General News

Image: Bumble

Dating app Bumble is rekindling its “Stand for Safety” initiative in India to help combat online abuse.

According to Business Today India, the company released a guidebook created in partnership with the Centre for Social Research (CSR), a non-profit, and Nyaaya, an open-access digital resource center that educates people about their rights. The guide will “drive awareness around digital safety and support the community in recognizing and combating online abuse, bullying, and discrimination.”

Bumble decided to relaunch the initiative after conducting a survey across India on the scope and effects of online harassment. The company found that 50 percent of respondents had seen hateful online content, and around 40 percent have faced hate speech and bullying in regard to their particular community, or to their physical appearance.

In time for Pride month, Tinder has launched a new glossary and resource called “Let’s Talk Gender,” aimed at helping its users to understand and talk about gender with potential dates.

According to the dating app company, the guide was described as a “dynamic, living guide and glossary, developed with a diverse group of several contributors from the LGBTQ+ community,” according to Business Today. Tinder’s LGBTQ+ population has grown at twice the rate of its overall membership, according to the company, making this an important issue to address for those who might not know how to talk about gender and sexuality.

LetsTalkGender.in was developed by experts in partnership with Gaysi Family, a media platform for LGBTQ+ people from across Southeast Asia to help them share their experiences and stories, as well as to engage with others in the community.

Hinge announced that it has launched a new feature called “Dating Intentions” to encourage users to be more honest and upfront about what kind of relationship they are looking for.

According to Tech Crunch, the feature allows users to select a dating goal from a drop-down menu, which will be displayed in their profile. Some options include “life partner,” “long-term,” “open to short-term,” “short term, open to long-term,” “short term,” and “figuring out my dating goals.”

Online daters have grown increasingly frustrated with forming relationships that go nowhere, or that are layered in ambiguity. Some find it difficult to ask their dates what they are looking for in a relationship in the early stages, which leads to a lot of misunderstanding and heartache down the line, after they’ve invested emotionally in the relationship. Hinge hopes the new feature will help alleviate that, or at least help spark a conversation before the first date so both parties know what to expect.

Apple has come to an agreement with Dutch regulators over an ongoing dispute over dating apps being able to use third party payment systems.

After weeks of being fined for non-compliance, the tech giant has finally reached an accord with the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). According to Tech Crunch, the details are still vague, but the agreement basically follows the original proposal Apple submitted with a few significant changes, such as not requiring dating apps to create a separate binary app for third party payment systems.

Apple confirmed that they might do one of the following as it pertains to the agreement, which doesn’t make clear what developers can expect going forward. The tech giant said that dating apps might: continue to use Apple’s in-app purchase system; use a third-party payment system in the app that people can choose; include an in-app link directing users to the developer’s website to complete a purchase; or lastly, use a third-party payment system within the app and include a link directing people to the developer’s website to complete a purchase, according to Tech Crunch.

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is suing Match Group for hindering its investigation into OkCupid. The dating app, owned by Match, shared a user’s photo with facial recognition company Clarifai.

According to Bloomberg and BiometricUpdate.com, the FTC found that Clarifai was using the image without the user’s consent or knowledge, violating Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The government agency also said that it filed the lawsuit because its investigation was being “stonewalled by Match Group.” OkCupid originally shared the image with the AI company back in 2014.

OkCupid user Jordan Stein, whose image was shared without her knowledge or consent, brought a lawsuit against Clarifai as a result, but in March of last year, a judge ruled that Clarifai could not be sued for violating Illinois’ law because it was out of its jurisdiction. 

The Lox Club has turned to TikTok for attracting new users and is seeing record new downloads of its app as a result. 

The dating app launched last year to big fanfare and a profile in The New York Times, but the real test came with keeping users engaged so they didn’t return to Tinder and other popular dating apps. Since launching its new TikTok marketing strategy, the company has seen 13,000 conversions (clicks turned to downloads of the app) in January and February, according to AdWeek. This is also five times the number of conversions in November and December of last year. 

There’s a crop of new dating apps looking for novel ways to attract Gen Z users who want more than a swiping experience, which means thinking outside traditional advertising options, like Facebook ads which don’t necessarily convert browsers to users. Younger daters also gravitate to creative content and TikTok in larger numbers, opting to be entertained, which has driven some engaging new features in the dating app industry. For example, Tinder launched an “Explore” section, which includes Festival Mode to help users meet up with each other at music festivals and an interactive series called “Swipe Night,” among other features.