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Tinder, Hinge, and their corporate owner keep rape under wraps
- SilverElfin 1y agoThere are more basic issues with these apps too, which is that they turn dating into a second job. And it is very difficult for men especially, as data has shown that messages / likes mostly center on the most attractive men rather than being well distributed as it is for messages from men to women. So everyone without that attention just ends up swiping right on thousands of profiles and hoping for something to happen. It’s unproductive, depressing, and I would hate to be a single man today with all dating happening online. For that reason alone, we should move on from the online dating experiment.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- nathan_compton 1y agoBack when I was dating online dating had just started and I went out on a few dates with women I met online and it all seemed to go OK. But in the end all the successful relationships I ever had were people I met in real life. Is it really that hard to meet people in real life these days? I mean, in fairness, I was on a campus most of that time, and so mingling is sort of built in. But surely there are other contexts where people mingle?
- xigoi 1y ago> But surely there are other contexts where people mingle? Well, what are they?
- nathan_compton 1y agoBars, churches, cafes, work related activities, clubs, sports, libraries? Are people just sitting around in their houses all day or what?
- rkomorn 1y agoAt the risk of sounding like a cave dweller even though I'm out and about my capital city every day... I think a lot of people are staying home. Understandably so. They're exhausted from work, commutes, everything costing more money, being advertised/pitched/upsold to at every chance, crypto bros, noise, constant calls to their attention, being the target or witness of unsavory interactions, etc. There are a bunch of reasons to hate it "outside", in increasing numbers, with at best no increase in reasons to enjoy it.
- HankStallone 1y agoSome people, yes. Go on a dating subreddit and ask where to meet people, and a lot of them will say "on the apps," and that they don't want to be bothered on the occasions when they go out in public. That's the always-online contingent, though. In real life, a lot of people still go out and would be glad to be chatted up in person. By someone they find attractive, of course, but that's always been the case. If you do it today, one advantage is that you stand out, since so many are afraid to do it.
- xigoi 1y agoBars are like 3:1 men to women, so not much chance there. Church is not an option for atheists. Cafés and libraries are not places where you go to talk with random strangers. Clubs and sports are expensive.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- t-writescode 1y ago> Is it really that hard to meet people in real life these days? Yes. *especially if you don’t drink*. The loss of a third space and common community center (Churches, in the US past) has cascading effects.
- atmavatar 1y agoSociety has made many of what were originally the most common places to meet your future spouse now taboo to ask someone out. For example, before dating apps, something like 30-40% of relationships leading to marriage started in the workplace.
- nathan_compton 1y agoOk, people say this, but is it really true? My personal experience, the boring sexual harassment training, and talking to the AI, suggests that asking out a coworker at the same level of the org chart with whom you don't closely work is not considered really problematic, especially among young people. You can't ask out someone you supervise and its considered a little socially risky to get involved with someone who you work with really closely, but nothing seems to prevent coworkers from asking each-other out, as far as I can tell.
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- CheeseFromLidl 1y agoA tv show in the Netherlands once summed it up nicely: the dating site experience for men is like interviewing for a job, for women it’s like shopping.
- ponector 1y ago>> I would hate to be a single man today It always been like that. It sucks to be a single man who looks for women. Unless you are rich and handsome. If dating app doesn't work for you, think of how people connected before apps. Go to group activities, engage with people and build a relationship.
- chimineycricket 1y agoBecause the purpose of Tinder, Hinge, etc. is to slowly destroy the social fabric of society to a point where people are perfectly malleable. More, more, more instant gratification. Less, less, less integrity.
- lawlessone 1y agothe purpose is to make money. What you've described might be a side effect of that.
- red_rech 1y agoFacebook, Twitter, Bluesky, et. al. sure are showing them up at the game though.
- leosanchez 1y agoNo app countibuted to destruction of social fabric more than Instagram.
- jjulius 1y agoI apologize for this comment not being constructive the way that HN usually prefers them to be, but... ... they're all part of the same shitpile.
- nvahalik 1y agoWe live in an age where the commercialization/cheapening of sex is celebrated by society but the natural result of that commercialization/cheapening isn't wanted. You can't have it both ways. Our anthropology is confused and it shows.
- handoflixue 1y agoDo we really want corporations enforcing unconfirmed reports? If the legal system can't handle the situation, why should we expect a private corporation to?
- jcims 1y agoI’m perfectly comfortable with them banning people that have multiple reports of criminal activity.
- handoflixue 1y agoIf there are multiple confirmed reports of criminal activity, why isn't that person being arrested?
- bad_haircut72 1y agoperhaps the bar for kicking someone off a dating app could be lower than that required for a criminal conviction??
- bitmasher9 1y agoBeing arrested and convicted of a crime is a much higher bar than what is required to ban somebody. I absolutely want private companies to curate their community of users. This is actively happening, and for some content and jurisdictions it is legally required to happen. If you get a strong signal that someone is a bad actor in your community you should remove them.
- sugarpimpdorsey 1y ago[flagged]
- dsr_ 1y agoIf everybody you meet is a jerk, maybe it's not them.
- lwansbrough 1y agoI strongly believe Match Group is single handedly deteriorating relations between genders in regions where they are popular. The commercial incentive Match Group has to prevent churn means the optimal outcome for them is that you never find a partner. And so if you’re outside that top N percentile of popularity, they’ve optimized their apps to abuse you emotionally and financially. They’re engineering the perfect carrot on a stick. One such behaviour, for example, is that when you buy Tinder Plus, they will feed you a couple matches, but withhold more than they give you. Once the subscription expires, they feed you rest of the “Likes You” people into the page where they’re obscured, forcing you to resubscribe if you want to see them. And of course you will never encounter those people just by swiping, they’re purposefully held from you. I’ve recently switched to Facebook Dating because they don’t have any commercial incentives (and in fact probably negative incentives) to NOT match you. Thus they can also give you all of the “Premium” features for free. What Match Group is doing probably isn’t illegal, but I think it probably should be. It’s the same kind of emotional manipulation that casinos are guilty of.
- pavel_lishin 1y ago> I’ve recently switched to Facebook Dating because they don’t have any commercial incentives (and in fact probably negative incentives) to NOT match you. Thus they can also give you all of the “Premium” features for free. Don't they still power this via ads? Every set of eyeballs looking for love is slowly trickling nickels into their bank accounts; it seems like they would have the exact same set of incentives as you describe Match Group having.
- inerte 1y agoThere will still be advertisers if you move to a more serious relationship stage, just different products.
- paxys 1y agoFacebook Dating isn't a standalone product, so people are likely going remain on the app even after they get into a relationship. The service only exists to funnel young people into the Facebook ecosystem. The dynamic is very different from a regular dating app where once you get somewhat serious with someone even having the app still on your phone will be seen as a massive red flag. And Facebook itself has been used as a dating/matchmaking service since well before Facebook Dating or Hinge/Bumble etc. were a thing.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoArticle from February Previously a few comments on the Guardian ver: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43035386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43035386
- gamma42 1y agoCEO of Match Group Spencer Rascoff was on the board of Palantir.
- encoderer 1y agoWorked for him for a few years. He’s a good guy and new on the job at Match.
- lawlessone 1y agois he really though?
- encoderer 1y agoYes, and if you want to claim otherwise you should bring some specifics.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- UebVar 1y agoHim being on the board of Palantir seems very specific. Empowering the worlds dictators is not compatible with my idea of a good guy.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Hikikomori 1y agoDepends on what you think about Palantir and Thiel.
- lawlessone 1y ago>you should bring some specifics. Palantir board member. CEO of match. maybe he's nice to his alsatian?
- deleted 1y ago
- mikkelam 1y agoI've been thinking a lot about building an open source dating app as a non-profit offering. I have a sense that succesful dating contributes highly to overall human happiness. It should be a public service similar to wikipedia or libraries. Free forever, fair and safe, and responsibly managed. It's probably not that expensive to run. But idunno, i'm kinda frightened to "compete" in this market
- gloxkiqcza 1y agoDo you think this could be facilitated via ActivityPub or is that not a viable choice?
- mikkelam 1y agoI think something like the matrix protocol would be better. I would be especially interested in not storing unencrypted user messages. Matrix would be a good choice for this.
- paxys 1y agoWhat would make this app safer than the alternatives?
- mikkelam 1y agoSafe can mean a lot of things to different people i guess. I would love to incorporate some sort of reputation signal. Perhaps positive reinforcement after people have met? Or just having social links? But yeah, i dont have it all figured out yet
- Mistletoe 1y agoI think you should do it. The costs for all these services are still priced like the AOL days where bandwidth mattered. I really don’t think the hosting costs could be much. I had a small dating site decades ago and the cost was almost nothing.
- frfl 1y agoAs I understand it, it's not a technical problem, rather a social one first off: you can build it but it'll be "empty" compared to all other options out there, even if it's technically superior to them. Network effect and all that. There's also a technical problem you'll have to contend with: bots and scammers... so many bots and so many scammers.
- Workaccount2 1y agoLaw enforcement should be able to submit reports that carry real weight. I don't know why people would report this behavior to the app and not the police. But the apps should be telling people to file a police report and have the police contact them. There are enough brain damaged people out there (and definitely on dating apps) that would file a baseless rape report for being stood up or lied to, so the bar should at least be with letting the police handle it.
- sapphicsnail 1y ago> There are enough brain damaged people out there (and definitely on dating apps) that would file a baseless rape report for being stood up or lied to, so the bar should at least be with letting the police handle it. Rape is underreported because this attitude is so prevalent. Reporting a rape is incredibly difficult and traumatizing and rarely leads to a conviction. It also exposes you to violence and harassment to the person who raped you in the first place.
- masfuerte 1y agoParent comment meant that people would report rape on the app for trivial reasons, not that they would falsely report rape to the police.
- ndiddy 1y agoThis is a great example of how large companies are structured so that the organization as a whole is capable of making decisions that would be unthinkable and/or criminal if done by a single individual. As a whole, Match Group: - Hid credible reports of users being sexually assaulted from the public - Did not put up any sort of significant barrier for users reported for rape from making new accounts - Underinvested in safety on their platforms for years, then laid off everyone in their safety org in favor of overseas contractors with little training - Ignored members of Congress asking about how the company responds to reports of sexual violence Despite this, I'm sure that everyone in Match Group's leadership who contributed to the organization making these decisions doesn't think they have any sort of responsibility here, and doesn't have any problem sleeping at night.
- ReptileMan 1y agoTinder responsibility ends with their app, unless they have claimed that they somehow vet the people for safety. Or they provide chaperone service. Putting yourself in a vulnerable position with a person you only have met online without someone trustworthy vouching for them is inherently unwise. Meeting trough friends/collogues has a bit more safety guardrails.
- neuroelectron 1y agoWow what a weird coincidence that there's a monopoly of dating sites, animosity between the sexes is amplified by bots on social media, only a few users get matches and rapes go unreported, and birth rates keep dropping.
- biophysboy 1y agoThis thread is a very clear demonstration of the libertarian bias of HN. The reflex, knee-jerk response to ANY proposal is "how do you enforce it??" regardless of the issue at hand. You can ALWAYS claim that a policy proposal is futile, or will backfire, or will jeopardize some other freedom. The question is about the tradeoffs, which requires considering the evidence at hand. So many concerns being raised here are easily refuted by sentences in the article.
- ponector 1y agoBut why you need a rule which is not enforced? Everyone will ignore it anyway.
- sieep 1y agoFacebook Dating is clearly being used as a 'loss-leader' against these apps, and it is fantastic for end users and the overall market. For those of you who haven't tried it, it offers far more swipes, generous filtering, and no payments required at all for every feature. I'm surprised more people haven't taken notice of it.
- paool 1y agoCouple things. - Didn't even know fb dating was a thing. - people still use fb?
- sieep 1y agoIt is not marketed at all. It just kind of popped up one day. I've never gone back to tinder, etc since then. It is the best experience to me personally. Maybe people over still 40 use the social media site in large numbers. I just have a fake profile to access marketplace & dating.
- stronglikedan 1y ago> I just have a fake profile to access ... dating That just doesn't sound right, lol.
- sieep 1y agoI see what you're saying lol. It is important to specify that the dating profile is different from the social media one, so im not catfishing or anything like that. I am just not sharing personal data with fb on their social media side/profile.
- grep_name 1y agoThe thing that gives me pause is the correlation that all the girls I dated or was interested in college either didn't have a facebook or deleted theirs at some point while I knew them, and I'm worried that the most interesting people will be filtered out Then again, I didn't online date at all in college and am only just considering it now that it's been so long and I just never seem to meet single people anymore. Maybe it's worth a shot, setting up some kind of OLD profile was one of my resolutions for this year
- codedokode 1y agoWhile the story in the article is scary, what's the point of reporting the person to the dating app company? They have no way to check whether there happened a crime or not. Maybe there should be a government-run database which tracks the people reported to police, and the dating apps must warn if the user is in the database or temporarily freeze the account. Anyway such things should be regulated by laws and run by the government rather than by private companies without any legal responsibility.
- stevage 1y ago> Repeatedly, we found that users, soon after being banned, could create new Tinder accounts with the exact same name, birthday, and profile photos used on their banned accounts. Users banned from Tinder were also able to sign up for Hinge, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish without changing those personal details. It is really good to see actual investigative journalism still happening out there.
- Simulacra 1y agoAnd sell essentially nothing but false hope. You're not meant to meet someone, even if you pay.
- fair_enough 1y ago"In September 2024, the House of Representatives passed a bill that requires consumers to be notified if they have interacted with a user on a dating app who has been banned for defrauding consumers of money or personal financial information. But the bill stopped short of addressing the issue of sexual assault on the apps, and it died in the Senate." Freedom to ban a user is freedom of association, but a legal obligation to amplify unsubstantiated accusations subverts due process. This might be unpopular, but I like living in a society with due process. “It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.” -John Adams, founding father and father of OG abolitionist John Quincy Adams