On Hinge, the basic text suggesting users share information about themselves is absolute hell.
“All sex is suffocation when you are strangled by the invisible hand of capitalism,” reads one profile I found. The app features a surprisingly large number of men who like to do yoga naked. Another man shows a photo of him with the “world’s smallest rooster” mug and yet he didn’t bother to post a photo of the adorable rooster. Things don’t get much better once you open a chat: I recently asked a man in his 40s what he liked about Spain and he simply replied: “Chicas.”
These are relatively trivial examples. Unfortunately, some people are dealing with dangerous and aggressive users on dating apps, and lawmakers are taking note. But as terrible as online dating can be, government intervention is not the answer: the problem is the users, not the apps.
A I count recently introduced in Colorado aims to make dating apps like Hinge and Bumble safer for users. The first section of SB24-011 would force all any-user dating services in Colorado to file an annual report with the Colorado Attorney General on reports of misconduct by users in the state or about users in the state. If this is not available, the app must report all reports of misconduct from across the United States. These reports would all become public.
While the bill leaves some details up to the state attorney general, it would likely mean that when people make false reports about each other on dating apps, the reports would all become public knowledge. The bill uses the term “member information,” suggesting that it would require disclosure of each individual member. Scorned lovers, racists, incels and others with hostile motivations could file false complaints and harm people’s jobs and dating prospects in the future. And a report on a government website seems much more legitimate than someone angry on social media. These reports could even lead law enforcement to investigate innocent users.
If you file a complaint against an ex to get back with them, it will be filed with the Attorney General and will become a public record. And if a racist files a false complaint against every person of color, that could come up when future employers research those people. I also look for dates before going out with them not so much for security reasons but for the fact that many men who have asked me out turn out to be married. But if I wasn’t aware of how the law requires disclosure, I might be dissuaded from dating a man if I saw this appear in his search results before I even clicked on the link.
Like trying Tinder before using Hinge, the previous version of the bill was somehow even worse. It would have changed Colorado law to allow a dating service user injured by another member to sue the dating service if a complaint was ever filed with the dating service before the accident. It doesn’t matter if the two people didn’t meet on the app, and it doesn’t even matter if the report of misconduct is true. The report only needs to be filed before the “accident”. This means that even if the user was suspended and had connected with another user before the report was filed, if they harmed that user, the app would still be liable.
A spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said that “the governor believes in a free and open Internet and that decisions about how people interact on social media are up to the individual, not the government.”
At a time when many elected officials seek to blame platforms for user behavior, Polis offers a different approach. “Whether you meet a potential date in a bar, nightclub, coffee shop or online, it’s important to take safety seriously,” the spokesperson explained. “The Governor appreciates the sponsors’ willingness to make changes to the bill that eliminated any private right of action and will allow dating sites to continue to be available to Coloradans.” Polis’ office has not commented on any of my terrible dating stories.
Dating apps are horrible because they have horrible users, like the man who took me to a cafeteria, drank a drink he made for himself without asking me if I wanted one, grilled me for 15 minutes and got ghosted . (I later learned that he was 14 years older than he claimed and Hinge had repeatedly banned him. Since that day he has tried to match with me three more times.)
Colorado’s bill would not help protect users, but it would harm their future dating and job prospects, often needlessly. This is the wrong approach.