Communication

You match with someone. The conversation feels natural. They seem genuine. Then they ask for money, send a suspicious link, or convince you to move the conversation somewhere private.

Unfortunately, scenarios like this are becoming more common, and new Canadian data suggests online communities and dating platforms are increasingly attracting fraud activity.

According to reporting from Global News, citing new data from TransUnion, Canadians are facing elevated levels of digital fraud, with online communities, including dating platforms and forums, showing some of the fastest growth in suspected fraud attempts.

For anyone using online dating, this isn’t meant to create fear—it’s a reminder that knowing what to watch for has become just as important as creating a great profile.

Have you ever liked a match on Bumble and then wondered who should say “hello” first? For years, that question was already answered: on Bumble, women traditionally sent the first message, a design choice the app built its identity around. Recently, however, Bumble made some shifts and now it’s quietly returning to those roots in select countries.

This evolving approach reflects broader conversations about how dating apps can balance fairness, comfort, and user choice. For you, it’s worth understanding what’s changing especially if you use Bumble regularly to meet new people or build meaningful connections.

Hinge has teamed up with renowned psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel to create new prompts for users to engage in conversation.

Perel was involved in creating new “Your World” prompts, including a collection of ten questions designed to help Hinge users share more about themselves in their profiles and hopefully attract better matches.

“[The prompts] are intended to help someone reading them have a bit more imagination about how your world and their world might connect,” Jackie Jantos, Hinge’s president and chief marketing officer, told Fast Company. “Esther contributed what she knows about getting into deeper, more intimate conversation.”

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico has issued a critical security alert for Americans using dating apps when traveling in Mexico due to several confirmed reports of kidnapping.

According to Newsweek, the Guadalajara Consulate confirmed reports of US citizens being kidnapped by people they met via dating apps, particularly in popular tourist destinations like the Puerto Vallarta and Nuevo Nayarit areas.

"Victims and their family members in the United States have at times been extorted for large sums of money to secure their release," the security notice said.

A recent study by OkCupid has found that above all else, singles want to know where people stand politically, and more specifically, if their matches’ views align with their own.

According to OkCupid's blog post, 6 in 10 women around the world want their partners to share their political views. In the U.S. which has become more divided since Trump took office, that number climbs as high as 70 percent. More than half of Gen Z men and women want to share the same political views, as do 63 percent of Millennials and 64 percent of Gen X daters. Among LGBTQ daters, that number goes up to a whopping 80 percent.

According to OkCupid, today’s singles are more interested in where someone stands on issues like climate change or reproductive rights, rather than something benign like where they last went on vacation. And if their politics don’t match, it can be a dealbreaker.

Bumble appears to be matching its users with people they have already blocked, according to a report from Rolling Stone.

The app has come under fire after this practice came to light over social media. According to Rolling Stone, professor Jennie Young at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, who specializes in rhetoric and gender studies, shared a post on Instagram with a screenshot from Bumble’s support center after asking them why she was matching with users she previously blocked.

“Bumble will show you people you have swiped left/blocked on in the past — in case you have changed your mind,” the screenshot captured of Bumble's response.