started off on a somber note this year.

Over the past two months, Facebook has been shaken

by the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal

which ultimately saw Mark Zuckerberg

called before congress to defend

Facebook's data collection practices.

At the same time, critics are raising hard questions

about Facebook's impact on society

with some calling it a breeding ground

for misinformation and hate.

Zuckerberg started F8 with a speech

that addressed those questions head on.

- Now, I know that it hasn't been easy

being a developer these last couple of months

and that's probably an understatement,

but what I can assure you is that we're hard at work

making sure that people don't misuse this platform

so you can all keep building things that people love.

- In the midst of that crisis of trust,

Facebook is rolling out one of its most socially

ambitious project in years, a dating app.

- We're announcing a new set of features

coming soon around dating.

(audience cheers)

Now, this is gonna be for building

real long-term relationships, not just hookups.

- Where most dating apps focus on matching specific people,

Facebook's system focuses on common events and groups

giving you something to do on your first date.

Facebook also promises not to match you

with people who are already your friend,

an awkward situation that's unavoidable on most dating apps.

- And I know a lot of you are gonna have questions

about this so I wanna be clear that we've designed this

with privacy and safety in mind from the beginning.

Your friends aren't gonna see your profile.

You're only gonna be suggested people

who are not your friends who have opted into dating

who fit your preferences, although I can't promise

that you're gonna get a mate.

- It's a really ambitious project,

potentially opening up a whole new side of Facebook,

but it also takes a lot of trust.

The new app is entirely opt-in

and Facebook says it's built it with privacy in mind

but it's hard not to worry that some dating profile pic

won't find its way back onto your Facebook wall

or some old Facebook post won't somehow make it

on to the app.

Do we really trust Facebook to handle this right?

At the same time, there are already a lot of dating apps

including ones like Tinder that use

Facebook's social graph to connect people.

If you want an app that knows your Facebook friends

but isn't ran by Facebook, you have a lot of options

so how much real advantage does Facebook really have here?

Facebook clearly thinks users will trust them here

and you can see why.

The company's had a lot of bad headlines

but people aren't leaving Facebook

and they're making more money than ever.

At the most recent quarterly earnings,

Facebook reported adding a half a million

regular users everyday.

So by the numbers, it looks like

Zuckerberg's apology tour is working.

But if Facebook's bond with users is starting to turn sour,

you'd expect it to hurt projects like this the most.

It's really hard to launch a new app

even for a company as powerful as Facebook.

Past developer conferences are littered with good ideas

that just never took off.

It's too early to say if Facebook's dating app

will be one of those failures but if it is,

it might be because after so many bad scandals

and bad excuses, users decided

they just didn't wanna risk it.

The thing is, it would've been really easy

for Facebook to delay this announcement,

pushing it closer to launch or outside

the F8 cycle entirely, but Facebook didn't do that.

They bet that the hangover from Cambridge Analytica

just wouldn't be a problem and they made that bet

with dating, one of the most private

and sensitive things we do as people.

Now, we're gonna find out if they bet right.

Thanks for watching.

Would you trust Facebook's new dating app?

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