-year-old student from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management, points out that Facebook’s larger pool in comparison to other apps, means that it has a has much wider reach. “This means that there are more options in terms of people and the likelihood of relevant matches are higher,” Maitree says.
On the other hand, Kabir Mehta, 21, student from Kristu Jayanti College, believes that the concept of long-term relationships, is quite ‘redundant.’ “That whole idea is quite vague, especially since many millennials including myself, prefer just hook ups. Facebook being a huge platform can achieve the target audience for sure but to it should leave it to the two individuals on how they want to take further their relationship,” he opines.
Keshav Balaji, 24, a working professioanl, who spends at least five hours on social networking platforms, says, “I see this working out well especially since most of us spend our time on social media, particularly Facebook, where we’re either stalking profiles or checking out memes. Frankly, this is much better than any dating app as it gives you the true profile of a person, their photos and the mutual connections if any. From my experience, on dating apps, a person can get away with a lot of fake details which is almost like going on a blind date,” Keshav says.
But a section of youngsters are apprehensive to share personal details owing to privacy issues, especially after Facebook has been under the scanner for the same. Navya Sharma, 20, an undergraduate student from Christ university is one such who is not comfortable sharing her information. “Dating is a private affair. This just seems like a cheap cover up and some damage control by Facebook,” she says.
Like Meghna, who has been trying out different dating apps and websites, points out that this is just another in the already crowded market. “It’s not hard to immediately notice that this one looks eerily similar to the predominant existing dating apps such as Hinge or Tinder, which means again Facebook is garnering success through imitation,” she says, adding, “I don’t see how this is any different from those already around.”