Facebook’s new ‘Discover’ feature

The new feature allows you to discover people who live or work nearby, or who might be attending the same event as you. But what if you don’t want to be discovered?

Facebook is taking a leaf from Tinder’s book and rolling out a new ‘Discover People’ feature to all iOS and Android users.

The feature allows you connect to people with whom you aren’t currently friends, but who live nearby, work for the same company or are attending the same events as you.

Considering that Tinder has over 50 million users and has recently incorporated a ‘Social’ mode, the interest for this form of socialising is definitely warranted.

However, Facebook has made the choice to incorporate this feature into their pre-existing social network and, as events are public on Facebook, you might not be able to prevent other people from discovering you.

This raises a lot of privacy concerns as many users are unlikely to be aware that just tapping ‘Interested’ on an event is usually a public post that anyone can see. So anyone who is trying to remain hidden from, say, a former partner or abuser, might be discovered, dangerously, against his or her wishes.

You can find ‘Discover People’ by tapping the three horizontal lines icon at the bottom right of the Facebook app, then tapping ‘Discover People’.

Do you think the feature is invasive or would you gladly use it in the future?