What this story covers:
Being active on a dating app means having an abundance of ways to meet people. And it also means putting yourself out there to strangers. Most dating apps don’t do background checks, and little is done to ensure that the person behind the profile is who he or she says. That means the responsibility is on users to protect themselves.
Why it matters:
Dating apps are failing to protect users at a time when more and more people are doing online dating. Some are calling on these companies to do more to ensure that people can feel safe on the apps.
By Amanda Krew, Kristina Lopez & Steve Truant
When Alix Thielemann, 22, picked up her Tinder date, she expected him to look like the pictures on his profile. When he didn’t, she went into fight or flight mode. Women are often told worst-case-scenario stories about online dating — stories that come to mind in situations like these.
Thielemann started frantically texting her friend, giving her the address “in case things go south,” she said. When her date started touching and kissing her inappropriately, Thielemann knew she had to get out of there.
This story, while haunting, is not unique. Dating apps make it easy for people to connect and do little to protect users from unsafe interactions.
Listen to dating app users describe some of their worst experiences.
Alix Em Kate MegAs dating apps such as Tinder, OKCupid, Bumble and Hinge continue to grow, so to do the risks to users. According to a Pew Research Center study, women between the ages of 18 and 34 are targeted at disproportionately high rates by predators. People of color and LGBT youth are also at high risk of being pursued.
Dating apps often do little to safeguard against assault or even human trafficking. Background checks are rarely performed. Tinder, the most widely used dating app, includes in its terms and conditions that, “you understand that Tinder does not conduct criminal background checks on its users or otherwise inquire into the background of its users.”
Reports show that sex offenders, among others, are able to create accounts and target people in their geographic area.
There is usually no way of determining if individuals are who they say they are. Some predators falsify their age, looks and interests to catfish people who view their profile. The most common ways for predators to get in contact with these users is suggesting to meet up with them after a few days of talking online. Or they will suggest a date in a public space — but one where alcohol is served, increasing the chance of a sexual assault.
Without the comfort of knowing that people have been vetted, dating app users have to be on high alert. And many want the companies to do more to protect them.
Taking matters into their own hands
Meg Monohan, a senior at Towson University, said there are two types of people on dating apps: people who are actually interested in getting to know you and people who come across as “sketchy” and could potentially be using false personas.
Monohan said people need to be skeptical and on alert when communication with unfamiliar people on dating apps. When meeting a stranger for the first time, users should meet in a public place to assure their safety.
Chris Heid has been a Maryland State Trooper for 26 years and has been involved with the Victim-Centered Approach to Human Trafficking for nine years. According to Heid, the majority of cases come not from Tinder, but from newer apps such as Friends with Benefits and SeekingArrangement. These apps are where users post ads as like on a typical dating profile, but upon reaching out, they ask for money in exchange for sex. Social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, Kik and Tagged are also sources that traffickers look to for finding new people.
“Everything has become so much easier with these apps,” Heid said. “Even drug dealers tell us they used to deal drugs but now they are pimping girls because when they dealt drugs, they had to go get more drugs. But if they sell their girl, they can reuse their product. That’s how they refer to them, as products.”
Heid noted that people should meet in public places to safeguard themselves against predators.
Nick Taylor, 23, a University of Maryland graduate, has been the victim of catfishing, when someone creates a false identity online.
“People are pretending to be who they are not on dating apps and sites,” Taylor said.
People can make accounts and in most cases end up using photos that aren’t their own. Taylor’s experience was uncomfortable.
“Even though this woman used her own pictures to catfish, she lied about her life, her house, and everything in between, fooling the men she was meeting on Tinder,” Taylor said.
The woman seemed to be single and relatable, but he came to find out that she was not only catfishing him, but multiple other men on Tinder as well. When he found out the truth about who he was seeing and the alternate life she lived outside of the app, he reported her account. Tinder closed her account and said they were opening an investigation into it, according to Taylor.
But Taylor never heard anything else after Tinder closed the account, and he had no way of following up. He said Tinder acknowledged the report but never followed up with him that they had cancelled her account, meaning she could still potentially catfish other men as she had been doing.
Concerns about safety
Gina Clifford, 22, said she is wary of using her last name in her dating profile. She protects her identity to keep some semblance of privacy.
“I feel like I’m uncomfortable with my information being shared because you can look anyone up,” she said. “But then again, if you don’t give information, there’s no way to verify if people are legit.”
Still, some users are willing to assume risk and share their information online, as is the case for Maria Blaszkiw, 21. “There seems to be the potential for great reward despite the risk,” she said. “Wanting a partner can do that to you I guess.”
Get Safe Online is a website dedicated to educating people on how to protect themselves when interacting online. Those practices include users being cautious of what they post on their profile and what they say when chatting with their matches. Users should take notice in profiles if anything suspicious comes up.
Many agree that it shouldn’t just be on users to protect themselves. Lawmakers have gotten involved. In 2018, Congress passed FOSTA-SESTA, a law that makes it illegal for apps to knowingly promote content or advertisements of sexual nature. This law was an attempt to reduce dangerous sexual encounters online. However, some argue that his solution ended up backfiring, as it censors users and makes victims harder to find.
On March 5, Tinder announced a new partnership with “It’s On Us,” a national organization working towards advocating for sexual assault prevention on college campuses. While Tinder remains a leading dating app for finding and meeting new people, this partnership will bring forth an initiative that will provide education lessons on online dating safety, sexual assault prevention and other important dating topics “for college students, by college students,” according to Tinder’s newsroom.
Tracey Vitchers, executive director of “It’s On Us,” said that it’s important for campuses to direct this conversation in a positive direction by educating students on these issues as they are a large part of online and app-based dating.
By educating students and campus faculty, there can be a conversation about the issues surrounding sexual assault through dating apps and how students and young adults can address these issues in a positive and healthy way.
The problem isn’t just with dating apps. Social media is another place where people are put in potentially unsafe situations. Robin Sunderland, 23, said a guy she met up with in person relentlessly messaged her on social media after she said she wasn’t interested. He threatened suicide multiple times and had his friends try to get in contact with her.
Sunderland attempted to report him on Instagram, but didn’t hear back. Sunderland said sometimes the only option is to take matters into your own hands.
“The advice I would give everyone is that they should always keep their accounts private,” she said. “Only accept people you personally know or have a large number of followers in common with. I even have the settings on my Facebook set to where I’m all private and even my friends can’t see who my other friends are.”
According to a study by the Pew Research Center, about one-third of online dating users say someone has continued to contact them on a dating site or app after they said they were not interested.
So what could companies behind some of the most popular apps do to help safeguard users’ privacy? Users listed a variety of ideas: requiring identification when signing up for an account, allowing people to block other users, conducting more frequent internal investigations and, in the most serious situations, turning over information to police.
Hear dating app users’ ideas in these audio clips:
Alix Em Kate