If you’ve resisted the temptation thus far to dip your toes into the most prolific and popular matchmaking service online, I applaud you. Tinder and its explosive arrival on the dating scene have been practically unavoidable, and as the app has grown and added new features, it only seems to become more of a huge name in every social media circle that we dwell in. Last year, Tinder made it possible for your account to become “verified,” without explaining much about the process of how this comes to be. Because so many users are always asking about that little blue symbol that occasionally shows up (albeit very rarely) on a person’s Tinder profile, Appamatix is ready to give the details behind the feature. Read on, to find out if it’s something you need to be concerned with, or moreover, something that you should get on board with.
There’s something to be said for adding a new feature that doesn’t have an official “opt in” for the millions of people using a particular app, but that’s exactly what Tinder has done for its massive online, smartphone-based matchmaking service. Back in 2015, the dating giant added the “verification” feature that purportedly lets you know when a person’s profile is 100% legitimate, no questions asked.
But wait…isn’t that what the Facebook connection is for?
Not exactly, and this is the actual reason that this is such a relevant issue to talk about today. You see, the Tinder “verification” feature isn’t for just anybody using the app, which is why that little blue symbol is practically just a myth for the vast majority of users. Ideally, it will migrate to the rest of us, but for right now, it only seems to be showing up on the profiles of notable celebrities and recognizable, popular public figures. The actual meaning behind the symbol is spot-on accurate, in that it is the best proof you can visibly receive that the person in the profile is who they say they are.
However, when an app boasts over tens of millions of daily users, doesn’t it seem slightly isolate and, dare I say, useless, to have it relegated specifically to famous people and well-known celebrity figures?
Maybe, and maybe not. It’s going to require a deeper look into the reason that it exists, and also some speculation as to why it might be a pretty important (and extremely useful) feature once it manages to trickle down to the rest of us.
Fake Profiles on Tinder
One simple deduction can give us the basis for this brief examination: if there’s a need to verify the legitimacy of a person’s Tinder profile, then it stands to reason that there are quite a few illegitimate (read: fake) profiles out there as well. Now, if you’ve spent any time at all on Tinder, then you know very well that the matchmaking service is absolutely polluted with scammers, fake profiles, and liars that seem to only use the service to take advantage of people who are trying to use it to find romance.
This isn’t really a secret, and it certainly isn’t a secret to Tinder’s developers, who seem to be in a bit of a pickle in how they go about handling it.
A large amount of Tinder’s popularity comes from just how open it is in comparison to other matchmaking sites and services. Whereas others will require you to fill out a lengthy questionnaire and buy into a pricing structure, Tinder only requires that you link your account to an active Facebook profile and answer a few very generic questions. After those few requirements are fulfilled, you’ll have access to all of the features available in the free version of the app (and they are numerous.) This ease of access has brought millions of people into the online dating scene, but it has also made it an exceptionally popular place to runs scams and phishing schemes.
It’s not difficult to run a scam on Tinder, and that’s a problem. Because the dating app leans so heavily on information provided by Facebook, it’s feasibly possible to create a brand new Facebook profile, upload images of another person, and link it to a Tinder account so that you can, effectively, pretend to be that person. (Note: this is actually a poor way to run a scam, but a good way to get in trouble for fraud.) There’s no hacking required, and once the Facebook account is set up, it will probably remain up as long as you’re not doing anything wrong on Facebook itself.
Hence, it’s a problem between bedfellows. Tinder can’t very well demand takedowns en masse of fake Facebook users, and Facebook can’t police what isn’t happening on its platform. Surely, there’s some legal middle ground that does allow both parties to take action against fraudulent profiles and accounts but based on the number of scams, bots, and phishing attempts that many Tinder users encounter, it’s not enough.
Therefore, we arrive at Tinder verification.
Tinder Verified
Social media verification isn’t a particularly new concept, and it’s honestly a shame that Tinder isn’t able to roll out this effort more quickly. Verification procedures and notification have been available on Twitter for quite a long time, and it serves as a great reference point for how well the system can work.
It also shows how limited the system is, since Twitter verification also reaches prominent public figures, celebrities, and artists almost exclusively, leaving regular users with no means to mark themselves as “legitimate” or “verified.” It begs the question of whether or not we’ll ever see a rollout to the userbase at large, or if the system will remain relegated to those “larger than life” personalities that most people will recognize on sight.
After all, there is no way to become Tinder Verified, or even request it.
As of right now, in spite of reassurances that the verification system is spreading, signs point to regular users never having access to this particular feature. In several interviews, the CEO of Tinder has specifically said that the system is in place for people who don’t usually have a personal Facebook page that isn’t under tight lock and key. With Tinder verification, those celebrities and other notable figures can find each other and know, right away, whether they’re swiping on the real deal or a fake account.
It’s a bit of a bummer, but it’s not necessarily bad news (at the same time that it’s not necessarily good news, either.) In fact, it’s relatively old news, being that the feature was first rolled out in 2015. What’s most telling, though, is the fact that verification hasn’t rolled out to include any more groups or people than it was originally intended for.
How Can I Become Tinder Verified?
As laughable as it sounds, the only efficient and effective way to become “Tinder verified” is to become exorbitantly wealthy or famous. Yeah, I’m chuckling at it, too.
In the meantime, it’s most useful to rethink the way that we’re looking at this particular feature of the app, and how it’s meant to affect the current issues plaguing the service. Fake accounts, phishing, and scamming are serious problems on Tinder, but even though the Tinder verification feature is tangentially related to those problems, it’s probably wrong to look at it as a potential solution.
Picture the logistics: Tinder has hundreds of millions of users, and more than ten million apparently access the service every single day. You can weed out a portion of that as bots and scammers, but the vast majority are actual people who are using the service as it’s intended. If you can fathom just how many people that is, imagine next just how much effort and thorough research it would take to send verification out to each of them.
That’s a fairly large undertaking, right? I would imagine that it’s not feasible in the least bit to hire programmers to do this kind of work on the scale that Tinder would need, and you certainly can’t automate it; automated verification would only make that little blue symbol null and void, as scammers and bot programmers find ways to take advantage of the process.
A possible solution? Take advantage of the already hot-button Tinder Plus paid subscription and roll out verification to its subscribers. Would it go over well with normal Tinder users? Absolutely not, but it would add significantly more value to a subscription service that’s sorely lacking in additional features, as of right now.
It’s never fun to respond to a question like, “How can I become Tinder verified” with, “You don’t.” Unfortunately, that’s the reality of this particular feature, but the blow is at least softened with the realization that the actual feature itself was never designed with the average user in mind. When you weigh that little blue symbol against the vast amount of free matchmaking service that you get just for downloading and using the app, it’s minuscule in comparison (but does nothing to remove the plague of fake profiles from Tinder’s service.)
