Working with Indian law enforcement, civil society: Tinder parent’s safety head Yoel Roth

Match Group, the parent firm of popular dating apps like Hinge and Tinder, works closely with law enforcement and civil society groups in India to ensure safety on its platform, said Yoel Roth, the group head of trust and safety at the company. Mr. Roth was previously head of trust and safety at Twitter, later renamed to X, from which he resigned abruptly a few weeks after the firm was acquired by billionaire Elon Musk.

“We in India engage readily with law enforcement at every level,” Mr. Roth said in response to a question from The Hindu. “And specifically with the police not only here in Delhi but in other states, we operate a global portal for law enforcement in partnership with a company called Codex that makes it quick and easy for law enforcement to submit requests to us.” It was important in safety cases to “support the prosecution of bad actors,” as the goal was not just to ban them from platforms, but to “to bring [them] to justice,” Mr. Roth said.

Dating safety

Mr. Roth was in India this week to engage with civil society groups with whom the company regularly consults on India safety matters. He also announced the release of the company’s Dating Safety Guide for India in multiple Indian languages, in addition to English. The guide was prepared in partnership with the Delhi-based Centre for Social Research. 

“A lot of our work begins with foundational research and understanding how singles in India are approaching online dating,” Mr. Roth said. “What are the trends, and what’s the openness to the category and, especially for women in India, what would help them feel safe when they’re engaging on our app?” Relationships being led by families was an important consideration for Tinder, Hinge and other apps, Mr. Roth said.

Dating scams

“In India in particular, one of the the trends that we have heard a bit about are so-called pub scams or restaurant scams where— they’re interactions between real people, where somebody will meet up, go on a date and then the scammer on a date might have an engagement with the restaurant: they’ll order a lot of expensive items, leave the date, and the person is left to pay a very large bill,” Mr. Roth said.

To stay safe from these scams, Mr. Roth said, the company recommended that users keep interactions inside the respective dating app for as long as possible, as “that lets us moderate those interactions.” 

“One of the biggest challenges we see is that people will connect on a dating app and then immediately switch to using another app for their conversation, so they’ll move to WhatsApp or Instagram … If you have an interaction with somebody, take the measure of reporting it both to us and, if you feel comfortable to do so, to the police,” Mr. Roth added.

He said that a major misconception in scam cases was that dating apps don’t allow reporting unmatched profiles with which a user is no longer allowed to interact. “It can be embarrassing to talk about these situations, but ultimately the only way that people will be identified and prosecuted for committing these crimes is if the victims come forward and report it,” he said.

IT Rules

The Match Group is fully compliant with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, with a grievance and nodal officer in India, Mr. Roth said. While the firm is rolling out a lot of transparency reporting on its moderation actions and law enforcement requests in the European Union, doing so is a challenge as the group manages over three dozen apps. 

Appeals under the IT Rules aren’t currently reported for India, but Mr. Roth said the EU disclosures weren’t “going to be our last … and data on appeals is absolutely something that I think we can and should be reporting.”