Tinder has introduced a slew of new safety features on its app to help people avoid abusers and report harmful behaviour, which comes off the back of a push to make dating apps safer for women.
As of today, Tinder users can now block a profile when it’s suggested.
Previously you had to match with someone to block them, which seems kinda counter-productive if it’s someone you were already trying to avoid, like a jealous ex.
This feature is launching in addition to the already existing “Block Contact” feature which lets you block someone via their phone number.
It will also be easier to report abusive behaviour on the app, with the introduction of “Long Press Reporting”. Now you can report a message directly in your chat by holding it until the prompt to report it comes up.
Send out those likes (or maybe SuperLikes?) with confidence thanks to tools like Relationship Goals and Block Contacts that help you safely find your people 🙌 (3/5) pic.twitter.com/7rtWOwzXPI
— Tinder (@Tinder) February 7, 2023
Along with this, Tinder has also widened the array of words its AI picks up for the “Does This Bother You” and “Are You Sure” prompts that pop up when the app notices harmful language.
Among the new safety features is also “Incognito Mode” which hides your profile from people you haven’t already “liked” and therefore approved.
However, that means you won’t come across anyone via the Likes You feature. And it’s a premium feature, so you can only access it via Tinder+, Gold and Premium memberships.
All these updates have come off the back of a national roundtable in January which sought to make online dating safer for women after Sydney teacher Danielle Finlay-Jones was allegedly murdered by Ashley Gaddie who found her on a dating app.
The roundtable also suggested people with a criminal history of domestic violence should have to disclose this when signing up to a dating app, but that suggestion is still being examined.
That same month, NSW Police also announced people could soon be able to check a potential partner’s domestic violence history via the Right To Know scheme if they were “potentially at risk of domestic violence”.
This was also part of an effort to make online dating safer for women, but the scheme doesn’t sound like it’s going to be very helpful. For starters, it would be good if we focused on teaching men not to abuse women, rather than teaching women to anticipate and weed out abusers.
Plus, regulating who is potentially at risk of domestic violence and justifying their use of the scheme could prove dicey.
While Tinder’s new safety features are absolutely a step in the right direction, you have to ask: when are we actually going to just focus on changing men’s harmful behaviour, rather than increasing women’s avoidance tactics?
We should absolutely be armed with tools to protect ourselves, but I wish there was also an effort to make sure we didn’t have to.
