Communication

A new report on dating app security found that a majority of 70 percent of dating app users had been scammed on one of the dating platforms.

According to Newsweek, the study surveyed people who had used dating apps over the past three years, and 93 percent said they would go back to using the apps, even those who said they were scammed or had their information stolen.

When users sign up for these platforms, their personal information, even social security numbers, become vulnerable to scammers. Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed said they were asked to verify their identity on a dating app and 65 percent said they’d provided their social security numbers.

Tinder has just launched a new online course in partnership with youth platform Yuvaa to educate young daters on consent.

The 90-minute self-learning course entitled “Let’s Talk Consent” will be available for free on the Coursera platform, and is intended to be a resource for young adults in India to learn about interpersonal consent.

According to CNBC, there are five main topics in the course: “understanding consent in personal relationships, setting and enforcing personal boundaries, recognizing signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships via red, green and gray flags, and navigating online and offline interactions with safety and respect.”

Match Group signed a partnership deal with OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4, which includes over 1,000 ChatGPT Enterprise licenses for company employees to help with their work-related tasks. Match Group noted that the press release announcing the move was written by ChatGPT.

While Match Group has been heavily focused on using AI to develop new features for its platform, this move incorporates it into the company’s internal workflow. Employees will use ChatGPT-4 to aid with coding, design, analysis, to build templates, and other tasks.

It will also help with marketing communications, although the press release is a bit over the top. As Tech Crunch notes, even though releases are designed to create buzz and excitement, Match’s latest announcement is heavy with love analogies and puns, which makes for a groan-inducing read.

A federal lawsuit was filed in a San Francisco court against Match Group, alleging that the dating app company creates apps that hook users with promises of love, and then push people to pay money to keep swiping.

According to NPR, the lawsuit was brought by six plaintiffs in New York, California, and Florida, alleging that Match Group “gamifies” its apps to “transform users into gamblers locked in a search for psychological rewards that Match makes elusive on purpose.”

Match Group owns popular apps Tinder, Hinge, Match, OkCupid and The League, among others.

The lawsuit goes on to claim that Match Group’s apps are designed to turn users into addicts who keep swiping; and keep purchasing subscriptions and paid features to be able to keep searching for matches. The plaintiffs also claim that the company has violated state and federal consumer protection laws and engaged in false advertising.

Image: Tinder

Tinder has updated its community guidelines with AI-based warnings that detect problematic messages and behavior of users and issue warning messages to adhere to the community guidelines, or they will be removed from the app.

The new warnings, according to Tinder’s press release, center around three categories: authenticity, respect and inclusivity.

The warnings come as an update to the Community Guidelines, which serve as the basis for expected behavior of users on the app. They aim to protect users against harassment, and “advertising and impersonation,” according to the release.

Image: Bumble

Dating app Bumble launched Deception Detector, an AI-based feature that aims to cut down on bots and fake profiles.

According to ZD Net, the new feature leverages the machine learning-based technology to help identify fake, scam or spam profiles on the app before the user comes into contact with them. The feature can assess the authenticity of a profile and, according to Bumble’s test, supported automatically blocking 95 percent of accounts identified as spam or scam by the company.

Bumble was quick to add that the AI-based feature will be used in conjunction with “dedicated human support” for added safety for its members.

Bumble also said in its release that within the first two months of the technology’s introduction, the platform saw member reports of spam, scam, and fake accounts reduced by 45%.