Hi, I’m Justin, Sales Director at Checkstep. In September, I had the opportunity to attend the Global Dating Insights Conference 2024, where leaders in the dating industry gathered to discuss emerging trends, challenges, and the evolving landscape of online dating. This year’s conference focused on how dating platforms are adapting to new user behaviors, regulatory changes, and the need for enhanced trust and safety measures. From the rise of conscious dating to combating toxic behaviors, here are seven key insights shaping the future of digital dating.

Dating Insight #1: The rise of conscious dating and user intent focus

The first dating insight targets a large base of users, especially younger generations, as they are leaning towards intentional, values-driven dating rather than casual encounters. This shift emphasizes trust, safety, and meaningful interactions, making it crucial for dating platforms to moderate content effectively to foster deeper connections and ensure user safety.

Dating Insight #2: Challenges with toxic behaviors

Digital dating is seeing specific challenges like ghosting, breadcrumbing, kittenfishing, and orbiting. These behaviors undermine trust and create emotional distress for users. During the conference, experts shared they want content moderation platforms to play a role by detecting patterns in user communications to address these harmful behaviors proactively, offering better safety and engagement experiences. 

Dating Insight #3: Increased scrutiny and regulation

The third dating insight is without any surprise, about regulations. With the Digital Services Act, Online Safety Acts and the many other regulations existing and to come – dating platforms need robust moderation systems to remain compliant and avoid fines. Solutions should include tools for monitoring evolving content and maintaining a balance between automation and human moderation. It should also ensure good data collection in order to report moderation decisions transparently to the EU Transparency Database. You can read about Shein’s experience with Checkstep’s latest connection to the database here. 

Dating Insight #4: Need for hybrid moderation models

Platforms benefit from combining AI-driven moderation (for scalability and speed) with human oversight (for nuanced cases). This approach ensures faster removal of inappropriate content, detects scams, and handles complex situations like identity-based harassment more effectively. Having a strong policy team to design and review moderation policies, while using LLMs to scan, detect and moderate the most harmful content, and leaving only marginal cases to moderators, is not only more efficient, but also better for the well-being of the moderators. 

Dating Insight #5: Combatting catfishing and fake profiles

With the prevalence of fake profiles and romance scams, platforms are increasingly implementing photo verification and identity checks. Moderation systems can further enhance this by using AI to flag suspicious activity patterns and integrating real-time verification systems. Dating companies we’ve met during the conference consistently report spam and scams as the biggest risk they need to manage on their platform. 

Dating Insight #6: Emerging trends and user preferences

New dating trends such as open casting (engaging with multiple partners simultaneously) reflect the complexity of modern dating interactions. Moderation tools need to handle increasing volumes of communication while focusing on intent-based filtering—identifying harmful behaviors even when phrased differently or subtly. This is something we’ve developed at Checkstep letting you change your labels and the definitions that you provide to your LLM while scanning in seconds.

Dating Insight #7: User retention through enhanced Trust & Safety

Safety on dating apps has a direct correlation with better user retention, as safer platforms encourage long-term engagement. Tools that offer users control (e.g., block, report, or mute functions) are becoming essential features for dating apps. 

These insights from the Global Dating Insights 2024 Conference underscore the critical role content moderation plays in shaping the future of dating platforms. As user expectations evolve and regulations tighten, platforms that can balance innovation with user safety will be best positioned to succeed.