Facebook has announced to launch a dating service within its app, and — as expected — popular dating app Tinder took a hit soon after the announcement.

According to reports, the shares of Match Group, which owns Tinder, fell 22 per cent on May 1.

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Notably, a user needs a Facebook account to log into Tinder. Earlier this month, Tinder had suffered a brief outage after its users got stuck in the Facebook login process apparently because Facebook was altering its developer frameworks to improve data privacy. The bug had affected Tinder’s entire user base.

In his keynote address at the F8 developer conference that got under way on May 1, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was all set to launch its own dating service.

READ | Facebook F8 | The big announcements on Day One

Citing incidents of him being greeted by couples who met on Facebook and got married, Zuckerberg said while he was happy to make such “positive difference” to the world, this was the first time the social media giant was actively trying to help people form romantic relationships.

There are 200 million people on Facebook who list themselves as single, he underlined, adding: “so clearly there’s something to do here.”

Zuckerberg, however, sought to clarify the dating service would be “not just for hook-ups” but aimed to form more and “meaningful” and “real long-term relationships”.

Allaying any sort of fear or inhibitions people might have about the new service, he said it had been designed with privacy and safety in mind “from the very beginning”.

Facebook did not give a date for the launch but said the feature would be testing later this year.

So, how will it work?

The feature will be available within the app but users will have to create a dating profile separate from their Facebook profile. Facebook will recommend potential matches based on preferences, common threads, and mutual friends.

A prototype was displayed at the F8 summit that showed a heart-shaped icon at the top-right corner of the Facebook app. Pressing it will take people to their dating profile.

ALSO READ | Ahead of F8, Facebook unveils new feature Clear History

Zuckerberg said the dating profile won’t suggest your friends for dating as people you might want to date, even if your “friends” on the platform include some strangers or random acquaintances, or even crushes.

Also, your dating profile won’t be visible to your friends as it won’t show up on news feed “or anywhere else”. According to Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, it will just use your first name and only those using the dating service can see your dating profile.

Once you have a profile, you can browse through events and groups based on your location and specific interests. If you decide to attend or consider checking out a particular event, the app will prompt you to “unlock” it. By “unlocking” the event, you will share your dating profile with others who plan to attend that event. You can also check out the profiles of others who have unlocked that particular event.

You can also chat with each other on the platform, using a private “text-only” messaging feature not connected to Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

Speaking about the new service at the F8 summit, Cox said Facebook would soon share more details about it.