Love It Or Not, Facebook Launches Dating Service

Facebook doesn’t think hookups are meaningful and doesn’t want you to date your friends — but it’s known for a long time that its vast map of human connections could help people find long-term partners.

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At least that’s the takeaway from a new dating feature the social networking giant is launching because, well, why not?

After all, Facebook already lets you “poke” people, whatever that means, and lets you broadcast your relationship status. If you ever download all the data Facebook has on you, you’ll see it even keeps track of all the past partners you’ve listed on Facebook, even if this isn’t visible on your profile.

A dating tool has always seemed the next logical step, as Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, said at Facebook’s f8 conference for app developers in San Jose, California. Fourteen years after Facebook’s launch, it’s finally coming.