Swiping Right on Danger: Dating Apps Enabling Repeat Offenders

Match Group’s broken safety promises leave users vulnerable to assault—while predators keep swiping

What do Tinder, OK Cupid, Plenty of Fish, and Hinge users have in common? Answer: they are all potentially at risk of violent sexual assault according to an 18-month investigative report issued by the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network and The Markup, copublished with The 19th and The Guardian.

According to The Markup, the Dating Apps Reporting Project found:

“Match Group has known for years which users have been reported for drugging, assaulting, or raping their dates since at least 2016, according to internal company documents. 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.”

Unfortunately, this—and information about specific perpetrators and their profiles—hasn’t reached Match Group’s vast number of customers. Nor have the corporation’s vaunted safety procedures prevented banned users from signing up on other Match Group services. 

As of March 5, 2025, Match Group owns forty-four dating services worldwide, including Match.com, LDS Planet, Little People Meet, Archer, India Match, and Republican People Meet. Match Group is based in Dallas, TX. 

Dangerous data

In 2022, researchers from Brigham Young University published a study of dating app facilitated sexual assault (DAppSA) through analysis of 274 cases out of “3,413 sexual assault medical forensic examination (SAMFE) charts from 2017 to 2020.” They found that DAppSA cases were often markedly more violent than other sexual assault (SA) cases, with 32.4% more strangulation, and more assaultive/penetrative acts, and anogenital and breast injuries than in non-DAPPSA sexual assault cases.

The DAppSA victims were more likely to be college age, and/or to self-report mental illness.  A higher percentage were male than in the non-DAppSA sexual assault cases.

The Brigham Young study is just one of many inquiries into the problem of sexual assault among dating app users. 

Four dating platforms, over fifty fake accounts

Spurred by these and other findings, Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network and The Markup collaborated to “test how Match Group treats reports of sexual assault and whether users banned from Tinder after a reported sexual assault could return to Match Group apps by creating new accounts.” These fake accounts deliberately did not interact with any real Match Group users. 

The Markup created over fifty fictitious accounts on four Match Group platforms: Tinder, Plenty of Fish, OkCupid, and Hinge. Their investigation first focused on the time it took Tinder to respond to reports of sexual assaults. Problematic accounts were banned within two days.

The Markup then tested whether a user banned on Tinder could use their same account information to sign up for other Match Group dating apps. Only Plenty of Fish cooperated with this phase of the investigation, allowing The Markup to create new accounts using the banned Tinder information. Plenty of Fish generally deleted these accounts within two days.  

The Markup then consulted online forums and guides to discover non-technical ways users could bypass bans and create new accounts on Match Group platforms. 

A simple search showed Reddit, Wikihow, and YouTube, along with many other sites, contain such information. Using these simple methods, The Markup “successfully created new accounts without needing to change the [fictitious] user’s name, birthday, or profile photos.” 

The Dark Tetrad and dating apps

A 2022 study from The University of Liverpool explored the motivations behind Tinder use by people exhibiting one or more of “a constellation of four interrelated, yet distinctive personality traits; Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism,” otherwise known as The Dark Tetrad. 

A plethora of research sources, cited in this study, says characteristics of these personality traits include callousness, emotional coldness, cruelty, sadism, low empathy, a tendency to troll, a sense of entitlement, anti-social behaviors, and long-term manipulative strategizing.

The research surveyed 216 current or former Tinder users, 67 identifying as male  and 149 as female. Findings include: high psychopathy users went to the app for casual sex and also used it for distraction and procrastination; and Machiavellians used the app to acquire social approval and flirting skills. 

Both high psychopathy users and Machiavellians found entertainment in reviewing profiles. Tinder was also viewed as a forum for trolling. Interestingly, female Machiavellians were susceptible to peer pressure to use Tinder. Also, “sadism did not predict Tinder use motivations.” The study found: 

“Men scored higher than women in using Tinder for sexual motives, and for finding out about sexual orientation. Women scored higher than men in using Tinder to get back at their ex-partner, as well as using it under peer pressure. Men scored higher than women in all of the Dark Tetrad traits, as well as the trolling measure.”

In other words, the people behind dating profiles might have far different personalities, motivations and objectives than those they express on the app. And without built-in background checks of criminal history databases (at no extra cost), how can a user realistically assess their risk?

It’s not enough to trust your gut

The Dating Apps Reporting Project didn’t just focus on the apps experiment, it also reviewed extensive court records and internal company documents, analyst reports and securities filings. 

The project also included numerous interviews with past and present employees of these companies, as well as survivors of dating app facilitated sexual assault (DAppSA), the data showing Match Group is woefully inadequate and utterly negligent in providing any real safety or security for its users in spite of daily complaints, bad press, US Congressional inquiry, and several years of promises to do more to promote safety.

The Markup concludes “women who report being raped get no traction, while accused rapists…keep swiping — and assaulting.”

Rather than buyer beware or trust your gut—which ignores deliberate deception and ultimately blames the victim—the  Brigham Young study recommended a social systems approach, using safety measures such as providing information about consent and dating app safety with every log-in; validation of government ID prior to creating a profile; free connection to criminal history databases; as well as the use of AI to block unwanted text or pictures. In addition, the study suggested “transparent systems for reports of SA, and responding quickly to sexual violence disclosures.”

Meanwhile, The Markup encourages photo verification, though all these precautions may not prevent verified users from assaulting other dating app users–sometimes for years even after reports have been lodged against them.

It’s enough to turn even the least digisexual person toward AI companionship, isn’t it?

Images: A.R Marsh using Ideogram.ai.