Safety

LA Weekly unveiled a list of the best online dating sites for Trans singles, with OkCupid and My Transsexual Date among the top choices.

The list was created with attention to the specific needs of trans daters, notably in regard to safety, the magazine points out. While many mainstream dating platforms have a section or choices for transgender people, the transgender community is often subject to abuse from intolerant or ignorant cis users, or they are fetishized and treated as objects. This makes dating apps particularly tricky and anxiety-provoking for trans people.

Some online dating sites provide a safe space better than others, and My Transsexual Date and OkCupid are among them. 

Garbo is a non-profit provider of Background Checks

Tinder announced that it will offer background checks on potential dates, a new measure that parent company Match Group has taken to improve safety for users of the app. Currently no dating app conducts criminal background checks on users, so this is a huge step forward for safety advocates.

Match Group has partnered with Garbo, a non-profit that provides background checks, and plans to debut an in-app background check feature on Tinder later this year according to The Washington Post. There are no details yet on the cost of the service.

Tracey Breeden, Match’s new head of safety and social advocacy, said in an interview: “This gives [Tinder users] an opportunity and that comfort level. Maybe they want more information before they have a video chat, maybe they want more information before they meet in person.”

If you’ve been vaccinated, you might want to include it in your online profile. Several online dating apps have now reported seeing increased interest around the topic of vaccines.

According to a report from Vice in early March, a Tinder spokesperson told Motherboard that they’d seen a 238 percent increase in vaccine mentions in user bios in January, and noticed the interest surrounding the subject as early as November. Bumble also reported an increase in the number of people using the words “vaccine” or “vaccinated” in their profiles dating back to December. In the same time period, the number of profiles on Scruff with the word “vaccinated” added has doubled.

Image: FTC

The Federal Trade Commission found that more online dating scams happened in 2020 than ever before, thanks to people flocking to dating apps in the wake of the pandemic. 

The FTC released a new report in February citing the disturbing news, noting that dating app scams are the most lucrative for criminals because they provide an easy way to access and manipulate targets. Scammers are able to create an emotional connection with their victims when they target them on dating apps, and are better able to keep extracting money. The total amount of stolen funds on dating apps in 2020 was estimated to be $304 million, or about $2,500 per victim. This was double the amount stolen from dating app users in 2019, according to Insider.

Utah House Committee

The Judiciary Committee in the Utah House of Representatives just passed a bill that would allow people to search the legal records of anyone they meet online, providing new safety measures for online daters.

The bill would allow Utah residents to have easier access to a service called Xchange, which provides information from Utah’s public court system, according to The Daily Universe, the paper published by Brigham Young University. Right now, broad access is limited, but if the bill is passed, residents can opt to pay a monthly fee to use it and get relevant history and information on potential dates.

Image: Bumble

Female-forward dating app Bumble said it will ban users who engage in body-shaming on the app.

The company said that it’s employing an algorithm that identifies and flags users engaging in derogatory language that is “fatphobic, racist, or homophobic,” according to The Guardian. Once these accounts are flagged, moderators will analyze the conversation to determine whether the user violated the new policy. If they are determined to have used inappropriate language, they will receive a warning, and if they engaged repeatedly in such language or hateful rhetoric, they will be banned.