Something to do with where he'd travelled I would guess.
I lost an account a few years ago at the same time I was geospoofing on my phone for something totally unrelated. I guess it flagged on Tinder's side and that was that account gone. Fortunately I didn't think there was any soulmate lost as a result but I could see that being painful if I'd been talking to someone for a while.
On the other hand Tinder is going to be a huge target for romance scammers and other dodgy types and people on it are vulnerable so they've got to have a robust defence mechanism.
It's the lack of recourse to fair adjudication that is the problem - online dating is one of the most common ways of meeting a partner these days and the many platforms are owned by a couple of companies so getting blacklisted by Tinder could also see you barred from Match.com, OkCupid, Hinge and PlentyOfFish - quite serious stuff if you're looking for a partner especially in the current climate.
I got permabanned when I tried logging in from my phone with oss android installed. In Tinder's defense I imagine my phones system might have looked similar to that of spammers leading to a false-positive, so I don't mind the ban itself.
What I do mind was that their official stance is that they don't reverse bans for any reason. Creating a new account is against their terms of service, so
in theory I am locked out of one of the primary ways my generation finds partners.
In the country I live, the competitors don't have user bases nearly large enough to compete so Tinder is effectively a monopoly. With Tinder's enormous market-power comes great responsibility, and they have in my eyes failed to live up to it.
It was partially used for serious dating (myself included) back when there were no other popular dating apps, meaning all kinds of people were on there. Since then, users have split out to other ones. Maybe Tinder wants them back.
Luckily I'm not going back cause I met my now-wife somewhere else.
This is presented as a problem with "big tech", but I don't think most people would consider Tinder (Match Group) to be big tech? Instead, this kind of problem where you get flagged with no explanation or recourse seems to be common to consumer tech of all but the smallest scale. It's just very expensive to provide high quality individual support.
Out of all the dating apps Tinder has done the absolute bare minimum to ensure the safety of its members.
The number of active fake profiles on there in large metropolitan areas is mind boggling. They've known this for years and done absolutely nothing to address it. I imagine it would affect the numbers significantly. I have completely given up on the app given the % of fake users who are there to take advantage of someone's loneliness.
This is pretty disturbing considering how necessary dating apps are today.
Let's say you get banned from Tinder and consequently Bumble. What do you do now? You can create fake accounts, but they'll eventually find you. Coffee Meets Bagel? Plenty of Fish? Match.com? Don't make me laugh.
It's already bad enough that women find it strange that a guy doesn't have an Instagram account (this has been my experience 90% of the time), but at least as someone who is dating you can work your way around that. But if you get shut out of even 1 of the few main dating apps, you've lost a massive pool of dates and potential life partners. Unless something has changed since my foray into that scene, these days those apps are pretty much a requirement for getting any meaning amount of dates.
I can't help but feel bad for the younger generations of today. I was fortunate to come of age during the tail end of where it was still largely acceptable to meet and approach women IRL while online dating was kind of a sideshow. Today, what were once the best places to meet other young single people, are not only where it's become unacceptable to meet new people at bars and clubs or meetups but they also are the places with the most COVID-masking (yes, this DOES affect attraction and being able to read the other person). For most young guys and girls, you're probably stuck with Tinder and Bumble unless you are a 9 or above.
The other day I got permabanned from Nextdoor, not because I did anything wrong, but because I didn't use my real name. Of course the name that I used is the name that I use in real life and as a professional. I logged in one day to find that I had absolutely no access to my account. There was no read-only access to my messages, my activity, settings, or anything. Just a page that said I'd been banned for not using my real name but that I could contact their customer service or whatever. Imagine if that happens to you on Tinder right as you're about to ask someone on a date, or to your Wells Fargo account as you just got a paycheck and are ready to make that big purchase.
What's the downside of a ban on Tinder though? Can't you just recreate an account again and again anyway? The worst you have to lose is a burner phone number.
That may have solved the problem initially, but not forever.
I got back on Tinder about 6 months ago and bought a premium account after they kept waving the number of potential matches I had, only to discover that the vast majority of them (roughly 18 in 20) were 2,000+ miles away from me and looked like spam.
And like most large faceless companies, if you're somehow banned, you have no recourse. I have no idea what I did, when I did it, or who I supposedly did something to, but I can't use Hinge anymore on my phone number. Also banned from Match but not Bumble or Tinder. The apps are indeed a shit-show and I no longer use them. Facebook singles groups and going out in real life are how I'm meeting people now. Much more satisfying and engaging than endless swiping and rejection. FWIW, I'm a genx male, divorced with kids 50/50, and a stable job. A little dad-bod, but not grossly overweight. I'm not a 10 but I'd rate myself a probably a 6-7.
While this is true, romance scammers also often try to obscure/spoof their true location - so I can see why it'd be something the Tinder algos would be sensitive to
Sure. It widened the options for most people. Excellent!
That said, as the post I originally responded to suggested, I don’t think that getting banned from Tinder or any dating app in particular is a “big deal”. Maybe a minor inconvenience for most people, but it’s not like someone who gets banned from Tinder is doomed to a life without dates.
It's really sad to see so many findings, especially the ones that are exactly the same as issues that tinder had _years_ ago. Did they do no research? Did they just not care?
Example, the exact same triangulation issue that allows tracking users happened 6 years ago:
Thus the same inherent flaw of non-representative profiles and pictures, to give false impressions or present a false image that can be used to trick others.
Things on peoples profile can not actually be confirmed, to include pictures and real life appearance not matching up. They can say they are a banker or a professional dancer, but are actually unemployed or have never done what they claim. So the beliefs people have, when going on the date, can still be based on deception.
The persons engaging in deception, only has to maintain the facade for a while, to hook the other person into a relationship. Not saying that such can be eliminated, because that's life, but rather no app can ever be foolproof. People, for whatever their reasons, will find flaws in it.
> ...but the the twist is that once you have a match you HAVE to go on a date. You have to enter your availability, pay 5 euro and if you don't show up on your date you get perma-banned for life.
This is a significant advantage of the app and community, which is cutting down on pranksters and time wasters. Thus would of course lead to a much higher success rate to Tinder and similar apps.
And about Tinder... Tinder of today, was much different than when it initially came out.
Many people don't realize that Tinder back then was quite Grindr-like (who they were copying), but mainly heterosexual, and heavily meet or "sexual encounter based", whichever you prefer. The culture and thinking was different. People showed up, because it could be a stealthy way to go have fun.
When Tinder tried to distance itself from the "meet up and encounters" perception and concerns, that opened the door to way more pranksters, attention seeking only, and time wasters. There was a shift in culture and who was using the app.
The Tinder of today has arguably become less focused on people meeting, but instead making Tinder as much money as possible and riding out to the last on its old reputation (of being Grindr-like), and usually at the expense of guys. Swiping left or right, by itself, is almost like any downloaded game.
I'm not single and haven't been fora long time, but my understanding is that if you're single you can't really opt out of these apps, practically speaking. Even the norms around dating, picking people up in bars, etc. are changing because of these apps, so it's harder to find people in the real world. Not impossible, obviously, but getting banned from Tinder is kind of a big deal. (Also all these apps are owned by the same company, I think it's the Match Group.)
Popular dating app Tinder has announced it will remove any social-media handles listed in public-user profile bios from today, in a bid to crack down on people using the service to advertise sex work, according to the Evening Standard.
While online safety is an ever-present concern, it seems Tinder is most concerned about users trying to advertise businesses or make money in illicit ways.
The dating app’s updated community guidelines go further. A new paragraph spells out exactly what they mean by this: “Tinder isn’t the place for any sort of sex work, escort services, or compensated relationships. So, no — don’t use Tinder to find your sugarmamma.”
It has always been like that on Tinder. My phone number can't create a new account for example (never receive the confirmation code). That's called shadowban in the case of OP. Bumble started doing the same practices a year ago (which makes sense as they have the same founder)
But they are not 100% wrong, Tinder is not here to make people meet each other. They are here to make money and people don't pay because they get more matches, they pay because they are frustrated. Tinder needs a way to keep girls active on the platform, and for that to works they have to prevent boys to have a negative behavior. That's why they shadowban guys easily, as soon as they detect non standard behavior they shadowban, people keep seeing profile and keep paying. Girls don't see those profiles and have a better experience overall and stays longer, which makes guys stays longer because FOMO of matching the one.
This has nothing to do with Big tech. If you want to meet people don't use Tinder, that used to work well in the past, it very rarely works now.
EDIT: And FYI if you want to exit shadowban on Tinder, it is pretty well documented on r/SwipeHelper, you need to change: phone, phone number, Facebook account, Credit card, pictures and don't login from the same IP
Where's your Tinder bio in this article? I can't imagine creating a new account and publishing something obscene on any social platform today without being flagged or worse.
After many matches and chats one will be disliked by many, some will react disproportionately. It happened though without a single physical encounter which they can easily detect. I guess the workaround is to unmatch as early as possible? I was also exposed to many spam/scam profiles (promoting their Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube accounts) and Tinder somehow is not interested in combating this.
I'm an average male, I think they don't care that much to have me in their users' pool or I could be prohibitively horny and boring. Who knows.
I lost an account a few years ago at the same time I was geospoofing on my phone for something totally unrelated. I guess it flagged on Tinder's side and that was that account gone. Fortunately I didn't think there was any soulmate lost as a result but I could see that being painful if I'd been talking to someone for a while.
On the other hand Tinder is going to be a huge target for romance scammers and other dodgy types and people on it are vulnerable so they've got to have a robust defence mechanism.
It's the lack of recourse to fair adjudication that is the problem - online dating is one of the most common ways of meeting a partner these days and the many platforms are owned by a couple of companies so getting blacklisted by Tinder could also see you barred from Match.com, OkCupid, Hinge and PlentyOfFish - quite serious stuff if you're looking for a partner especially in the current climate.
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