Dating apps debate whether race filters are appropriate
Amid a wave of corporate responses to protests against police brutality, gay dating apps are nixing race-based filters in a bid to fight discrimination on their platforms. But the world’s largest online dating company is instead defending the controversial filters as a way to empower minorities, setting off a debate about whether or not the feature should exist at all.
Recently, Grindr said it will remove its ethnicity filter in the next release of its software to “stand in solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement.” The announcement came a week after George Floyd, a black man, died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
The next day, gay dating app Scruff pledged to remove its ethnic filters to “fight against systemic racism and historic oppression of the Black community,” the company wrote on Twitter. “We commit to continue to make product improvements that address racism and unconscious bias across our apps.”
Dating apps have long allowed users to pay for features to refine matches, including the ability to filter by race. These services, including Grindr, have justified the offering, saying minorities use it to find prospects within their communities. While Grindr is reversing its position as part of a commitment to fight racism, other apps, including online dating behemoth Match Group Inc., defended the continued use of the filter on some of its 40 brands. The world’s largest online dating company has the filter on some platforms, such as Hinge, but not others, such as Tinder.
“In many cases we’ve been asked to create filters for minorities that would otherwise not find each other,” said Match spokeswoman Justine Sacco. On one of Match’s dating apps — the company wouldn’t specify which — nearly half of East Asian users set ethnic preferences. “It’s important to give people the ability to find others that have similar values, cultural upbringings and experiences that can enhance their dating experience,” Sacco said. “It’s critical that technology allows communities the ability to find like-minded individuals, creating safe spaces, free from discrimination.”
Hinge, owned by Match, said in an emailed statement removing the filter would “disempower” minorities on its app. “Users from minority groups are often forced to be surrounded by the majority,” the email read. “If the partner they’re looking for doesn’t fall into the majority of users they’re seeing, their dating app experience is disheartening as they spend more time searching for someone who shares similar values and experiences.”
Dating apps have been a positive force for breaking down racial barriers in society, said Reuben Thomas, an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico who has studied online dating and couple diversity. Apps tend to produce more interracial couples than when people meet offline in already segregated settings, such as bars, schools or workplaces.
Even so, white users overwhelmingly reject nonwhite people on dating sites, said Keon West, a researcher in bias and social psychology who teaches at Goldsmiths University of London. “White people are ... much likelier to pick their own group,” he said. One study of a popular online dating site found 80% of contacts initiated by white people went to people of their same race, and just 3% went to black users. Black people were 10 times more likely to contact white people than the other way around, the research published in Psychology of Popular Media Culture found.