Finally (Picture: Tinder)

The internet is a great place because it allows you to be who you want to be but it can also be pretty bad because it lets you be who you want to be.

And not everybody wants to be themselves.

Catfishing is the ample term we use to describe those who pretend to be others or distort parts of themselves to appear favourably online.

We don’t mean using a generous filter that that finetunes your skin or an angle that gets rid of a fivehead (guilty), it’s when people straight-up lie about themselves.


And of course, it’s rampant on dating apps – the corner of the internet where one tries to be as perfect as possible, to acquire a match and all.



So Tinder has come up with a feature that hopes to stop people from catfishing – blue ticks.

The dating app has come up with a photo verification method whereby selected users will be asked to take pictures in real-time.

Selected daters will be asked to take a selfie that matches a pose shown by a model in a sample image.

Tinder advises doing this twice before requesting verification.

The photos are then sent to Tinder’s community team, which determines whether the account is legitimate or not.

If all is as it should be, a blue checkmark will be assigned to the account to give their matches a bit of peace and mind.

How do I get verified on Tinder? Open Tinder and tap the profile icon Tap the grey checkmark by your name/age Select ‘Verify your profile’ to begin You’ll be shown a pose and we’ll ask you to copy that pose by taking a selfie Confirm that your selfie matches the pose and hit ‘Submit for review’ Repeat steps 4 & 5 one more time

Over on its website, Tinder reveals: ‘We use a combo of trusty humans and facial recognition technology to compare the facial geometry in the selfies you submit and in your profile pics.’

Fellow dating app Bumble also has the verified-in-real time feature as it hopes to cut down on catfishers.

It’s unclear how successful the apps will be as, at the moment, it relies on human verifiers.

With millions of users, the task of verifying profiles will need to be offloaded to software eventually which may come with its own issues.

Tinder is also working on a tool to weed out potentially offensive messages.

The new moves come after a partnership with safety app Noonlight which give daters an easy way to call emergency services.

Let’s hope the features work then. Because we know there are quite a few horror stories on dating apps at the moment.

MORE: Tinder reveals the top trends for dating bios in 2019

MORE: Woman spent £90 on 3-hour trip for Tinder date only to be called ‘fat’ and dumped at train station

MORE: Grandma who loved using Tinder for casual sex has now quit the app and wants to find the one

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