It’s been nearly 10 years since swiping left became the gesture of choice for millions of daters with the advent of Tinder. Since that app first came on the scene Sept. 12, 2012, it seems every single application has tried to suss out the best way for users to burn through potential dates at a pace that can set fire to the most-well intentioned thumbs.
Despite it being a decade since, what so many of these apps still struggle with is dealing with bot, spam, and scam accounts. Gizmodo has previously reported on the thousands of people who told the FTC they were scammed through Tinder during the pandemic. Innocent folks looking for love reported getting scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars, convinced to put down credit card info, or even being threatened after they didn’t want to pay their fees. It took Tinder until last year to introduce ID verification to most of the app’s global user base, although it remains voluntary for the majority of users. The idea of being deceived on a dating app even got a worldwide premiere through the popular Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler.
Bots and scammers are rife on dating apps. A 2017 study published by researchers at the University of Southern California pointed out that it’s especially difficult to determine if a user is a bot…
