Facebook launches its dating service in Colombia with features to prevent stalking

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Social media giant Facebook has announced the launch of its new dating service in Colombia, with several features including stalking prevention. Facebook revealed that Colombia was chosen as the initial testing ground for this dating app because of the country's openness in welcoming online dating sites, and due to the mammoth user base of 30 million exclusively in the nation.

A dating app that prevents stalking and photo abuse

However, the dating service offered by Facebook is very much different from the services provided by traditional dating websites like Tinder and Bumble. Mindless swiping, the most negative characteristic in traditional dating platforms will be absent in the new service offered by Facebook.

Users will not be able to swipe through various profiles with ease in Facebook dating app. If a user is interested in someone, he or she has to choose a question or photo on the person's profile and should compose a message based on that. After sending the question or message, users will be allowed to move on to the next match. Facebook believes that this method of finding the match will help prevent the mindless swiping style, a noted negative characteristic of many dating platforms.

Beginning a conversation with people using the Facebook app is also different when compared to other dating sites. A user will not be able to send repeated messages to a person if he or she did not respond to the initial 'Hi'. As per Facebook, this feature will cut down harassment and stalking from the new app. This new dating app also does not allow users to send pictures via messages.

How to create a profile in Facebook dating app?

Facebook dating app is not a standalone application, and it is located within the core Facebook app. After tapping the Facebook dating app, users will be asked to create a new profile which will be visible an exclusively new profile limited to the dating platform.

The user will be later asked to fill basic information like age, gender, occupation etc. After filling out the basic details, users can upload 12 photos on their profile. Users will also ask to respond as many as 20 questions within the dating platform.

Facebook will then populate the results of matches that are within 100 kilometers of the user's location.

The new feature is now limited just to Colombia. If the service turns out to be a success in Colombia, Facebook will soon launch the application in other parts of the world too.

This article was first published on September 21, 2018
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