Why Online Dating and Social Media Suck

Online dating...if I could say one word to sum it up it would be frustrating. Online dating used to be ok but now you have a lot of fake accounts. It doesn’t matter what site you go on, it could be OkCupid or Match there are people using models or porn actors/actresses' photos as their pictures. The sad thing about it is people fall for it.

It usually starts out with someone browsing photos, they write a few in the hope to be written back. Sometimes you actually get a real person and have a good conversation and maybe even a meeting which could turn into something special. Other times you get a message back asking you to meet on WhatsApp, Hangouts, or some other chat app, these are 99% of the time fakes. The person will talk to them, some don’t even notice or care that their spelling is awful and they say they love you and want to be with you within the first 5 minutes. These people are usually older, some are young, but all are naive, they fall under the spell of these fake accounts because they’re lonely.

The thing is it’s not only the people who get sucked into talking to these bad actors that are getting used but also the people whose pictures they’re stealing. These poor people usually don’t know it’s being done, and when they do find out what can they do? Not much. They could have accounts deleted, but for every account that’s taken down three are put up, it's like playing wack-a-mole. What do these people want? Well usually money. They’re usually from Nigeria or Russia, they’re usually in a room with other computers and other people doing the same thing and they’re usually chatting with more than one person at a time. They’ll ask for gift cards, or some other way to get money out of you.

Dating sites, chat apps, or even security companies don’t seem to be doing much to fix this either. There has to be something that can be done, some kind of verification system? I’ve seen chat rooms on Facebook and on Discord ask you to take a picture of yourself holding a sign that has your name and the date on it or have you pose in different poses that prove you’re real. This may be a pain, but it might be worth it.

I say Google, Facebook, Microsoft, or another company come out with something for verification. Maybe because most phones have fingerprint readers or face unlock, they could use that? Something that proves the person who’s on the pictures, is actually the person who’s making the account. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter all have a system that will let you log in to multiple sites using your account on that platform. If they could only make it so you have to verify yourself on those accounts so when you make a Facebook, Twitter, or Dating profile it’s the actual person and not someone using someone else's pictures. This has to be one.

I’m looking for work. I set up a profile on Zip Recruiter. I put in interest for certain jobs and I get redirected to other job sites. A lot of these job sites I think have fake jobs, so job sites are getting hit too. What will it take to make companies look into this? Or maybe they’re making their money so they don’t care?

This is only going to get worse until it’s fixed and if it’s never fixed then internet sites where you interact with other people are just going to get worse.