Dramneurodivergent ladies, now's our chance! Grab this longposting dreamboat of a UChicago econ major quick before he figures out how to get unbanned from every other dating site on Earth

If @ElonMusk wants to raise birthrates, he should purchase Match Group, the company that controls Tinder and Hinge—over half of the online dating market. No company comes close to Match Group’s chokehold on modern love. And, as you’ll discover, no company is as shockingly evil.… pic.twitter.com/TKqCIVehsO

— Daniel Schmidt (@realdschmidt) October 9, 2024

If @elonmusk

wants to raise birthrates, he should purchase Match Group, the company that controls Tinder and Hinge—over half of the online dating market. No company comes close to Match Group's chokehold on modern love. And, as you'll discover, no company is as shockingly evil.

I first encountered Match Group three years ago when I began college. I was horny... but I didn't want to hook up with random girls so I downloaded Hinge. I went on a few dates. There was one girl that I really started to like. Then I woke up one morning and was suddenly banned.

Did you know you can get banned on Hinge if just one woman reports you for whatever reason she wants? Maybe she didn't like your bio. Or maybe your ex found you. And if you do get banned, did you know the app sends an email to every woman you matched with? Good luck!

You think you can outsmart the system and create a new account? That will require a new phone and a new phone number. You will also need to use a different name and birthday on your account and create the account from a different Wi-Fi and GPS location. You need entirely new photos as well. And that will probably still not work because the apps likely use facial recognition and will detect you. Whatever technology you think these apps have, they're far beyond that.

I've learned all of this because of a subreddit called /r/SwipeHelper. The entire purpose of the community is to help men get unbanned from Hinge and Tinder. There are 34,000 members.

But hard bans are not even the worst thing Match Group does. Those bans are quite generous, actually, as they at least prevent men from purchasing subscriptions or boosts. Indeed, there is a much more subtle punishment in the form of a shadow ban, which throttles the visibility of a man's account and pushes him to spend money in hopes of being seen by women. Here is where the true dystopia begins.

Eleven days ago, someone claiming to have worked in quality assurance for various dating apps wrote a post on /r/SwipeHelper. Their post went into great detail about their work and aligns precisely with what many people have observed for years, so I'm inclined to believe it. I'll link to it in a comment below.

This person says their job was to handle reports about users and decide a punishment. They note that one of the most common reports women make about men is "I just don't like him."

The insider writes: "If you get too many of these types of reports, you will get a temp shadow ban and go on a 'Probation Period' where your profile is not shown to regular members, while you can still see everybody just fine. Any likes you send will never be received by the other member."

The person adds that whether someone gets hard-banned or shadow-banned depends on whether someone is a "repeat offender." If someone has received several reports, they'll more likely get shadow-banned to waste their time and make them think they can still use the app.

It is in this state that men feel worthless. Weeks pass, and they receive zero messages, zero likes, and zero matches. They become desperate and start purchasing boosts and subscriptions.

How much money does Match Group, with a market cap of $9.7 billion, earn from shadow-banning men? Would it surprise you if shadow bans were one of the primary ways—if not the primary way—the company makes a profit? Is this even legal?

Match Group has a direct incentive to make it impossible for men to find love. You can say these men should meet women in person, but do they even have the confidence to do that now? If they get literally zero matches on a dating app, what makes them think they'll be successful in real life? How many give up outright?

A billionaire like Elon could purchase a majority stake in Match Group for less than $5 billion. The first step? Make the algorithm public. Show everyone how these apps have been manipulating them and profiting from it. Explore criminal charges for those responsible.

The rest is simple: eliminate shadow banning, offer amnesty to banned users, and make the algorithm fair. That alone would lead to countless new relationships.

Online dating is the future. Our society has become far too atomized and distrustful for in-person meetups to ever have a renaissance. Men fear face-to-face rejection; women fear "creeps." Media indoctrination has ensured these dynamics are here to stay. Trying to overcome them is futile.

What can be overthrown, however, are the malicious people who currently control dating apps—people who happily demoralize and deprive men of love if it means more profit. Sure, someone like Elon could start an alternative company and face all the obstacles of creating new infrastructure and obtaining new users. Or he could take control of what already exists, as he did with 𝕏.

Let dating apps serve society. The future awaits.