POF (Plenty of Fish)

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.

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.

Verifying your account on POF.com

POF recently added a new feature that affects all members that use the website to access the Plenty of Fish dating service. Members are now required to verify their account by providing their mobile phone number. When a member logs into the POF.com website they will see the page with the following request:

Please Verify your Account

We need to send you a text to verify that you're human. To help keep your account safe, we'll keep your number in case we need to re-verify you and make sure a stranger isn't trying to login. Don't worry though, that's all we ever use your number for.

So once you enter your number and click the "Get Started" button POF will then send you a text with a code which you enter in Step 2 of the verification process.

Update 2019-11-18: The POF Singles Events App has since been removed from Google Play.

We thought we would write about the POF Singles Event app after POF closed the forums at the beginning of the summer.

For the past number of years the forums were still being used by a lot of POF users as a way to organize single events. On the leadup to the closure, POF disabled regular forum posting in May. Users could still read all forum posts but that functionality would disappear by the end of June according to the message on the forums. For the forums, POF also still allowed Event Hosts to create and promote events while a promised new event creation service was being worked on. At first I though this might be something integrated into the website and existing POF dating apps. I then found the POF Singles Events app on both iTunes and Google Play and then realized they may be referring to this app.

It was about 7 weeks late but by August 23rd the POF forums were closed for good.

New Design

A few weeks ago POF banned face filters and it appears soon after on Sept 17 the Plenty of Fish website, blog and dating apps received a facelift. The dating service has moved from an all light blue fish logo and theme to a layered multi color almost neon look. The light blue color is still there but the brightness has been turned up along with the addition of pink and dark blue. The interface itself has changed to reflect these colors with a few tweaks here and there to the layout. As far as we can tell no new features have been added and none removed.

You can also see the new look reflected in the Google Play and Apple App stores POF app install pages. One thing I notice on the App store is that POF is pushing a new statistic of 17 million conversations are exchanged everyday on the service. They still list the same stat of 4 million visitors everyday from 2017 (among others like 150 million registered users and 57 million new connections every week) so it looks like the dating service POF growth has stagnated. This is in part probably the result of Tinder becoming so popular and is also probably responsible in part of the updated design (which I am still getting use to).

POF bans Face Filters

Image: POF

Plenty of Fish is demanding users put their best, and filter-free, faces forward. In a blog post, the dating service announced that it is implementing an immediate face filter ban across the platform. All images that contain filters will be now be removed by the POF moderation team.

In a statement released by POF, clinical psychologist Dr. Cortney Warren said: “Singles today are craving greater transparency in dating, with the large majority of singles wanting honest, straight-forward information from potential partners as well as in their own self-presentation.

POF made the bold decision to ban face filters after conducting a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. single adults. The research reveals that singles are embellishing more and more aspects of their lives, primarily due to self-induced pressure to be appealing on dating platforms and interesting on dates. Singles feel the current dating climate is so competitive that it requires them to embellish their interests, hobbies, appearance, income, career and education in order to find a romantic partner.