It is no secret that online dating has an ever-accumulating user base. People swipe right on the apps that offer this facility because it is a platform that allows them to put themselves out there. The traction that the industry has picked is so colossal that it reported a revenue of around $2.6 billion in the year 2022. Bumble, Grindr, and Match Group’s—the conglomerate that owns Hinge and Tinder—combined worth amounted to a whopping $13 billion.
While the higher-ups are swimming in all this money, all parties involved are not happy. On the contrary, they were at the receiving end of a streak of criticisms that held these companies responsible for abuse, harassment, and offline violence that their users could be victims of. But their long list of offences does not end there. According to research, external workers responsible for content moderation on popular dating apps, such as Grindr, are grappling with a mental health crisis attributed to substandard labour conditions and a scarcity of mental health support.
The concerns
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) investigated the working conditions of outsourced content moderation staff for dating apps, such as Grindr. The report, titled “Behind Every Swipe: The Workers Toiling to Keep Dating Apps Safe,” includes interviews with 40 current and former workers. These workers, based in countries like Honduras, the Philippines, and Brazil, described mental health challenges associated with content moderation, including symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Disturbingly, one individual had attempted suicide multiple times. Common concerns included understaffing, unrealistic productivity targets, a lack of mental health support, and delays in addressing user abuse reports.
Many employees directly linked their working conditions to the safety of the apps’ users, highlighting a pressing connection between employee well-being and the overall safety of the platforms. Some moderators described exposure to distressing content, including images of child sexual abuse, leading to serious mental health struggles. The demanding pace of the work, coupled with the pressure to maintain high-quality scores, contributed to burnout among workers. The report also noted instances where moderators faced termination for not meeting productivity standards, even when dealing with serious health issues. Overall, the findings shed light on the human toll of content moderation in the dating app industry.
As outlined in the report, Grindr enlisted the services of PartnerHero in 2017 to augment its customer support staff. While PartnerHero initially handled some user safety tasks, it gradually assumed the majority of Grindr’s content moderation responsibilities. Employees at PartnerHero, responsible for content moderation for Grindr in Honduras, disclosed to TBIJ that there was limited mental health support for staff until 2020. In that year, as per the workers, an additional third-party contractor was brought in to offer therapy, and PartnerHero included subsidised mental health services in its health insurance plans.
However, TBIJ highlighted that several workers hired after the introduction of these benefits claimed they were not informed of their existence. The report also indicated that Grindr had reduced its internal trust and safety team, with one employee stating that initiatives such as preventing banned users from rejoining Grindr and minimising moderators’ exposure to distressing content, such as child abuse material, had been deprioritised in favour of cost-cutting and revenue increase.
The state of the outsourced moderation industry appears to be worsening, marked by layoffs, a trend particularly prevalent in the US tech sector over the past two years due to rising interest rates and a decline in venture capital funding.
Allegedly, Match Group has deprioritised safety measures since 2022, according to three sources who held senior roles at the company. These cuts have reportedly strained trust and safety teams, as noted by two of the senior sources. As stated in Wired, in response to these claims, Match Group’s Kayla Whaling countered, stating: “We have increased our safety investments and brought in leading safety executives who have continued to build new roles and expanded existing safety functions, resulting in a 30 percent growth of our trust and safety teams over the past year.”
Users are in peril
Users of dating apps may not be aware that reports of abusive behaviour, such as harassment or sexual assault, could be initially reviewed by outsourced workers in Honduras, India, or Guatemala. These individuals are expected to make the call where they decide whether a user should be restricted from the app and if the case warrants escalation to staff safety specialists.
Recent headlines underscore the serious dangers faced by dating app users, ranging from disturbing messages to instances of sexual assault and violence. Workers interviewed expressed concerns about their ability to respond promptly and effectively to reports of abuse, acknowledging the potential for errors. An incorrect decision on an abuse report could have severe consequences, as highlighted by a case where a woman’s report of a sexual assault after a Hinge date was initially missed and left unanswered.
Moderation errors were reported across multiple apps, with one former Grindr moderator acknowledging mistakes that could have been avoided with more staff. While Bumble and Hinge handle all escalated legal cases and law enforcement requests internally, Grindr outsources some of this work to a legal sub-team in Honduras. A former worker on this sub-team mentioned receiving training in 2019 but had no experience dealing with complex legal requests.
Everything is a mess inside these companies. The amount of workload and expectations that are dumped on the employees is making all of them pull the plug on the operations. Since there is a lack of staff, complaints that are lodged will go unattended. All these dating apps are facing a dire lack of a diverse workforce. This means that there will be a lack of people who speak many different languages putting many users at a disadvantage. The reason that these companies fail to retain their labour force is the undue stress they subject employees to. It is unfair for the workers to maintain a steady productivity level of over 85%. Simply put, it does not make sense. Even though the pay is good, the way that they treat the employees is abysmal. Despite the fact that most of the employees hand in their resignations in bulk, the companies will continue to outsource work while failing to improve the working conditions, thus stagnating the growth of these companies in terms of quality.
(Sandunlekha Ekanayake)