Guys Are Reporting Women on Tinder for the Crime of Not Being Into Them

September 18, 2019 7:13 AM

Why can’t the platform seem to stop this vindictive behavior — resulting in lifetime bans for the women targeted?
posted by Etrigan (35 comments total)

Sure is strange how, every time a tech company offloads moderation onto the userbase, it's weaponized against the most vulnerable users.
posted by Reyturner at 7:22 AM on September 18, 2019 [113 favorites]

So many creative ways and platforms to hate and harass women with these days! Awful.
posted by agregoli at 7:23 AM on September 18, 2019 [12 favorites]

Christ, men. Get your shit together. If you can't handle rejection, you have zero business online dating, or being part of civilization generally. Grow up.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:28 AM on September 18, 2019 [47 favorites]

If I were dating, or even interested in dating, I would not go on any of these sites ever. I’m sure some people have positive results, but there are a lot of people who have bad experiences. The great thing about being out of school and now retired is not having any interest in putting myself out there. If anything happened and Mr. Roquette and I parted ways, I really would be done.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 7:29 AM on September 18, 2019 [6 favorites]

He adds that attractive women on dating apps have had everything handed to them and become too entitled as a result.

Sweet irony
posted by sunset in snow country at 7:32 AM on September 18, 2019 [49 favorites]

The platform CAN stop banning women because of one report, or they can require info, or have an appeals process -- there are all sorts of ways tinder can stop it. They won't, but not because they're not capable.
posted by jeather at 7:36 AM on September 18, 2019 [40 favorites]

If Tinder hopes to remain a dating platform for opposite-sex relationships, they are going to have a serious problem:

the eventual fallout from this trend will have men wondering where all the women on Tinder have gone.

To them, I will say, “Ask your buddies.”

I know it doesn't make the women any happier to know that these toxic men are ruining the platform for themselves as well. But I wouldn't be surprised if most of the women on the app decamped to a better platform. (If that exists - I don't know if it does. Maybe match-making should make a come-back.)
posted by jb at 7:40 AM on September 18, 2019 [3 favorites]

This has been happening on Twitch too, and quite a bit recently. Many women streamers are being reported for abuse/breaking terms of service (they're quite unclear and inconsistent) and getting bans on their platform as well.

It seems like they rally on certain subreddits and then brigade streams because they're fucking shitty trash humans.

*sighs*
posted by Fizz at 7:42 AM on September 18, 2019 [38 favorites]

Fingers crossed that once Tinder is dry, these toxic men self select themselves and go their own way out of the dating pool.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:43 AM on September 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

Fingers crossed that once Tinder is dry, these toxic men self select themselves and go their own way out of the dating pool.

That's not what is happening though. It's much worse. Many of these men are rallying in online communities like 4chan, reddit, those shitty dark corners of the web where they are then radicalized. We've seen so many examples (recent shootings) where their hatred is being literally weaponized. It's terrifying.
posted by Fizz at 7:47 AM on September 18, 2019 [52 favorites]

toxic men self select themselves and go their own way out of the dating pool

Oh look, there’s already a movement for them: Men Going Their Own Way

(and it’s as horrible as you would expect)
posted by Secret Sparrow at 7:51 AM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

It seems like they rally on certain subreddits and then brigade streams because they're fucking shitty trash humans.

I'd like to ask at this point that we NOT get involved in another of those delightful rounds of #NotAllSubreddits that always seem to happen whenever somebody points out the malicious, rule-breaking behaviour of /r/the_donald or /r/incel or /r/livestreamfail or whatever that the Reddit admins aren't taking any action against.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:52 AM on September 18, 2019 [20 favorites]

Oh look, there’s already a movement for them: Men Going Their Own Way

[thatsthejoke.jpg]
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:54 AM on September 18, 2019 [7 favorites]

Man, how I wish "Men Going Their Own Way" was just guys realizing that dating and relationships might not be for them, so they invest their time in getting good at a skill or finding lasting happiness outside of romantic relationships. That would be so dope.
posted by Philipschall at 7:58 AM on September 18, 2019 [83 favorites]

[thatsthejoke.jpg]

Dammit. It's so hard to tell sometimes, and you never know what people don't know. Last month I had to explain RickRolling to my best friend, and I didn't think you could be a person on the internet and not encounter that sometime over the last 12 years.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 8:29 AM on September 18, 2019 [6 favorites]

Last month I had to explain RickRolling to my best friend...

Unless pretending you've never been RickRolled and don't understand the joke is the new Zizek game, which effectively makes it the new RickRolling!
posted by belarius at 9:47 AM on September 18, 2019 [14 favorites]

Ironic! Pretty soon men will be complaining that there are no women on Tinder.
posted by spindrifter at 10:12 AM on September 18, 2019 [3 favorites]

We've seen so many examples (recent shootings) where their hatred is being literally weaponized. It's terrifying

Equally terrifying is how men are now arguing that if women don’t go along with a “sex redistribution,” they’ll have nobody to blame for incel murder sprees but themselves.

The last few years have been enlightening in how now men are unafraid to say the quiet part loud: Women aren’t people, they’re property to be used and redistributed as will.
posted by sobell at 10:33 AM on September 18, 2019 [30 favorites]

Bumble was explicitly set up to be more woman friendly than Tinder, if you're looking for a site. (Though I have not yet tried it)
posted by emjaybee at 11:06 AM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

God, I am so freaking tired of these asshole tech companies deciding the way to profit is to have the whole back end run by an old TI graphing calculator with no human involvement whatsoever. (Going through this shit with Facebook right now, which won't let me point ads at the landing page I use to get subscribers for my newsletter because some algorithm decided that it somehow violates their community standards. I've been completely unable to get any response from an actual human who might review this and either admit there's nothing offensive about the page and fix it or tell me what they find objectionable so I can change it.)

But at least in this case, there seems to be a pretty clear tactic for forcing them to actually pay attention. Simply start reporting everyone. Eliminate their user base en masse. They can either fix their business or watch it be destroyed.
posted by Naberius at 11:18 AM on September 18, 2019 [7 favorites]

Bumble was explicitly set up to be more woman friendly than Tinder, if you're looking for a site. (Though I have not yet tried it)

I didn't much care for Bumble when I tried it. I got fewer messages/dates than I did with any other app. Seemed like it was full of weird fake-looking profiles, too.

On the other hand, my one Bumble date and I are getting married next year.
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:01 PM on September 18, 2019 [65 favorites]

Congrats!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:20 PM on September 18, 2019 [4 favorites]

I think I know why you got fewer dates then.
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 12:21 PM on September 18, 2019 [13 favorites]

The last few years have been enlightening in how now men are unafraid to say the quiet part loud: Women aren’t people, they’re property to be used and redistributed as will.

And these are generally the same people who are like: "Capitalism, baby! Survival of the FITTEST! Redistribution of wealth is for the weak, and all of this feminism stuff is just cultural Marxism! Oh yeah, but we need to redistribute sex because I'm not getting any and it's not fair."
posted by thebots at 1:25 PM on September 18, 2019 [18 favorites]

Yeah, this’ll get fixed quickly if every woman still on Tinder who sees this article starts reporting every dude who says anything abusive or creepy immediately. If men start getting banned in large numbers they will add an appeals process.
posted by Caduceus at 2:06 PM on September 18, 2019 [16 favorites]

And if it turns out men don’t get banned after a single report that provides some additional information about the situation (and a good reason for everyone to quit immediately).
posted by Caduceus at 3:25 PM on September 18, 2019 [7 favorites]

My zillion-dollar startup idea is a dating app where the women can see the DM/chat history of the men. Or the men's DM histories are just plain public. Or maybe just the flagged, sketchy DMs are public. Or something. But basically, men are getting away with way too much aggressive bullshit in dating app DMs and someone or something somewhere needs to squash that shit.
posted by mhum at 4:59 PM on September 18, 2019 [27 favorites]

Last month I had to explain RickRolling to my best friend, and I didn't think you could be a person on the internet and not encounter that sometime over the last 12 years.

I knew someone who never saw Star Wars and I know someone who has so far managed to avoid hearing "Old Town Road." Once in a great while, these human rarities exist.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:12 PM on September 18, 2019 [3 favorites]

I knew someone who never saw Star Wars and I know someone who has so far managed to avoid hearing "Old Town Road." Once in a great while, these human rarities exist.

Didn't realise we'd met, jenfullmoon.
Oh, these are two different people. NVM
/derail

On-topic: I'd imagine if every woman who received an unsolicited dick pic on Twitter* reported the sender they'd be forced to re-evaluate their banning policy right quick.

*Just the dick pics, mind. This is before we even get into everything else offensive.
posted by myotahapea at 1:05 AM on September 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

Is there any reason to think women aren't reporting unsolicited dick pics?
posted by tobascodagama at 5:37 AM on September 19, 2019 [2 favorites]

That's just using the system as intended. I'm talking about reporting everyone. Regardless of whether they're being creeps or sending out dick pics or whatever. And just keep on reporting them. Use the "no human involved" system to literally remove the entire user base from the service until someone's forced to actually step in and fix it.
posted by Naberius at 5:55 AM on September 19, 2019 [3 favorites]

sounds like every time a woman swipes left, she should also report the guy, safest way to stay on the app, but at this point I don't know why anyone would want to keep using it.
posted by numaner at 7:40 AM on September 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

Oh, these are two different people. NVM

Hah. I have no idea if the ex-friend has heard Old Town Road or not, but I suppose it's possible that she hasn't. Or at least likely... The second person has most definitely seen SW though :)
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:44 AM on September 19, 2019

Re: people ignorant of pop culture: The 10K
posted by Mitheral at 9:38 AM on September 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

I don't use Tinder, it doesn't appeal to me, but I'm happy to re-frame it as boycotting the app, and I recommend other women do the same, because fuck that bullshit.
posted by theora55 at 8:54 PM on September 20, 2019