If Tinder wasn’t awkward enough, now you can meet potential suitors in groups and bring along your friends. Tinder is testing a new feature, Tinder Social, that lets you and a group of friends meet other groups of people to go out with.
The company is marketing the feature as a great way to meet new people. But the experiment, currently being tested on a “small group of users” in Australia, is causing a stir because of a troubling privacy issue.
To organize a group of friends to go out with, Tinder Social shows users a full list of which of their Facebook friends are already on the app. You can also see your Facebook friends’ full Tinder profile when you add them to a group, according to Business Insider, and you can add both male and female friends. The feature was launched as an opt-out function, meaning that everyone whom the company selected to be in the test group was automatically enrolled.
Perhaps you didn’t want anyone to know you’re using Tinder— a recent Pew study found that 16% of people think only someone desperate would try online dating—and now all your other Facebook friends who are also on the app know. You could also presumably learn which of your Facebook friends who are in relationships use the dating app, or even if your significant other is on Tinder—although,there are other ways to figure that out, too.
Asked if the company has any plans to change Tinder Social, or allow users to opt-in to the feature rather than opt-out, a Tinder spokesperson said the company has no further details to share at this time, and will roll out the product globally once it’s perfected.