Contributed by: kellyseal on Wednesday, March 19 2025 @ 01:42 pm
Last modified on Wednesday, March 26 2025 @ 01:53 pm
An investigation into Match Group by nonprofit news organization The Markup and Pulitzer Center's AI Accountability Network found that the company had information about users who were reported for sexual assault, but did not ban them from its apps, publicly identify them, or report them to authorities.
This report follows the company’s ouster of CEO Bernard Kim, who was not able to turn around the company’s revenue decline over the past several quarters. He was replaced by Zillow Group Inc. co-founder Spencer Rascoff.
Now, Match Group is facing the fallout from this investigation.
According to The Markup[*1] , one Hinge user, a 34-year-old cardiologist, was reported for rape multiple times via the app’s reporting system (and later convicted and sentenced), but he was still allowed to remain on the app. He was even highlighted as a “Standout” profile for receiving a lot of attention.
Investigators found that in addition to the company’s lack of transparency in regard to assault and abuse reports, Match Group didn’t prevent problematic users from signing up on its other apps if they were already banned from one. Match Group’s official safety policy stated that when a user is reported for assault, “all accounts found that are associated with that user will be banned from our platforms,” but they did not seem to enforce this policy.
Statistical journalist Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett said in the report: "During multiple tests, we successfully created new accounts without needing to change the user's name, birthday, or profile photos. The Markup did not test any methods that required significant technical knowledge and only utilized information that would be easily accessible to someone who did a cursory search of how to get around a ban."
The report also noted that Match Group has been keeping track of which users have been reported for assault since 2016, according to the internal company documents the investigators acquired. Match Group’s central database also holds records of all reports of abuse and assault across the entire suite of apps, and by 2022, was collecting hundreds of incidents per week, according to The Markup. But the company was resistant to apply additional safety protocols that might stall revenue growth, according to the report.
Match Group has taken measures over the years to address safety concerns, but according to Markup it has fallen short of expectations.
In 2020, Match Group hired Tracy Breeden to head up safety across its apps, the first executive and high-profile hire to directly address the issue. She initiated the partnership between Match Group and safety service Garbo, allowing users do background checks on potential dates. But this union didn’t last long. “It’s become clear that most online platforms aren’t legitimately committed to trust and safety for their users,” Garbo wrote in a blog post in 2023.
When revenue started to decline Breeden was let go in 2022, and safety was put on the back burner.
Match Group defended itself in a statement that read: “We take every report of misconduct seriously, and vigilantly remove and block accounts that have violated our rules regarding this behavior.”