India

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 released its first quarter revenue forecast, falling below Wall Street analyst expectations as users continue to cut back on their dating app spending.

According to Reuters, the company also authorized a $1 billion share buyback plan.

The company, which owns Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid and Match among other dating apps, said paying users declined 5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023 compared to the previous year, to 15.2 million. It expects revenue between $850 and $860 million for the first quarter, down from analysts’ forecasts of $867 million on average, according to Reuters.

Clean Slating is the newest dating trend in India to kick off 2024, at least according to dating app Bumble.

The term refers to letting go of past relationships and baggage that you no longer want to hold onto, and starting the year on a clean slate, according to The Deccan Chronicle.

According to the nationwide study, an overwhelming 71 percent of Indians said they are starting the new year on a clean slate, leaving the past behind. Bumble’s findings also revealed that 70 percent of respondents feel that making peace with exes and past relationships going into 2024 gives them a fresh start. Sixty-nine percent say that it will “open them up to new experiences and people,” and 67 percent said it will allow them deeper connections, according to the Chronicle.

A new survey of Bumble’s Indian users found that 63 percent want a date for Festival Season. Many singles work and live away from their hometowns, and crave companionship at this time of year.

According to Hindustan Times, the study also found that 36 percent of respondents like to enjoy festival season with friends, and 27 percent with their partners.

Festivals occur in India year-round, but perhaps one of the more famous festivals, Diwali, is a five-day festival that takes place in October/ November and represents the start of the Hindu New Year. Specifically, it celebrates Lord Rama and his wife Sita’s return to their kingdom after defeating evil demons, according to Hindu tradition. The festivities are planned around the lunar cycle.  

Tinder has partnered with the Centre for Social Research (CSR) to create a new safety guide for app users in India.

The safety guide, along with 15 safety features that are accessible on the Tinder app, are part of Tinder’s efforts to improve safety for users. The new guide “leverages CSR India’s insights amid the intersection of technology and violence against women,” according to Tinder’s announcement.

Starting in September, Tinder users will get a prompt through the app’s messaging system on how to access the safety guide, according to the Hindustan Times.

Muzz dating app, formerly MuzzMatch, has had a hard time growing an active userbase in India, despite the country having the third largest Muslim population in the world. Also, nearly 50% of India’s population is under 25 years, making the country the second-largest market for dating apps (after the United States).

Muzz is marketed as a matchmaking app rather than a dating app for Muslim singles, because as founder Shahzad Younas told Rest of World: ““We don’t date. We get people married.” The app however, is encountering safety problems concerning fake accounts and bots, a problem for all dating apps. But there are more issues to consider for a marriage-minded app in India, because dating app users have had their photos taken and used for other purposes.

One such high-profile incident happened in 2022, where a group worked to scrape photos of prominent Indian Muslim women and uploaded them to a dating app “listing them at ‘auction’ with an attempt to humiliate them,” according to Rest of World. This kind of behavior could become more common without specific protocols and safety measures in place.