Did the Match Group Chose Profits Over Preventing Rape?
The Guardian Investigates Rape Accusations on the World’s Largest Dating App Owner
This morning, there was a horrific investigative article on accusations of rape/assault in the Match Group1. It’s a story of woman who went on a date with a cardiologist, Steven Matthews, who invited her back to his place, and offered her a drink. You can probably already tell where this is going: she began to lose control and he put her in a headlock. It ends relatively well, as far as these stories go: she was able to resist his attempts to pull her back inside, and vomited home in an Uber. She continued vomiting for hours, and when she pulled herself together, she reported the profile to Hinge, whose parent company is the Match Group.
The first person who reported this profile to Match did so on September 28, 2020. The Guardian states that at least fifteen women reported him. Four days before the incident, another woman reported the same profile. Just over a week later, another woman reported the same profile. That woman went to the police. Two months later, he was arrested. On October 25, 2024, the man behind the profile was convicted of 35 counts related to drugging and/or sexual assault of 11 women, and sentenced to 158 to life in prison2.
What The Guardian Gets Wrong
Match Group is company behind several popular dating apps Match, Tinder, Hinger, OkCupid, Pairs, Plenty of Fish, BLK, Azar, and Meetic. The investigative article in The Guardian states Match Group control half of the world’s dating market3.
The Guardian writes that “Match Group’s official safety policy states that when a user is reported for assault, ‘all accounts found that are associated with that user will be banned from our platforms’.”
This is not true. That’s not what their online safety policy states.
Here’s what it misses4: according to Match’s online safety policy, “[w]hen a member reports abuse or assault to one of the Match Group brands, we review and take necessary action, which can include identifying the user and blocking any associated accounts that are found on Match Group platform.”
Where does The Guardian pull their quote from? From the following section:
At Match Group, we prohibit the following groups of people from using our products:
Anyone younger than 18 years of age;
Anyone who has been convicted of or pleaded no contest to a felony, violent or sexual crime;
Registered sex offenders;
Anyone suspected of sex trafficking.
If a user has been reported for domestic abuse, assault, or criminal activity (past or present) while they are active on our platforms, all accounts found that are associated with that user will be banned from our platforms.
The online safety policy must be read in its entirely. When you do that instead of pulling out the single sentence as The Guardian does, it reads quite differently. What I believe it says5 when someone is reported, according to the criteria above, they are automatically removed if they’ve been convicted or plead no contest to felony, violent or sexual crime or are a registered sex offender. They are not removed automatically when a user reported she (he/they) was assaulted, instead the report is reviewed and action is taken based on that.
This is unfortunately the reality of assault. I cannot and will not give legal advice here, but I will state that accusations that haven’t been proven in a court of law subject the accuser to legal action by the accused, in the form of defamation/libel/slander, but also suits related other violations of rights. This is why Match Group’s online safety policy is what it is.
What the Law Gets Wrong
This is an opinion based on data and not the law. This information in this section is not legal advice nor a legal analysis. It does not constitute legal advice. Please consult with an attorney regarding any specific legal questions or concerns you may have.
What most of us miss is that the law hasn’t changed although society’s understanding of sexual assault has. During this century, studies6 in both the UK and the US show that the rate of false accusations is 2 - 4%. Perhaps we shouldn’t “ #believewomen ” immediately, but let’s listen to women. Listen knowing women seldom lie about this. Listen knowing that 96 - 98% of accusations are true. Which means, given the number of reports Match Group received on Steven Matthews, they should have at a minimum investigated the reports more throughly.
Because the law is what it is, I can cautiously name Steven Matthews is that he’s been convicted on multiple counts. I am too afraid of the law to speak about other accusations. Which means that when I know someone is applying for a job and the startup founder of that company has confessed to assault and paid off the victim7, or when I know a particular man has been accused by multiple women, I cannot be open in revealing those accusations. The lack of differentiation and education on the difference between unproven accusations and convictions means that all accusations are silenced, and information goes unshared.
So why not go through the legal system and get a conviction? Because it’s astonishing that Steven Matthews was convicted. There were several survivors who did not report until one finally did. And in the state of California, according to a lecture I attended, 96% of rape is never reported. The Department of Justice believes that number to be 80%, with twenty percent of survivors saying they fear retaliation, thirteen percent saying they do not trust the police, and over thirty percent refusing to state why they did not report8. Only 25 out 1,000 (per RAINN) rapists are convicted. Since only 2.5% of rapists are convicted, survivors aren’t incentivized to report. In my work as an advocate, the reasons they give are that they’d prefer to heal and move on rather than put themselves through the process, that they’re aware of the lack of convictions, that they’re afraid of defamation laws.
All of this is to say: the legal system likely chills reporting, and thus, inadvertently allows rapists to continue raping.
Could Match Group Have Done More?
There is very little research on dating app facilitated sexual assault. One of the few is a Brigham Young study about it found dating app facilitated sexual assault is 32.4% more likely to be violent, including strangulation, more penetrative acts, more victim injuries9. And, as Steven Matthew’s convictions illustrate, rapists usually repeat. One study - one of the few of its kind - shows self-confessed rapists confess to 5.8 rapes per10.
Based on that, Match Group should have done more. According to the The Guardian investigative article, in an 2021 impact report, they promised to release a transparency report about harm on and off their platforms. As of 2025, it has not been released. Internal communications show that they questions if they could comply with the law, push back, or reveal more. Company insiders say that since 2021, Match Group has been promising increased efforts on safety, but safety has not improved. “In February 2020, 11 members of Congress wrote to then CEO Shar Dubey asking for details on how the company responds to reports of sexual violence.”
Match Group hired a consultant. The Guardian “employees who pushed for these initiatives were forced out or laid off, including [the consultant hired] – a leader who was so convinced of her own invincibility that she showed up to an event wielding a Captain America shield.” One of the employees who was pushed out gave an interview to The Guardian. He states that they refused to do what would work: hire investigators (to help with the “reviews” that their online safety policy speaks to) and to integrate better, more powerful moderation tools across all their platforms. The article indicates that Match Group’s apps are not sharing reports and disinformation is disorganized. As it stood, even if a user was banned, they could simply create a new account. Although they had hired an outside consultant, one of their apps - OKCupid - already had software they could use. The software prevented the banned user from creating a new profile using the same phone number and email. Would that be enough? After all, someone could sign up by creating a new email address or getting a new phone number (eg, through Google voice).
In October 2021, Match Group’s shares were trading at a high of $150. Today, those shares are at roughly $33. Given that, it’s unlikely that they’ll invest more into safety. Further, while The Guardian speculates the reason Match Group didn’t do more is profits, I believe it’s partially that, partially inaction, and partially their fears around legalities of accusations prior to conviction.
What would work? Changes in the law. Legislation targeting dating apps, perhaps, but most importantly, more broadly sweeping changes in the laws around rape.
Harjani, Hanisha and Elena, Emily. “Rape under wraps: how Tinder, Hinge, and their corporate owner chose profits over safety.” The Guardian. February 13, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/13/tinder-hinge-match-investigation
The language, included “convicted” is taken directly from the news release from the Denver (Colorado) district attorney’s office. https://www.denverda.org/news-release/convicted-rapist-stephen-matthews-sentenced-to-158-years-to-life-in-prison/
Another source: IBISWorld, which is an industry analytics report producer, says they control 42.7% of the market. https://www.ibisworld.com/us/company/match-group-inc/426326/#:~:text=Description,growth%20compared%20to%20their%20peers.
This information is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult with an attorney regarding any specific legal questions or concerns you may have.
This information is not intended to be legal advice nor a legal analysis. It does not constitute legal advice. Please consult with an attorney regarding any specific legal questions or concerns you may have.
FBI: UCR. “2015 Crime in the United States.” FBI. Accessed July 23, 2022. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/rape)
UK Home Office Study shows 4% (Kelly, Liz & Lovett, Jo & Regan, Linda. “Home Office Research Study 293 A Gap or a Chase? Attrition in Reported Rape Cases” UK Home Office. January 2005. Accessed July 22, 2022. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238713283_Home_Office_Research_Study_293_A_gap_or_a_chasm_Attrition_in_reported_rape_cases.
Another study cited by the US Department of Justice shows 2.1% (Heenan, Melanie & Murray, Suellen. Study of Reported Rapes in Victoria 2000 – 2003. US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. July 2006. Accessed July 24, 2022 https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/study-reported-rapes-victoria-2000-2003-summary-research-report ).
However, I gathered this quote and this opinion from Amia Srinvasan’s “The Right to Sex”, pages 2 - 3 (UK & US stats), and Alexandra' Brodsky’s “Sexual Justice”, pages 52-54.
There is a lot of discourse on the payment in exchange for silence being illegal. Rowena Chiu (an accuser of Harvey Weinstein) has spoken out about the illegality of NDAs for silencing accusers, and there are organizations such as Can’t Buy my Silence working against this trend.
Morgan, Rachel E. and Kena, Grace. “Criminal Victimization, 2016: Revised.” U.S. Department of Justice. October 2018. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv16.pdf. Twenty percent of victims do not file in fear of retaliation from perpetrator and/or from society/community/workplace, thirteen percent do not trust the police to help, and thirty percent did not provide reason. Also see: Belknap, J. (footnote 13 in our “prevention article”)
Lisak & Miller, 2002 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11991158/ ; Abbey et al., 2012; Thompson et al., 2013 Include that data was gathered asking men if they had non-consensual sex without using the terms rape or sexual assault
Valentine, J.L., Miles, L.W, Hamblin, K.M.**, & Gibbons, A.W. (2022). Dating app facilitated sexual assault: A retrospective review of sexual assault medical forensic examination charts. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605221130390. Accessed link: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7669&context=facpub