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Image: Bumble & Netflix

Dating app Bumble has teamed up with leading streaming service Netflix to launch a game that is themed around some of its most popular shows, including Emily in Paris, Squid Game, Selling Sunset, and Stranger Things, among others.

According to Netflix’s blog post, the new game called Netflix Nights In will challenge matches to find out how deep their knowledge goes about their favorite shows by answering questions like: “How much was Davina’s infamous listing in Selling Sunset?” In a twist, the game requires matches to answer the question before responses are revealed, and both will be able to see their compatibility based on their answers.

Stars from fan favorites like Ashley Park from Emily in Paris or Jonathan Daviss from Outer Banks will present new questions each week in the app, according to Netflix.

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.

Image: OkCupid

A new study by OkCupid found that 87 percent of its female users are pro-choice, and about half (49%) said that a date’s differing opinion on abortion would make them think twice about dating them. The company noted that more than one million users added the “I’m Pro-Choice” badge to their profiles.

OkCupid also found that views on abortion were more polarizing than competing views on politics (where 30% said they would think twice about dating someone with different views). And last year, 72 percent of women said they would not move to a state where abortion was illegal, and 37 percent said they would move out of their state if abortion became illegal there.

The new study comes as the landmark ruling of Roe v Wade would have turned 50 this year. It was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in June of last year, which removed federal protections for those receiving and providing abortions. Since then, many states have opted to place severe restrictions on who can access abortion care, with some banning the practice outright. Texas enacted some of the most extreme anti-abortion laws, rewarding people for turning in to authorities anyone who assists a woman in getting an abortion.

Major Australian news outlet ABC is providing tips for dating app users to prevent scammers from obtaining their personal information.

A report from the Australian Competition Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Scamwatch came out that dating app users lost $38 million to romance scammers on dating apps across the country in 2022 alone, alerting officials to a growing problem. Many dating app users have no idea how easy it is to gather information about a person from what they post in their profiles, so ABC obtained tips from security experts to help raise awareness. 

According to associate professor at Central Queensland University’s College of Information and Communication Technology Ritesh Chugh, scammers don’t need access to a lot of information. If they have a couple of pieces, such as your full name or birthdate, that could be enough for them to do some damage. And even if you aren’t posting this information to your profile, there are ways they can obtain it.

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.