Tinder

It seems like almost every Tinder user has a horror story. For some, it’s a first date that looks nothing like their photos. For others, it’s being ghosted after weeks of messaging back and forth. And for many, it’s connections that end in harrassment, discrimination, insults, unwanted sexual advances and other ills that online dating has become notorious for.

Tinder is hoping to curb behavior that violates its community standards with a recent update. The company announced in a blog post that it will now use artificial intelligence to detect offensive messages before they reach their intended recipients. The feature, called Does This Bother You?, is powered by machine learning and aided by human members of the Tinder community. Similar technology also plays a role in Undo, an upcoming feature that will allow Tinder members to take back a message containing potentially offensive language before it’s sent.

Recipient of Gold
Tinder

Recipient of Silver
POF

Recipient of Bronze
Match

The 2020 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll went online October 1^st, 2019. It ran for 3 months and then closed for voting on December 31^st, 2019. 513 visitors took time and cast their vote in the poll. The poll asked the following question:

Which dating app or site would you recommend for the Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award?

Voters get to choose 1 dating service from a selection of 10 of the top dating services in 2019. These services are selected by the Editors of DatingSitesReviews.com. For this award the dating service which received the most votes gets the Gold, second place gets Silver, and the third, Bronze.

It was a really close race this year. The top 3 results differed by only 2% in votes (usually this number is much greater). The votes for all the dating services were much more evenly spread out with the lowest and highest only having just less than a 10% difference (this number in previous years could be higher than 30%). What this tells us is that the dating services have matured and user experiences and successes have evened out more across the competition.

The recipient of the 2020 Single's Choice Gold Award is Tinder. Tinder received almost 15% of the vote which works out to 76 votes. Tinder was the winner of Gold as well last year but had 17% of the vote.

The recipient of the 2020 Single's Choice Silver Award is POF (Plenty of Fish). Once again POF comes in second place with 13.65% of the vote (70 votes in total). This is an improvement for them over last year when comparing votes by about half a percent.

The recipient of the 2020 Single's Choice Bronze Award is Match.com. Match received 12.67% of the votes (65 votes) and almost was able to achieve second place. In fact Match missed out on this award last year and it is the first time a paid only dating service has won when competing against free dating services (in previous years we had separated free and paid services in the poll). So this is quite an accomplishment.

Recipient
Tinder

Tinder is this years recipient of the Editor's Top Pick - Over All award. In most years the winner of this award usually goes to the the Editors choice of the best paid dating service or the best free dating service. This year is different though.

So why did Tinder stand out over either award winners Match and POF?

Match Group announced its investment in and partnership with safety platform Noonlight to roll out a series of safety tools across its apps, including a “panic” button for emergencies.

According to Tech Crunch, the new feature will allow users to discreetly summon emergency services through the app if they are feeling uneasy or need assistance while on a date. The user can input information about their dates, including when and where they are going and with whom. They can then share their location so the app tracks them during the date, and hit a panic button if they feel unsafe. The panic button connects the user with Noonlight’s dispatchers, and if needed, Noonlight will alert emergency responders to their location. 

Popular dating apps including Tinder, OkCupid, Happn, and Grindr have come under fire from consumer rights groups and privacy coalitions for sharing personal data of their users with third parties, specifically advertisers.

A study was published this month from the Norwegian Consumer Council that showed 10 apps were collecting sensitive information including a user’s exact location from GPS tracking, sexual orientation, religious and political beliefs, drug use and other information and sharing it with at least 135 different third party companies, according to several reports. Some of those businesses included household names like Google and Facebook, but also lesser-known adtech companies such as OpenX, MoPub, and AppNexus. The study only looked at apps on Android phones, according to NPR.

This type of data collection and sharing violates the European Union’s rules to protect user data online under the General Data Protection Regulation.

The newest generation entering adulthood is Gen Z (born 1995 or later) – those late teen and early twenty-somethings who plan to vote in their first election. And the thing they seem to crave most from a dating app like Tinder is connecting with other political activists.

Social justice is a big part of forging connections for Gen Z. They are facing a lot of challenges with rising student debt, low-paying jobs, and gun violence, but one of their biggest concerns is the threat of climate change. They want to meet and date others who are willing to fight and protest with them on a variety of social justice issues.