Dating

There comes a time in every person's life when they have to turn down a date. It might be because you're not interested, you're already seeing someone, or you need more time. Whatever the reason, turning someone down can be difficult. Here are a few tips on how to do it politely.

Acknowledge Their Feelings

There are a few different ways to decline a date politely. One option is to acknowledge their feelings. Thank them for asking you out, and let them know that you appreciate their interest. Then, explain that you're not interested in dating now and wish them the best of luck in their search for someone special.

Cybersecurity company Avast has pointed to a popular AI tool that is helping scammers build better fake dating profiles and manipulate unsuspecting dating app users.

Nicknamed LoveGPT, the software has been around a while, but now its capabilities are stronger since it has incorporated AI into its tool. Now, LoveGPT can create more believable and better crafted profiles to trap users into interacting with them, not realizing they are chatting with a bot. This makes it easier to lure them into a scam.

According to website Decrypt, Avast claims that LoveGPT can create fake profiles on at least 13 different dating sites while it scrapes user photos, messages, profile bios, and other data. (It stores the scraped data in multiple databases.) The tool then separates users into different demographic categories, such as age, to better target victims and create more realistic profiles.

Image: Bumble

Dating app Bumble is distributing campus safety kits to college students to help them date more safely on college campuses.

The Austin-based dating app company will distribute hundreds of drink spike prevention products from NightCap, along with safety alarms from She’s Birdie, to students at the University of Texas in Austin as well as 160 other campuses around the country, according to Axios.

The drink spike prevention product looks like a hair scrunchie according to Axios, and can fit over the top of a glass to cover it, leaving room for only a straw. Another selling point is that women can wear them in their hair or around their wrists until they need them, making them easy to carry and use.

Image: Tinder & Peacock

Dating app Tinder has partnered with Peacock streaming service to launch “Horror Movies” as an in-app Interest and also to host private date night screenings for horror movie fans.

The new Horror Movies Interest badge Tinder is adding allows its users to filter and search for those who share a love of scary films, according to Tinder’s press release. In addition, Peacock is adding a new dedicated “For You and Boo” date night collection to its service, which will be available starting October 5th.

To add the new interest badge to their profiles, users can go to “edit profile” and scroll down through the interests to find “Horror Movies,” and select it. Once added, Tinder users will also be eligible for an exclusive in-app offer, but only between October 4 and October 31.

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.

The Australian government told the dating app industry that they must improve safety standards on their apps or risk being forced to make changes through legislation. Dating app companies were given until June 30th, 2024 to develop a “voluntary code of conduct” to address user concerns about safety.

According to the Associated Press, the government was basing its decision on new research that found three-quarters of dating app users in Australia between 2016 and 2021 had suffered some form of sexual violence. The research was conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology and published last year.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland noted that dating apps have become the most popular way to meet people, and therefore must improve when it comes to protecting the people using them. “The government is concerned about rates of sexual harassment, abusive and threatening language, unsolicited sexual images and violence facilitated by these platforms,” she said, according to Associated Press.