Twitter’s former head of trust and safety Yoel Roth announced today that he is joining Match Group, the parent company of several popular dating apps, including Tinder and Hinge. Yoel, who shared the move on LinkedIn, is now the company’s Vice President of Trust and Safety.
“As they say… some personal news! I swiped right on Match Group,” Roth said in his announcement post. “15 years ago, I started studying what we now call ‘trust and safety’ because the then-new world of dating apps felt like the Wild West; it’s truly a dream come true to get to roll up my sleeves and work to protect the millions of people making connections on our apps worldwide.”
Roth was at Twitter, now X, for seven and a half years, and quit the company after just two weeks under Elon Musk’s leadership. Roth had faced dangerous and homophobic harassment after Musk had attacked him with baseless accusations, in an attempt to damage his reputation. Roth also faced harassment following the release of the “Twitter Files,” a series of internal documents that demonstrated how Roth and other executives at Twitter handled content moderation. After an escalation of threats, Roth had to flee his home.
Roth is now taking his trust and safety expertise to Match’s family of dating apps, which includes Tinder, Match.com, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, OurTime, and more. Although dating apps have built-in features to keep users safe, there is still a lot of toxic behavior on these apps, and not everyone trusts them. A Pew Research study found that Americans are split on whether online dating is a safe way to meet new people, as the number of adults who believe online dating is generally safe has decreased since 2019, from 53% to 48%.
Roth, who wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on safety and privacy in dating apps, told Wired in an interview that his new role at Match Group is a “dream job” that he jumped on after the company reached out to him. Roth says he will be responsible for policy and standards development across the company’s apps.
Last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that romance scams cost victims $1.3 billion in 2022, while the median reported loss was $4,400. Roth plans to tackle this issue, noting that he wants to build out protection features for things like scams and financial frauds. Although Match claims to remove 44 spam accounts every minute across its apps, Roth says he wants to further protect users by understanding the issue and implementing factors that will allow for cross-platform action.
In addition, Roth says that although Match Group works to identify underage users, he believes app stores should also play a part in protecting users, mirroring a position that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also holds.
techcrunch.com
