General News

Image: OkCupid

OkCupid has introduced a new “pro-choice” badge for users to add to their profiles, a signal to let others know they oppose the new Texas law restricting abortions in the lone star state. The company also said they would donate a dollar per badge to Planned Parenthood, up to $50,000 total on behalf of users who add the badge.

The badge is similar to other politically inspired badges OkCupid has rolled out over the years, including ones for Black Lives Matter, Voting and Vaccination status. It will appear directly below the bio (name, age, location) making it visible to anyone who’s swiping.

According to The New York Times, the new badge was created in response to the passage of Senate Bill 8 in Texas, which has essentially outlawed all abortions past six weeks, before most women even know they are pregnant. The new legislation won’t be enforced by public officials, however. Rather, it empowers anyone, in or outside the state, to sue a person who is getting an abortion or who is involved or considering helping someone get an abortion, including doctors, nurses, family members, or even the person who drives the patient to the clinic. Critics have likened it to a vigilante state, aimed at targeting vulnerable women.

Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg

Tinder announced that Renate Nyborg will be taking over as the company’s CEO as Jim Lanzone departs to serve as Yahoo’s new chief executive officer.

The news, announced Friday September 10th, means that Nyborg will be the first female executive to head the popular dating platform. She joined Tinder in 2020 as the general manager of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Nyborg’s background is in growing mobile and subscription business, according to the company’s press release. She previously worked for Headspace, where she built the company’s first international product and marketing divisions.

Tinder India has created and released a new film for its users about consent and what it looks like in modern-day dating culture. The purpose of the new film Closure is to spark conversation among daters and to help them create healthy boundaries. 

According to Business Insider India, the film centers around a young woman named Ria and her estranged ex-boyfriend Ved. The film starts with the two of them meeting on a beach and flashes forward through their budding romantic relationship. Then the movie cuts to a disturbed Ria and confused Ved sitting across from each other after some time has passed, having a difficult conversation about what drove them apart. We soon learn that Ved didn’t ask for her consent on their last night together. “You didn’t say no,” he insists, where Ria says “but I also didn’t say yes. I wish for once, you had asked.”

Ved later asked if she was seeing anyone, and it flashes to her budding new relationship with a man who does the things she longed for Ved to do – he asks permission before he kisses her or holds her hand. She also exercises more power in this new relationship by voicing what she wants, something she realizes she didn’t do while she was dating Ved. She has moved onto a happier, healthier relationship. 

Match Group has unveiled a fresh look for both its website and logo. The redesign comes as the company focuses on its global strategy and adds more interactive and entertainment-based content, indicating a shift from traditional swiping.

According to Global Dating insights, the new logo moves away from employing its traditional block letters to a more fluid and simple design. The capital M and G flow together in one continuous line with two dots above the “M” to represent two people whose hands are linked. The cursive G connected to the M also represents Match’s focus on the global community and to making connections across countries and demographics. Their new colors are also a cool electric blue and teal to make it more “inviting,” according to Global Dating Insights.

It is October so time to get started on planning the 15^th annual Dating Sites Reviews Choice Awards.

The first item on our agenda is to setup the 2022 Single's Choice Award poll. This poll asks the voter which of the top 10 most popular dating services in North America would they recommend. In the early years of the awards we saw this dating service list that the voter can choose from fluctuate from year to year, but since then the industry has matured as the major players in the market have been defined. This means for the last few years our list of dating services to vote on for this award has not changed much. While every year there are a lot of new dating apps and sites which go live, very few ever make it long due to the stiff competition and large marketing budgets of the major dating services. It’s very hard to get that initial viral push going of getting new users to join a dating service.

The Single's Choice Award, which is awarded on Valentine’s Day, takes the results of the poll to determine the top 3 dating services as voted on by our visitors. Awarded services are marked as such on Dating Sites Reviews and is used by our visitors in the coming year to help them determine which dating service(s) they want to try out.

So what dating service worked for you best in 2021 that you would like to recommend? Let us know by casting your vote in the Single Choice Award:

This poll is closed for voting.

2022 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award

1/1: Which dating service would you recommend for the 2022 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award?

Listed below in alphabetical order are the top 10 most popular mainstream dating sites and apps from 2021.

Badoo	7.40%
Bumble	9.76%
eHarmony	11.83%
Elite Singles	7.99%
Hinge	8.58%
Match	10.06%
OkCupid	9.47%
POF (Plenty of Fish)	12.72%
Tinder	13.02%
Zoosk	9.17%

See all answers to this poll
Other polls | 338 voters | 0 comments

The FTC in mid-September issued a statement urging people using LGBTQ+ dating apps to be cautious amid the growing number of scammers who operate on these apps.

Apps like Grindr and Feeld were named in particular as the FTC warned of an increasing number of scammers who seek explicit photos and then use them to extort money. According to Consumer Reports, the attackers pose as interested romantic partners and chat with intended victims. These scammers send explicit photos quickly, seeing who responds with a similar photo in return.

The next part plays out like an episode of Black Mirror, where if the victim does send an explicit photo in hopes of connecting in person, the attacker quickly turns on them and uses blackmail to extort money. The attackers threaten to send the photo to the victim’s personal networks, including family and friends or even an employer unless they pay (usually via gift card).