Are Dating Apps Allowing In Registered Sex Offenders? A House Subcommittee Is Investigating
A House subcommittee is investigating popular dating services such as Tinder and Bumble for allegedly allowing minors and sex offenders to use their services.
Bumble, Grindr, The Meet Group and the Match Group, which owns such popular services as Tinder, Match.com and OkCupid, are the current targets of the investigation by the U.S. House Oversight and Reform subcommittee on economic and consumer policy.
In separate letters Thursday to the companies, the subcommittee is seeking information on users’ ages, procedures for verifying ages, and any complaints about assaults, rape or the use of the services by minors. It is also asking for the services’ privacy policies and details on what users see when they review and agree to the policies.
Although the minimum age for using internet services is typically 13 in the U.S., dating services generally require users to be at least 18 because of concerns about sexual predators.
dating services generally require users to be at least 18 because of concerns about sexual predators.
Yeah, because “predators” only go after minors. You’d never hear of adults preying in adults. Not possible. 🤦🏻♂️
Match Group said it uses “every tool possible” to keep minors and bad actors off its services
“Bad actors”? You mean like Jim Carey? Or you mean like spousal abusers, drug addicts, armed robbers and DUIs?
Because we all know that anyone with a sex offense was certainly born with that offense.
Match added that the national sex offender registry needs to be updated so that perpetrators’ digital footprints can be tracked and blocked by social media and dating services.*
No, it doesn’t, Match. Do you people remember a time BEFORE sex offense registries? Or are you all 20 yrs old?
Do you remember a time when there were dating ads in all local newspapers?
Now go look at data that tells how many sexual offenses happened back then and if the “perpetrators” had prior sex offense convictions.
Seriously, this shit needs to stop. The fear mongering has gotten beyond the scope of ridiculous.
Basically they’re all saying that someone with no sexual offense history (on documents in courts) will not commit sex crimes. How stupid can these people be?
“How stupid can these people be?”
Stupid enough to have a subcommittee on it apparently
The only problem with those sites are lawn enforcement who go on those sites to target the people are on it then after targeting them they. Then say they are 14 most of all they even put that on there arrest sheet people open your eyes
I met my previous and my current girlfriend both on Yahoo personals before they were absorbed by match.com. Previous relationship was 8 years and current relationship is 11 years so far.
I sent the following emailed feedback (with pdf attachments) to Time.com regarding the news story under the “source” link here.
I am SORNA registrant, but I am not a sex offender. I did offend sexually once in my past. I got caught, tried and sentenced. I performed my full sentence – prison, probation, and fines and fees. It is paid in full. I am no longer a sex-offender. I have not offended sexually (nor broken any law) since then. I am a former sex offender. I am also a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen of the US and Florida.
I use a couple of dating apps that allow registrants to enroll. This has helped me to reintegrate into society (as best I can) and to heal and move forward with my life.
There is a common notion that sex offenders have a high risk of recidivism. This is patently untrue!
The scientific evidence clearly and unequivocally shows that those who have committed sex crimes have the lowest rates of recidivism of any crime type except for murder. (Presumably, most murderers murder exactly once and never again.)
Please see the attached pdf files. They are from credible sources.
PrisonPolicy.org
Yale Law Journal
The Washington Post
Women Against the Registry (This is a collection of links to bona-fide research studies by US States and Universities)
Sex Offender Management Assessment and Planning Initiative (SMART.gov) – a US Federal entity
While I realize that this is not a popular topic, a grave injustice is being committed. If we do not allow former sex offenders to reintegrate back into society and move on with their lives, we are turning our backs on science, reason, sound-policy and wisdom! We are hounding people to death – even taking away their chances of rehabilitation.
Thank You.
Once registered sex offenders are taken off the dating sites, you can finally relax and let your 14-year old daughters meet men on the internet! Without registered sex offenders on dating sites you can trust that the 38-year-old man your 14-year old daughter met on a dating site is a wholesome man with only the best intentions! Encourage your children to explore other sites. The fellows on 8chan can teach your children which race of people is responsible for all of the world’s misery, and how guns are the answer!
I lol’d at this.
So someone who goes to an ADULT meeting site is somehow a child predator? I still don’t follow that reasoning.
They can’t even follow their own reasoning because it’s beyond reason.
My two children never would have been born, had these Congressmen had their way. Their mother and I met on a dating app and are raising them together.
What are they trying to do here, protect children??
If the panel finds that sexual results resulted from dating site matches, that in itself is no argument for banning registered sex offenders.
UNLESS it was registered sex offenders who carried out those assaults.
So the question must be asked by the panel: what percentage of these assaults were carried out by persons on the registry? Was it 5%? 3%?
*”If the panel finds that sexual assaults resulted…”
According to these reporters,
They found roughly 150 incidents of accusations OR convictions.
Of those, only 10% involved someone on the registry.
So all this over barely 15 cases.
Who in the hell created a law about the age of 13+ for using the internet? So are we to understand that a 7yo playing on your phone or tablet, that someone is in fact breaking the law? What total absurd load of crap these lawmakers come up with to further this punitive country.
I don’t think any such law exists. I don’t know what they’re talking about.
Thank God i found my wife on one of these sites before this conversation started.
On top of that, a sex offender cant use these sites, but literally 95% of the users are just there looking for sex. But they arent frowned upon. Its a common mantra the dating sites are merely just hookup sites. God forbid you buy the girl dinner or give her mo ey for a cab and next thing you know youre arrested for soliticing protitution
The Propublica report referenced in this article not only added people merely accused but not convicted of crimes, it struggled to find cases where registered persons were involved in any of these alleged assaults.
So they’re making noise out of a few isolated cases out of millions.
I have personally used two dating sites mentioned in the article and never had any issues. Only once did I met a complete whack job though the site. It seems not having a car is a bigger stigma on those sites than being a registered person.
Maybe they are just investigating to find out if minors are really using these sites to look for random adult strangers to hook up with, as law enforcement has claimed to justify why they look for “child predators” on adult sites. This investigation should be good thing (if it is an honest one) because it could put an end to these nonsense sex sting operations where many innocent individuals have been manipulated and trapped on adult sites and labeled as “child predators”, for the sole purposes of money and the appearance of catching “child predators”. Maybe someone is really interested in the real truth about it.
“A House Subcommittee Is Investigating…”
Herein lies the root of the problem. What a sad day it is for Amerikkka when government squanders its resources on a beleaguered population already under a microscope, and to create more “sex offenders” to add to the one million already on the registry. Instead of tackling real issues, like homelessness, the unemployable, and poverty, big government wants to expand Amerikkka’s “criminal class.”
Since 9/11, our rights and freedoms have been eroding at a staggering pace. Our floundering fathers would not recognize Amerikkka in its current incarnation. So sorry to report that we are already living in a dystopian police state. Things will only get worse.
Look up the three “Columbia Journalism Investigations” reporters, and not one of them has actual journalist experience. What a shocker, huh?
Unfortunately that’s the way it’s been done there was a prostitution setup to catch men who are going to use prostitutes and that’s how they did it they had someone as a prostitute who wasn’t they staged it but then they caught people so they did it that way to catch people on the sites I would stage myself as a 14-year-old to catch any of these dirty predators I would do it I have too much experience my mind is mentally unwell from being manipulated by a sexual offender and the tricks that they use are so mentally and emotionally manipulating that you fall in and I’ll do what I can to stop them even if it means saying I’m a 14-year-old and posting a made-up picture just to catch those dirty sick people and about people going on there that are sexual offenders if it’s no problem what are sexual offenders going back on sex sites for if they’ve been rehabilitated they wouldn’t even be there if they’d be rehabilitated that is an addiction and they’re going back to the addiction it’s a sickness and they’re going back to the sickness so they should not be allowed in any of these sites ever again because there’s something in their brain that does not work and also the women should be screened because these are victims of sex trafficking the go on those sites to make money or just because they’re so screwed up from being exploited that they should be helped not put on a sex platform again