Credit: Wikimedia commons
Earlier this month, a bunch of Trump supporters stormed the halls of the US Capitol building and caused havoc as Joe Biden’s presidency was being certified by Congress, resulting in the deaths of five people. These insurrectionists are learning about the consequences of their stupid act. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has already added a lot of rioters to a nationwide no-fly list, and more are being added.
However, these rioters might find it difficult to land a date online, as Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and OkCupid are kicking them out. As The Washington Post reported, these dating apps are using images captured during the incident to identify miscreants and remove them from the platform.
The report notes that users are also joining in to help the company and authorities out. A lot of them are swiping through profiles, and even matching with people who claim to be involved in the storming of the Capitol just to gather evidence.
Some rioters are happily bragging about their heinous deeds on their profiles and in chats. And people matching with them are turning over this data to the FBI. A few liberal users are even changing their preferences and profiles to match with conservatives and gather more information.
Capitol • Capitol rioters getting busted by the FBI via dating apps is truly delightful #CapitolRiots pic.twitter.com/IOgmNM9blq
— amii.illustrates (@AmiiIllustrates) January 15, 2021
I know a friend of a friend who changed her preference on Bumble to Conservative. She’s matching with MAGA bros and they’re bragging and sending her pics and videos of them in the Capitol. She’s sending them to the FBI.
— Allison #FreeThemALL Norris (@allisonnorris) January 8, 2021
This is funny but actually serious. There are DOZENS of men on DC dating apps right now who were clearly here for the insurrection attempt yesterday. Some say it directly, others are obvious from MAGA clothing, location tags, etc. Is that info useful at all for law enforcement?
— Alia Awadallah (@aawadall) January 7, 2021
In a statement, Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid, said that it’s banning users who are on the FBI’s wanted list in connection with the Capitol building riots:
We have, and will continue, to ban any users wanted by the FBI in connection with domestic terrorism from all of our brands, and we always cooperate with law enforcement in their investigations
Bumble told the Post that the company is encouraging users to block and report people who are violating its terms. Plus, the app’s algorithm is scanning profiles to detect “text content that promotes the insurrection or related activities,” and remove those users.
Trump, who had a big hand in rallying his supporters, was banned from major platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch. It won’t be surprising if, after dating apps, social media platforms would also ban insurrectionists permanently.