Facebook has started testing a new feature that connects people living in the same neighborhood. This feature, dubbed Neighborhoods, resembles the hyperlocal community platform, Nextdoor.

Facebook Comes to Your Local Community

Social media commentator, Matt Navarra, first noticed Neighborhoods, and announced his findings via Twitter.

Neighborhoods will allow you to connect with nearby residents. Once you input your location, you'll be able to see groups and posts made by your neighbors, as well as browse marketplace items for sale in your community. Navarra notes that "you can switch neighborhoods or leave your current neighborhood at any time."

Facebook will also let you create a separate profile specifically for Neighborhoods. You can even add your interests and favorite places to your profile to help you connect with like-minded neighbors.

Anyone in your local neighborhood can see your profile, and vice versa. This way, you don't have to be Facebook friends with a neighbor in order to interact with them.

But if you're not happy with that, you can adjust your privacy settings on Neighborhoods. And speaking of privacy, Navarra also mentions that Facebook might use your location to show you hyperlocal ads.

Facebook's Community Standards will still apply when using Neighborhoods. When first joining Neighborhoods, a screenshot reveals that Facebook encourages you to "save any comments that don't directly relate to your neighborhood for other parts of Facebook."

A Facebook spokeswoman later confirmed the platform's trial of Neighborhoods. She touched upon Facebook's motivation behind Neighborhoods in a statement to Bloomberg, saying:

More than ever, people are using Facebook to participate in their local communities. To help make it easier to do this, we are rolling out a limited test of Neighborhoods, a dedicated space within Facebook for people to connect with their neighbors.

For now, Facebook is only testing Neighborhoods in Calgary, Canada. There's still no word on when (or if) Neighborhoods will be rolled out to the rest of the world.

That said, Neighborhoods takes clear inspiration from Nextdoor, a local social network. Nextdoor also gives you the chance to connect with your neighbors, and is currently available in 11 countries.

Facebook Just Keeps on Growing

Facebook is starting to become an all-encompassing social platform. It's eating up ideas already existent in other social networks, and has even started merging Messenger with Instagram.

Not only does Facebook's growing size pose a threat to smaller social networks, but it also puts your privacy at risk. Using all the features that Facebook has to offer means that the platform can keep tabs on your location, interests, conversations, and even your activities on a local level.