Online Dating

As Pride Month is celebrated around the world, a report surfaced that 27 LGBTQ+ dating apps were removed from Apple’s app store in China. Notably, these apps did not include China-based gay dating app Blued, Grindr, or Scruff, popular gay dating apps in the country.

According to The Daily Mail, digital rights advocacy groups Fight for the Future and China-based GreatFire published a report that claims Apple is “actively helping governments around the world isolate, silence and oppress people.” All together, the report shows 1,377 documented cases of restrictions on access to apps in 152 app stores around the world. The app store in China is second only to Saudi Arabia’s in terms of app removals. 

OkCupid Adds Super Like Feature

OkCupid has made a lot of changes to its platform over the past year, especially as activity and subscribers on the app increased during the pandemic. Among the most notable changes are a new pricing structure, added features like DealBreakers, and the ability to match with someone from across the world.

The popular dating app adjusted its pricing tiers and did away with its “A-List” membership in favor of Basic and Premium paid services. (The free service is still available for those who don’t want to upgrade.) With a Basic membership, you can Like an unlimited number of profiles instead of waiting for Likes to reset. You also get an ad-free experience, according to the company’s blog. 

The company ditched its Intros feature, which means that non-paying members can no longer message another user until they have both Liked each other.

Tinder is rolling out a new feature to allow users to block people in their lives from appearing on their match list – whether it’s an ex, a family member, or a work colleague you don’t want mixing with your dating life.

According to Tech Crunch, the new feature allows users to upload their phone contacts and select which people from their list they don’t want to see on the app. The company says it won’t store the user’s contacts, only the ones they have chosen to block. It should be noted that blocked contacts won’t be notified that they’ve been blocked, so the feature is also intended to be discreet.

People will be allowed to unblock or disconnect their contacts list at any time, according to The Verge.

Hinge Vaccine Badge

Image: Hinge

Dating apps are offering vaccine stickers for user profiles in the U.K., so potential matches can know vaccination status right away before swiping right.

Tinder is offering an array of stickers, including “Vaccinated” and “Vaxing soon,” according to a report from BBC News. Tinder, Match, Hinge, Bumble, Badoo, Plenty of Fish, OurTime and Muzmatch will all be offering badge options for users to add to their profiles, in partnership with a vaccine push by the U.K. government.

The vaccination badge trend began for U.S. dating app users, thanks to a government initiative to get as many people vaccinated as possible. The Biden administration pursued a partnership with dating apps, hoping they would be a good way to reach out to younger people and give them an incentive to get the vaccine – i.e., they can brag that they did and potentially attract more matches.

A new motion was filed in the New York Supreme Court against Match Group and IAC for allegedly covering up a report of sexual misconduct to manipulate the valuation of dating app Tinder, according to a report by Bloomberg. Match Group is the parent company of Tinder, and at the time of the incident, was owned by IAC. 

Lawyers for former Tinder co-founder and CEO Sean Rad and other Tinder employees who filed the lawsuit said that there are internal company documents that reveal IAC and Match Group executives discussed covering up sexual assault allegations against former Match Group CEO Greg Blatt, but that the companies are concealing them. They argue that IAC and Match Group intended to keep Blatt on board so he could lowball Tinder’s value, and therefore cheat Tinder employees out of billions in payment for their stock options.

Tinder was testing a group video chat feature before its parent company Match Group struck an acquisition deal for South Korea social discovery company Hyperconnect.

The new feature was called Tinder Mixer and was being tested in New Zealand before it was scrapped, according to Tech Crunch. Tinder Mixer allowed people nearby to join group chats and play online video games together, adding to the app’s existing one-on-one virtual chat feature.

Tinder Mixer was discovered by researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, who found references to the feature in the app’s code. However, Tinder shut it down quickly and told Tech Crunch it’s not impacting its “product roadmap” for this year. However, Paluzzi’s findings about Tinder Mixer shows that Match Group is experimenting with new social discovery features through its dating apps, which shines some light on the company’s deal with Hyperconnect.