Last year, a friend came to me with a strange tech problem.
All of a sudden, the app stopped showing me attractive people, Anthony said.
It was an issue hed never seen on Tinder, Bumble, or any other platform.
Illustration: Vicky Leta
I have to work through 100 profiles to find someone halfway decent.
At first, I didnt believe him.
Why would Hinge hide them?
But Anthony slid his phone across the table, and I tapped through his Hinge account.
His story held up.
The typical dating app feed is a mix of people with varying levels of attractiveness.
You get the occasional model, some obvious nos, and a lot of ordinary, good-looking people.
Anthonys feed wasnt like that.
I had to agree with him.
Id never seen anything like it.
Anthony wondered if Hinge decided he just wasnt handsome enough.
He told me he showed his account to a dozen people over the course of a few months.
Everyone agreed: it seemed like Hinge sorted Anthony into a tier of less desirable users.
I was shadowbanned, he said.
Anthony isnt the only one.
Some said its their own accounts being hidden from other users.
Everyone agreed that Hinge and other apps judge users appeal to adjust their individual algorithmic experiences.
Some assume its a benevolent effort to find appropriate dates and eventual mates.
Others believe its a manipulation technique to encourage paid features that promise more matches.
For many, dating apps dont feel optional.
A 2019studyfound almost 40% of US couples met on dating apps.
There are plenty of alternatives, but its less of a choice than you might think.
Anthony couldnt think of anything that might have gotten his account flagged.
Regardless, Hinge didnt offer an explanation for his experience.
We do not withhold possible matches from users, the Hinge spokesperson said.
We want our users to match with the people theyre compatible with and delete our app.
Hinge is so funny.
Theyre using profiles as pawns, said Caitlyn, a 29-year-old writer living in Jersey City.
Like the other daters in this story, Caitlyn asked Gizmodo not to use her full name.
Youre telling me that theyre not using attractiveness to match people in 2023?
I dont buy it.
How is the app determining if Im compatible with Joe from Astoria?
Hinge uses algorithmic recommendations to determine who you see in the regular feed, too.
Thats a laudable goal.
Dating apps use collaborative filtering algorithms.
Its the same key in of thing that Netflix or Amazon use to recommend shows and products.
But people are not products.
Shows dont have to like you back like people do on a dating app.
They have to match you with users who are essentially in your league.
Hinge offers a number of perks if youre willing to pay.
$9.99 buys you a Boost which shows your profile to 11 times more people for one hour.
There are subscriptions, too.
There are discounts if youre not afraid of commitment, of course.
Six months of HingeX, for example, costs $149.99.
The hotties trapped in Rose jail arent the only roadblocks Hinge throws at plebes whod rather save their money.
For many, the biggest frustration is on the page of people whove hit Like on your profile.
Youre welcome to see the restif you break out a credit card.
Hinge reported 1.2 million users paid in the second quarter of 2023.
According to the company, that number is on the rise.
Then they give you recommendations based on what similar users like and dislike.
The same goes for matches on dating apps.
Then the app assigned you an attractiveness score (the company prefers the term desirability).
Tinder used that score to determine who should see your profile.
If Im a five, theyre not going to show me tens, Rios said.
It gravitates around your own score.
Tinders Elo score disclosure caused public outcry, and since then, the company says it abandoned that system.
Tinder claims its current system is far more sophisticated, but the details are vague.
Not all dating apps are created equal.
According to Rios, Tinder is optimized for engagement.
In other words, its built to keep you hooked on Tinder.
Hinge, on the other hand, calls itself the dating app designed to be deleted.
The incentives are more aligned than youd think, Rios said.
If you find someone quickly and leave the app, thats good for them.
They wont be able to monetize you anymore, but youll spread the news about Hinge.
Can you hack the dating app algorithm?
These guys are trying.
That means the algorithm can be manipulated, at least in theory.
That hasnt stopped single hopefuls who venture to hack the algorithm to get better results.
One example is Reddits r/SwipeHelper.
Some guys temporarily switch their photos to ones of male models and then back to pictures of themselves.
Others change their location to cities with less competition.
Its all based on raising your score in the algorithm by trying to engineer more matches, he said.
And get better photos.
You dont understand how difficult it is out there for a lot of people.
These algorithms determine who you go out with and who you dont.
It raises all kinds of interesting moral questions, Pancake said.
Hoffman said shes heard lots of shadowbanning stories in her 15 years of coaching.
Hoffman said shed never seen a case exactly like Anthonys, but Pancake Mouse said he had.
Its an insidious software bug, he told me.
Essentially, Pancake said, Anthonys experience was a fluke.
Anthony tried everything to break out of the shadowban.
I had at least ten people look over my profile and give it a makeover, he said.
Both men and women, including people who do really well on the apps.
New photos, new prompts… nothing worked.
On occasion, Anthony said, he could escape the shadowban, but only temporarily.
But inevitably, Hinge would plunge Anthony back into the depths.
Then, around the turn of the new year, things changed.
As mysteriously as his shadowban arrived, it disappeared.
I wasnt doing anything differently, but out of nowhere, it went back to normal, Anthony said.
I think they changed their backend algorithm and got some better prediction system or machine learning models, maybe.
His dating app feed improved, but dating itself is still something he approaches with trepidation.
These days he doesnt feel as much pressure to find a date.
The more time he spent alone, the more comfortable he felt with the single life.
Hes happy, if a little lonely sometimes.
Anthony has a lot of theories about his life under the algorithm.
He wonders if his feed tanked because he didnt use Hinge often enough.
In the meantime, I guess Im still trying with these apps.
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