Tinder

Tinder's Year in Swipe Review

Image: Tinder

Tinder has published its second annual ‘Year In Swipe’ review, a roundup of the biggest trends that unfolded on the dating platform in 2019. Last year’s 2018 Year In Swipe identified Monday as the best day to be on the app, August as the hottest month of the year for singles and music festivals, royal weddings and sporting events as popular times for users to log in. This year, the report focused on the dating habits of Gen Z.

People under 25 now make up the majority of the Tinder community. According to the 2019 Year In Swipe, this generation is out to change the world. Younger users are more likely to mention causes or missions in their bios. Subjects like “climate change,” “social justice,” “the environment” and “gun control” top the list of concerns for Gen Z. Millennials, in contrast, are looking to connect over adventure — they’re 3x more likely to talk about about travel in their bios.

A revealing report published by ProPublica found that Match Group did not conduct background checks on users of their popular free platforms, including Tinder, Plenty of Fish, and OkCupid, leaving their members vulnerable to sexual assault.

Columbia Journalism Investigations analyzed more than 150 incidents of sexual assault among people who met through dating apps over the last decade, ProPublica reported. Most met their matches through Match Group apps. The researchers discovered that registered sex offenders were using Match Group apps like Tinder and went on dates with women who had no idea, because while Match Group conducts background checks for paid apps like Match, they don’t for their free apps.

Tinder claims to have made about 30 billion matches to date over its highly successful app (about 26 million per day, according to an article in The Daily Mail), but it seems only 50 percent of them ever meet one of their matches face-to-face. In order to increase their chances of meeting a date IRL, users have to match with far more people than they actually expect to meet, according to the study.

On average, when participants were asked how many matches they had actually met up with in real life, men averaged 1.9 partners and women 2.2 partners, despite matching with 111 and 124 respectively.

A team from Norwegian University of Science and Technology surveyed 269 students in Norway who were all Tinder users, and 60 percent of those surveyed were women.

Tinder CEO Elie Seidman

Tinder CEO Elie Seidman has promised to redouble the company’s efforts to make its dating service a safe and welcoming platform for everyone. In a blog post, Seidman acknowledged that transgender users have faced harrassment and discrimination on the app, and that there is important work to be done before Tinder is “a place where people everywhere can be who they are and love who they love.”

Tinder has taken notable steps towards this goal in recent years. The company partnered with GLAAD in June 2019 to introduce the Orientation feature, which allows users to choose up to three labels that describe their sexual orientation to improve matching based on identity and sexual preferences. Tinder previously partnered with GLAAD in 2016 to launch the More Genders feature, which expanded the options users have to describe their gender identity. But trans users say these updates do not go far enough.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Tinder co-founder Sean Rad “irrelevant” back in 2014, but still gave him special access to user data, according to leaked emails reported by Forbes.

Zuckerberg had considered entering the online dating industry as far back as 2014, but ultimately put the decision on hold and granted the founder of Tinder, now one of the most popular dating apps in the world, special access to user data. Facebook colleagues suggested he meet with Rad, but Zuckerberg rejected the suggestion, saying in the emails, “I don’t think he’s that relevant. He probably just wants to make sure we won’t turn off their API.”

Goodbye dating, hello good deeds. Tinder co-founder and former CEO Sean Rad announced his newest venture at the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit: Good Today, a nonprofit service that makes it easy to support charitable organizations through small daily donations. Rad has joined the company as a founding board member alongside several other notable figures from the business, tech and entrepreneurship worlds.

Good Today users sign up and select a recurring giving plan — 25¢, 50¢ or $1 a day, paid in monthly or yearly installments. Each morning, they receive an email highlighting the cause of the day and two relevant charities to choose from. They can elect to pick the charity that will receive that day’s donation or opt to have their donation roll over to the next day. Good Today is a 501(c)3 organization, as are all the charities it features, and subscriptions are tax deductible.