General News

The government in the municipality of Tokyo announced it will be launching a state-run dating app to help young singles connect, and to increase birth and marriage rates. This state run dating app was first brought to our intention back at the beginning of the year.

According to Associated Press, “Tokyo Futari Story,” the city’s new initiative, is an effort to increase couples or “futari,” in a country where young people are more commonly alone. The initiative will involve an online dating site, but the government is also developing an app.

Tokyo City Hall is heading the project and has declined to disclose many details. However, The Japan Times reported that singles who sign up will need to verify their identity through official documentation, and to prove that they are single. Government officials told the paper that tax records will be required to prove income, and potential users of the app must sign a form that says they are ready to marry. (The intention of the app is, after all, to increase marriages and childbirth rates.)

Young daters in India are looking to find love based on their passion for sports like Cricket, according to a new study by dating app Happn.

According to the Deccan Chronicle, more than 60 percent of singles on the app are looking to match with someone who shares their love of sports. Cricket is by far the favorite sport among daters, but women over 35 are particularly enthralled with the sport (79 percent) and are more likely to match with someone else who shares that passion.

The majority of singles (over 70 percent) also want their partners to be athletic as well as being into sports. Among Gen Z singles, that figure rises to 83 percent. Women are more interested in playing a sport together on a date than men are, too.

Image: Grindr

Grindr has announced it has partnered with Equality in Movement in Georgia and MPOWER in Ireland to connect its users in these countries with at-home HIV testing kits.

According to the company’s blog post, Grindr says it wants to address the global HIV epidemic by making it easier for its users to have access to testing. While many countries have local testing centers, they can still be difficult to access, expensive, and many people still don’t want the stigma of going to a public place to get tested.

Users in Georgia and Ireland will have dedicated buttons on the app’s interface to order at-home self-test kits, any time of day. The app wanted the access to tests to be as simple as Covid tests have become for most folks. The company also wants to encourage more people to test for HIV by alleviating the stigma with in-person tests and allowing them to test in the privacy of their own home.

Dating apps are struggling right now, and many Gen Z women are looking to other platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram to meet people.

A new article in The Financial Times cites a poll from Mintel that found that 47 percent of men between 18 and 34 had used a dating app or website to meet someone this past year, compared to only 25 percent of women of the same age.

“Trying to engage young women is the biggest struggle for dating apps,” said Rebecca McGrath, associate director for media and technology at Mintel. “Significant gender skew means it is harder for men to find matches and, subsequently, women often become bombarded, making the experience worse for all.”

A new survey from Forbes Health has revealed that a whopping 80 percent of Gen Z and Millennial respondents said they are burned out from dating apps.

Forbes surveyed 1,000 singles over eighteen years old who had used a dating app in the past year and found that 40 percent of people feel burned out because they have been unable to find a good connection with someone on an app. Meanwhile, 35 percent say it’s due to being disappointed by people, and 27 percent say it’s because they have been rejected.

Interestingly, twenty-four percent say they feel burned out because of having repetitive conversations with many matches at once, 22 percent say it’s due to swiping, and 21 percent say it’s from all the time they spend on the apps, according to Forbes.

Grindr’s new Chief Privacy Officer Kelly Peterson Miranda is setting the record straight regarding the app’s privacy policies and use of personal data following allegations and a recent lawsuit.

The interview with The Record Media takes place in the wake of several allegations that Grindr has violated user privacy rights when it comes to their personal data.

The LGBTQ dating app was sued in April for allegedly sharing the HIV status of its users with third parties without their consent. Before that, its former privacy officer Ronald De Jesus has said that the company stored user data, including photos and videos, even after people deleted their accounts, which violated the app’s privacy policy.

And last year, the Electronic Privacy Information Center appealed to the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Grindr for its history of abuses.