Lawsuit Claims Hinge and Tinder Failed to Protect Women from Sexual Predators
The lawsuit was filed by six date rape survivors of the same cardiologist, who's since been sentenced to 158 years in prison.
Photo: iStockphoto News
Between 2019 and 2023, a cardiologist in Denver, Colorado, used multiple dating apps to drug women and go on a “rape spree” across the city. Despite being flagged by survivors beginning as early as 2020, he was allowed to remain active on the apps. Now, six women who were raped or sexually assaulted are suing Match Group, the parent company of Hinge and Tinder, for failing to safeguard its female users from sexual predators.
Match Group—the corporate behemoth that also owns OKCupid and Plenty of Fish and whose matchmaking products operate in 40 languages across 190 countries—is accused in the lawsuit of “accommodating rapists” and incubating a space rife with “sexual predators,” according to the 54-page complaint.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday by four law firms representing the six women, who claim that Hinge’s product design is “defective.” It emphasizes how, if a user chooses to unmatch with someone, that removes the option to report them—allowing for repeated offenses to take place. Further, when one user is banned from one of Match Group’s dating apps, they can still easily jump to another platform using the same name, birthday, and profile photos. (This was initially reported in February by the Dating Apps Reporting Project, an 18-month investigation into the company’s handling—or lack thereof—of abusive users. Nothing’s changed.)
“Even when Match Group receives reports about rapists, they continue to welcome them, fail to warn users about the general and specific risks, and affirmatively recommend known predators to members,” the lawsuit states. “Rapists know each Match Group platform offers a catalog of available victims.”
The company’s own safety policy states that a user will be banned from all platforms if they are reported for assault. Yet, the cardiologist was allowed to remain on the dating apps and was even promoted as a “Standout,” indicating he was a popular profile. He wasn’t removed until his arrest in February 2023, after one survivor went to the police. In October 2024, he was found guilty on 35 counts of drugging and sexual assault and sentenced to 158 years in prison.
Currently, Match Group faces no criminal charges related to the abuse, nor for failing to comply with search warrants that eventually secured the cardiologist’s conviction. The story, which was copublished by the Guardian and the 19th and produced by the Dating Apps Reporting Project in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network and The Markup, notes that the Match Group did not provide a comment before publication.
In 2020, amid investor pressure and concerns about safety, Match Group vowed to release a “transparency report” to inform the public about the number of people reported for rape, assault, and abuse on its platforms. But five years later, it’s never been released—and according to leaked internal reports, the firm would like to keep it that way. In presentations circulated by Match Group employees and external safety partners, questions like “Do we only publish where we are required by law?” and “Do we push back on how much we are required to reveal, or do we try to go beyond what is required?” Reassuring questions from the biggest global portfolio of online dating services…
Like what you just read? You’ve got great taste. Subscribe to Jezebel, and for $5 a month or $50 a year, you’ll get access to a bunch of subscriber benefits, including getting to read the next article (and all the ones after that) ad-free. Plus, you’ll be supporting independent journalism—which, can you even imagine not supporting independent journalism in times like these? Yikes.
Keep scrolling for more great stories.