00:02:32 · Katie Prescott, Danny Fortson
[00:02:32] S2: It's interesting, isn't it? These are all questions I've been talking about with Yoel Roth this week. He's the head of trust and safety at Match Group, which is the company behind dating apps. Like they do all the big ones, Hinge, Tinder, but you may remember him. Yes, His previous iteration. [00:02:52] S1: Yes. Before he was at what I like to call big dating, you know, instead of big oil. Dating. They're like big dating. He was head of trust and safety at Twitter. And I remember because he quit not long after Elon Musk took over. He said the platform wasn't as safe under him, and he had a really, like, very public falling out with Musk back in 2022 over his views and kind of implementation of safety at Twitter.
00:02:52 · Danny Fortson, Katie Prescott
[00:02:52] S1: Yes. Before he was at what I like to call big dating, you know, instead of big oil. Dating. They're like big dating. He was head of trust and safety at Twitter. And I remember because he quit not long after Elon Musk took over. He said the platform wasn't as safe under him, and he had a really, like, very public falling out with Musk back in 2022 over his views and kind of implementation of safety at Twitter. [00:03:21] S2: Exactly right. He was propelled into the public eye because he was in charge of safety at a time when Musk was ripping the company apart and changing all of those quite strict rules about content moderation on the site formerly known as Twitter. And he has got, as a result, a lot to say about the state of social media today and why companies have taken a step back from safety in recent years. And so I spoke to him about that when he was on a trip to London recently. And also we spoke about online dating, of course, being a man now from big dating and how AI is affecting that. So anyway, I'll be intrigued to hear what you think. Here's Yoel Roth, who is head of trust and safety at Match Group. Yoel, you're one of the world's leading online safety practitioners, and you've been in this space for a hugely long time. What has drawn you to dating apps away from the world of social media? And what are some of the challenges, particularly in the safety space, you find?
00:04:28 · Yoel Roth, Katie Prescott
[00:04:28] S3: The short answer is I love working on dating apps because I'm a dating app success story myself. Going back to the earliest days of dating apps and smartphones, I was working on a PhD studying how people were engaging with the first generation of these apps and how they were navigating privacy and safety challenges in this new world. And along the way, as I was doing my research, I met the guy who is now my husband. And I've seen firsthand that dating apps can be one of these incredibly transformative technologies for how people connect. I've also seen that they have some pretty unique challenges in the online safety space, especially relative to social media. [00:05:11] S2: So what are the things that are similar with social media and what's particularly different?
00:05:11 · Katie Prescott, Yoel Roth
[00:05:11] S2: So what are the things that are similar with social media and what's particularly different? [00:05:17] S3: Every interaction online starts with authenticity and trustworthiness. Whether it's somebody that you're arguing with on social media or somebody you're connecting with on a dating app, the most important thing people look for is to know that the person they're interacting with is actually a person and not a bot or AI. And this is born out in all of the data that we have, including our recent survey of singles in The UK. About two thirds of singles in The UK say that authenticity is the most important thing that they look for on a dating app. And so that's the foundation of the work that we do. About 98% of the content moderation actions that we take as a company are focused on removing fake accounts, bots, catfishers, and other types of inauthenticity. And that was true of social media as well. [00:06:10] S2: But different in the fact that, I guess, in social media, you've got maybe more hate speech, illegal content perhaps that you're facing. Whereas it sounds like what you're saying is actually this is about people just proving that they are who they say they are.
00:06:10 · Katie Prescott, Yoel Roth
[00:06:10] S2: But different in the fact that, I guess, in social media, you've got maybe more hate speech, illegal content perhaps that you're facing. Whereas it sounds like what you're saying is actually this is about people just proving that they are who they say they are. [00:06:22] S3: Yeah, that's right. I think in the context of especially public social media and social media that's focused on politics, I think interpersonal hostility and hate is much more of a consideration. And the nature of the technology incentivizes that. Unlike social media, you can't go viral on a dating app. And so the behaviors and incentives look quite different. But safety and respect are also very much a consideration on dating apps as well. Particularly with women, we see that being disrespected, abused, harassed, even overly sexualized is very much a factor that would lead to people being disengaged from dating apps. And so we work on a lot of the same questions as social media does, but with a bit of a different emphasis. Dating apps aren't free speech platforms. We are platforms that are focused on making one on one in person connections, and so we place a much higher value on safety and respect than perhaps some social media sites would who are prioritizing freedom of speech. [00:07:29] S2: AI must make your job so much harder.
00:07:29 · Katie Prescott, Yoel Roth
[00:07:29] S2: AI must make your job so much harder. [00:07:31] S3: You know, like any technology, I think AI is a double edged sword. On one hand, AI is empowering bad actors to move faster, but on the other hand, it's also empowering us to move faster in detecting them and mitigating the harmful behaviors that they engage in. To give you just one example of this, across our dating apps here in The UK, we've rolled out an AI powered feature called face check. Face check is a simple video selfie that users are asked to perform when they sign up for our apps. And on the basis of that video selfie, we're able to do a wide range of things from detecting duplicate registrations to keeping known bad actors off of the apps, all the way to giving you a verification tick if your profile photos match the video selfie. This is something that's only possible using advanced AI, and the impacts have been quite profound. We've seen a more than 60% reduction in people's exposure to bad actors on Tinder and Hinge as we've rolled out this product, and a more than 40% reduction in reports that we receive. So this is, I think, one of the really positive uses of AI in what we do. Equally, without a doubt, AI is empowering scammers, fraudsters, and other types of bad actors to move faster and more effectively. And so it's always about striking that balance between the positive uses of the technology and the possibilities of malicious abuse.