The reason you won’t be getting creepy messages on Tinder anymore…

Tinder has launched a new safety feature to protect users from harassment

As someone who can be considered a veteran user of dating apps, I have come by all sorts of messages in my vast experience on Tinder. There were cute messages, funny ones that caught my attention, witty, flirty and sexy ones.... But of course, I couldn’t escape the rude, sexually explicit, racist and every other iteration of inappropriate and disrespectful ones I have received on the platform. 

Women are twice as likely to be threatened physical harm on a dating app or called an offensive name

Data from the Pew Research Centre revealed that female users of dating apps under the age of 35 are twice as likely as their male counterparts to have been called an offensive name on dating platforms; 44% of women vs. 23% of men. The research showed that women are also twice as likely to have been threatened physical harm on a dating app; 19% of women vs. 9% of men.

Fortunately, Tinder has just announced that it plans to release a new feature that will ask users to think twice before sending a message that could be seen as ‘hateful.’ The latest safety feature uses Artificial Intelligence to detect language that might be classified as offensive. Once detected, the users will be asked if they are certain they want to send the message, giving them a moment to pause and reflect if they’re going to do it. The feature has been tested for the last couple of months, with results revealing that people who received the prompt were less likely to send an inappropriate message.

Other social platforms have implemented similar functions. Instagram, for example, has started pointing out captions that might be perceived as insensitive or disrespectful. Its AI technology also hides offensive comments. 

Hopefully, the new safety feature that Tinder has implemented is a signal to other dating platforms and the world of online dating will become a better and safer space for us all.