Tinder’s New Safety Measures
Emily Sumner praises Tinder’s new safety measures
From a young age we are always taught about stranger danger, and the threats of talking to people online, who could be anybody hiding behind a screen. However, many now do this on a daily basis through dating apps, and it is becoming a completely normalised activity.
Dating a person you have never met has its daunting prospects, but is also exciting, and something that is very much on the rise; recently, around one in three relationships in the UK have started online via dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble or Hinge. With this form of romantic introduction growing, concerns have arisen around the safety of users meeting people they have never seen face to face, and do not properly know. In response to this, the dating app Tinder has begun to implement new safety measures to protect people from potential danger and provide support to those who are threatened or made to feel uncomfortable.
Tinder has begun to implement new safety measures to protect people from potential danger
Tinder has begun to work with the personal safety app Noonlight, which gives users the chance to tell the app the name of the person they are going on a date with, and the time and location of where they are meeting. Ultimately, they are able to silently alert the emergency services, through the app acting like a panic button, if they feel they are in danger or need help to get away.
Alongside this new Safety Centre present on the Tinder app, there will be a photo verification system which aims to check the legitimacy of accounts and try to scout out those who are pretending to be others. Profiles that are verified as real people and not ‘catfishes’ are given a blue tick next to their name to make it clear. Likewise, Tinder has also introduced an aspect that detects messages they deem offensive or unwanted, by asking ‘Does This Bother You?’ and allowing users to reject them.
The main aim of these new concepts is to ensure that everyone using the app feels as safe as possible and can get the help they need immediately if they are worried or feel in danger. With recorded sexual offences involving online dating almost doubling in the past four years, the dark side of it has become more prevalent, and highlights how it can be dangerous if not treated properly and sensibly. Eli Seidman, CEO of Tinder, stated that ‘I’m proud to share these updates, which represent an important step in driving our safety work forward at an unmatched scale’. Whilst these precautions seem necessary to ensure security, there are concerns that the updates will be abused, or some users may use it to accidentally: “users [may] accidentally trigger false alarms that summon police during a date that is actually going well”.
The main aim of these new concepts is to ensure that everyone using the app feels as safe as possible and can get the help they need
Yet, the Match Group chief executive Mandy Ginsberg says that ‘A safe and positive dating experience is crucial to our business’; these developments are very positive in the movement forward for online dating, and certainly seem as though they will be well received, making online dating a much more comfortable, and essentially safe way to meet people.