Industry

Image: Tinder

Tinder announced the launch of its latest safety feature to address abuse over the app, dubbed “House Rules.”

Tinder users must agree to the list of house rules outlined in a 20-page safety guide before they can download the service. The guide highlights the app’s safety features, including photo verification, how to report and block abusive users, according to News.com Australia.

The guide also provides tips for dating in person, including advice to Tinder users to schedule a video call beforehand to “get a vibe for the other person” according to Global Dating Insights. It also provides tips like sharing details and location of the date with friends or family beforehand, and keeping track of drinks to avoid spiking.

Match Group is expected to lay off up to 200 employees, or about 8 percent of its workforce (currently around 2400 employees before the cut) after sharing a disappointing outlook for the first half of 2023 in its latest earnings call.

According to Reuters, the company blamed “significant” poor product execution at Tinder, in addition to dealing with a tough economy and a strong dollar. CEO Bernard Kim brought in a new management team and is in the process of rebranding Match Group’s star app.

The layoffs were primarily in recruiting, with CFO Gary Swidler noting that the company is restricting its hiring to Hinge and other growth businesses, with notable cuts to Tinder staff.

Representatives from dating app companies alongside ministers, victim-survivors, government officials and technology companies attended a roundtable in Sydney to discuss safety measures needed for dating apps. They discussed adding background checks and ID verification requirements, as well as increasing transparency and sharing of data between dating app companies.

According to The Guardian, Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said that “there’s no one law that’s going to fix this issue,” placing the burden of responsibility on dating app companies.

The talks were led by federal communications minister, Michelle Rowland and included representatives for popular dating apps such as Bumble and Tinder. She noted the talks were an “important first step,” according to The Guardian. The roundtable was convened after a report from the Australian Institute of Criminology found that three quarters of survey respondents had been subjected to sexual violence on dating apps in the last five years.

Match Group has named new key executives, including its first CTO and a new President and CFO, as well as a new focus on four key businesses – Tinder, Hinge, Asia and Evergreen & Emerging.

According to the company’s press release, Gary Swindler was named to the top position of Match Group as President and CFO, and Will Wu joins as chief technology officer, a newly created position, to oversee product innovation across all apps. Swindler was promoted from his position as CFO and COO and Wu joins from Snap Inc., where he oversaw the commercialization of Snap’s developer platforms and spearheaded the creation of its most famous features like “Discover” and the “Chat” messaging feature, as well as Snap’s social gaming feature. 

Match Group is betting big on Wu, who brings an impressive background with developing one of the earliest revenue streams for Snap, as well as developing Snap’s primary social engagement driver.

Tinder appears to be losing its steady growth of not only paid subscribers, but also new app installs. Bernard Kim is heading the dating app as well as its parent company Match Group and has installed a new executive team he hopes will turn the ship around.

According to Bloomberg, Tinder hit a high of almost 80 million users in 2020, in part due to a global pandemic and more people turning to dating apps while they were in lockdown. Since, the app has declined to 75.7 million users in 2021 and just last year fell to 71.1 million users.

At the same time, new users for Hinge and Bumble have increased. For Bumble, new installs of its signature app have jumped over 60 percent, from 18.1 million in 2020 to 29 million in 2022. And Hinge is showing strong growth as well, with 11.1 million new users in 2022 compared to 8.4 million in 2020.

Following a devastating study by Brigham Young University which found that hundreds of instances of rape in Utah could be linked to dating apps, the state’s lawmakers are introducing legislation to help curb the problem.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, under the proposed legislation, online dating platforms would be required to provide a list of safety measures as well as instructions for how users can report assaults. These companies will also be expected to notify members if background checks are conducted and if a user they’ve messaged has been banned from the app.

The legislation had been proposed before, but now is being reintroduced this legislative session by state Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, according to The Tribune.