Skip to Content

Facebook has a new social network that’s just for couples

The news: Facebook has launched a new app called Tuned, which lets couples message each other, swap music, share their mood, keep a daily shared diary, and send photos and voice memos. It can be used without a Facebook profile and is pitched as a “private space” for couples to connect. However, it isn’t end-to-end encrypted and has the same privacy policies as Facebook, so the company can collect people’s data for targeted advertising. It’s currently only available to iOS users in the US and Canada. As with WhatsApp, users add someone else through their phone number. The app came from Facebook’s New Product Experimentation team, which was created in summer 2019 to create new social- media services.

Target market: Tuned is obviously pitched to the younger end of the market, especially teens and couples in long-distance relationships. It shows Facebook is hoping to push further into our love lives, after it expanded its dating service and launched a “secret crush” function last year.

A wider trend: On the surface, a social network for two sounds a bit ... weird. However, this isn’t the first such app. There’s a new breed of social networks emerging that offer safe, intimate spaces online for just a few select people. The idea is that they’re less about likes and amassing followers, and more about intimacy.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it

Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.

How Rust went from a side project to the world’s most-loved programming language

For decades, coders wrote critical systems in C and C++. Now they turn to Rust.

Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?

An approach that promised to democratize design may have done the opposite.

Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death

Can anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human life span? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.