Tinder is making it easier to report abusive users who have already unmatched others, in an attempt to make its platform safer.
In a blog post, the company said that many people thought they could not report someone who had already unmatched them after sending messages that left them feeling uncomfortable or unsafe.
Once a user has unmatched with another, the chat history and profile disappears – seemingly making it harder to address bad behavior on the app.
Tinder says that while users could always report someone, even if they had already unmatched with them, by submitting a request directly to the company, it is now adding its Safety Shield directly within the Match List.
“Once tapped, it will direct members to Tinder’s Safety Center, where information about how to report someone who isn’t displayed on the Match List will be front and center”, the dating company explained.
The move follows Bumble making similar changes to how its “unmatch” feature work, making it so that the conversation remains even after users have unmatched.
Now, when one user unmatches the other, the chat will only disappear for the person who instigated the separation.
For the person they unmatched, the conversation becomes grayed-out in the chat menu; clicking in the app will show a message that informs them that the other user has left as well as links to support and a “Help” button, Techcrunch reports.
That user can then choose to delete the chat if there were no issues, or report them to Bumble.
This is not the only change that Tinder recently made to its app;
In October 2020, Tinder added video dating functions, “Face to Face”, into its app for prospective couples during the pandemic.
When two users have matched, a new button will appear at the top right of the chat screen which resembles a blue video camera.
Tapping that button brings up a toggle, asking users to “check out the chemistry with a quick Face to Face.”
That toggle can be applied, and turned off, at any point in the conversation.
It also said it would introduce a panic button to improve user safety, providing the police with a person’s real-time location in case of an emergency.
That announcement followed an investigation by ProPublica and Columbia Journalism Investigations at the start of the year which found that Match Group, the company that owns Tinder, did not have a uniform safety policy across its apps and claimed it allowed known sexual predators to use them.
