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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.

The New eHarmony Homepage

On November 4th eHarmony released a massive update to their dating service. Both the website and dating apps (iOS and Android) received a complete overhaul.

It was just a year ago that eHarmony was purchased by Germany's Parship Elite Group. At that time Parship Elite Group planned to move eHarmony to their existing platform which currently runs their other dating platforms (most are in Europe). An interview with Tim Schiffers, the CEO of Parship Elite Group stated that the migration could take as long as a year but would be well worth it since they have invested a lot in their technical setup to ensure ease of maintenance and feature upgrades.

Facebook Dating has announced the launch of its new “Stories” feature, which allows users of the service to include stories from their Facebook and Instagram feeds.

Stories can’t be directly created in a user’s dating profile, according to Forbes. Instead, when they are created in Facebook or Instagram, the feature allows for that content to be shared to the Facebook Dating profile. In order to access the new feature, users are required to opt-in by linking their Facebook and Instagram accounts to their dating profile. Once the accounts are linked, they can add any stories they’ve posted in the last 24 hours.

League Live = Video Speed Dating

Exclusive dating app The League has announced the launch of its newest feature: two-minute live video chats, intended to work like virtual speed dating.

The feature is called League Live, and users can opt in to participate, according to The Verge. It works like this: starting December 1^st, the video dates will begin at 9:00pm on Sundays for those who have opted in, and the app will automatically pair a couple up based on their preferences and location as they do for matches.

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.

This is a continuation of our articles about Plenty of Fishes popular single events which are hosted by members. We initially looked at the POF Single Events App (which has since been removed) and the closure of the POF Forums where these events first was support.

These events first got started by users posting in the POF forum many years ago. Plenty of Fish took notice and added event specific categories to the forums and eventually added event features that allowed hosts to create an event and have members join those events. By 2017 POF wanted to move away from the forum (as it was becoming extremely difficult to moderate) and released a separate app that allowed members to find and host events. While the app initially worked well it was not supported much by the development team and was dropped from the app store within 2 years. It also didn't help that the forum continued to support the original POF events which we believe was separate from the POF Single Events App. This meant users looking for single events never really migrated from using the forums to the new app. Also, having 2 separate apps, 1 for dating and 1 for single events made it harder for new POF users to even know that single events hosted by POF members was even a thing.