Valentine’s Day is approaching. But if you’re not quite feeling the love in the air, this Stanford grad student’s Date Drop app touts itself as a viable solution. “Our matches convert to actual dates at about 10x the rate of Tinder,” Henry Weng told
@Techcrunch. “Instead of swiping, we get to know each person deeply and send them one compatible match per week.” Here’s more:
Tired of the endless scroll of dating apps? Known, a San Francisco-based startup, is using a voice-powered AI onboarding system that learns about users without requiring them to fill out a form. The intended outcome: IRL dates that make sense for each person. Read more from @:
💥Just out! Important case for accountability in the online advertising industry. Grindr just lost its appeal, as its data is deemed sensitive under European law. More details forthcoming:
I'm declaring all the dating apps that won't allow filtering out straight folks as "homophobic."
Bad news: most of them are homophobic. In my recollection, only OkCupid allowed you to filter out straight folks, and I think that was only if you paid.
Tea, the app that allows women to post anonymously about men they’ve dated, announced Friday that 72,000 images – selfies, photo IDs and pics from posts, comments and DMs. It’s almost enough to make you want to go back to the old-fashioned way of dating. @Techcrunch has more:
@npr’s Windsor Johnston recently went beyond the usual dating apps and “out of journalistic curiosity — and maybe a bruised ego the size of a small carry-on — I decided to try what everyone else was whispering about: I went on a date with an AI boyfriend.” Johnston writes about her experience, which was equal parts hilarious and awkward and a little heartbreaking, too. If you read only one story today, you could do a lot worse than this:
It’s Valentine’s Day, and we love the fediverse — especially all the indie newsrooms that we feature in our #NewstodonFriday thread. If there are any you’d like to put on our radar, please tell us in the comments — and don’t forget to read and boost the stories in this thread, donate to publishers, and support independent media.
What happens when users of an app like Tinder and Hinge (two of many owned by Match Group) report that a date has sexually assaulted them? Absolutely nothing, according to an exhaustive new investigation by
@themarkup, @19thnews and The Guardian. Abusers have been allowed to stay on platforms, in direct contravention of Match Group’s official safety policy, and have gone on to carry out more assaults. “Since 2019, Match Group’s central database has recorded every user reported for rape and assault across its entire suite of apps; by 2022, the system, known as Sentinel, was collecting hundreds of troubling incidents every week, company insiders say.”