by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors
December 26, 2025
Six ladies who have been drugged and raped or sexually assaulted by the identical Denver heart specialist filed a lawsuit towards Match Group on Dec. 16, accusing the world’s largest courting app firm of “accommodating rapists throughout its merchandise” via “negligence” and a “faulty” product.
The ladies, backed by 4 regulation corporations, mentioned that by permitting recognized abusers like Stephen Matthews to stay on its apps, Tinder and Hinge, even after they’re reported for rape, the corporate fostered a breeding floor for “sexual predators.”
“Even when Match Group receives stories about rapists, they proceed to welcome them, fail to warn customers concerning the basic and particular dangers, and affirmatively advocate recognized predators to members,” the criticism mentioned. “Rapists know every Match Group platform provides a catalog of obtainable victims.”
Although Match Group claimed to a survivor who reported Matthews that that they had “completely banned” him, the swimsuit contends, he remained lively on Hinge — and was even promoted as a “Standout” match.
“Courting apps have an obligation to guard their customers from recognized risks,” mentioned Carrie Goldberg, one of many attorneys representing Matthews’ survivors. Goldberg, who is understood for high-profile lawsuits towards massive firms, together with Amazon and Meta, and high-profile abusers, like Harvey Weinstein, mentioned “Stephen Matthews was a recognized hazard,” calling courting apps “probably probably the most harmful product.”
The 54-page criticism, filed in Denver District Courtroom, cites an 18-month investigation into Match Group by the Courting App Reporting Challenge, printed in The Markup in February.
In October 2024, Matthews was sentenced to 158 years to life in jail. He was convicted in August of 35 counts of drugging and/or sexually assaulting 11 ladies between 2019 and 2023. The six ladies bringing civil swimsuit towards Match Group are continuing anonymously to guard their identities.
Match Group didn’t present a remark earlier than publication. In February, in an announcement offered to the Courting App Reporting Challenge by firm spokesperson Kayla Whaling, the corporate solid itself as an trade chief in deploying expertise to advertise security, together with “harassment-preventing AI instruments, ID verification for profiles, and a portal that helps us higher assist and talk with regulation enforcement investigating crimes. … Each individual deserves protected and respectful experiences. We’re dedicated to doing the work to make courting safer on our platforms and past.”
“We acknowledge our position in fostering safer communities and selling genuine and respectful connections worldwide,” the February assertion learn. “We are going to all the time work to spend money on and enhance our methods, and seek for methods to assist our customers keep protected, each on-line and after they join in actual life.”
The Courting Apps Reporting Challenge investigation discovered that Match Group, an $8 billion courting app behemoth that operates in additional than 40 languages and 190 international locations, had recognized the size of hurt on its platforms for years, however saved that info secret. It promised to publish a transparency report back to share this information with the general public in 2022, however by no means adopted via. After the Courting Apps Reporting Challenge investigation in February, mentions of this promise have been faraway from the corporate’s web site. The investigation additionally discovered that Match Group scaled again vital belief and security groups.
Matthews was first reported to Hinge in 2020 however remained on Match Group apps, the investigation discovered, persevering with to match with and assault ladies till 2023 when one survivor walked right into a Denver police station.
Counting on the Courting App Reporting Challenge’s investigation, together with new particulars from a survivor’s makes an attempt to warn the corporate of hazard, the Denver lawsuit particulars the heart specialist’s yearslong sexual assault spree on Hinge. Even after being reported a number of instances, Matthews was capable of proceed to match with and assault ladies — normally with the identical sample — disarming them methodically with a visit to the park together with his canine, a brunch close to his townhouse, or a sport of Jenga.
The lawsuit calls Hinge’s product design “faulty,” alleging a nasty actor can simply unmatch with a sufferer earlier than they report them. “As soon as unmatched, the reporting possibility disappears,” the lawsuit mentioned.
Product testing carried out by the Courting Apps Reporting Challenge discovered that banned customers have been simply capable of rejoin Tinder, with out altering their title, birthday, or profile photograph, as late as February 2025.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for the plaintiffs.
One of many ladies suing Match Group advised the Courting Apps Reporting Challenge that she was initially intrigued by a profile exhibiting a good-looking physician mountain climbing together with his canine in 2023. “This man has it collectively,” she thought.
Alexa, then a 22-year-old lady, whose final title is being withheld to guard her privateness, met Matthews at his home, the place he supplied her a shot. Not lengthy after, she mentioned, she began stumbling. Matthews then pushed her right into a bed room and commenced kissing her, she mentioned. That’s when Alexa mentioned she blacked out.
After being contacted by the Denver District Lawyer’s workplace, she was infuriated to study that Matthews had been reported to Hinge three years earlier than her assault.
“Hinge was chargeable for giving him a platform,” Alexa mentioned. “They’d all the ability and the sources to forestall this from taking place.”
Authorized analysts say the lawsuit faces an uphill battle towards Part 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 regulation that grants on-line platforms immunity from legal responsibility for many user-generated content material.
In 2019, Goldberg herself misplaced an effort to sue Grindr, a homosexual courting app, on behalf of a person who claimed the app’s expertise resulted in males following him for intercourse. The courts sided with the app and dominated that they have been immune from legal responsibility attributable to Part 230.
In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Courtroom in Gonzalez v. Google declined to rule on whether or not tech platforms like YouTube are chargeable for terrorist content material beneficial to customers by their algorithms, with households of ISIS victims suing; the courtroom remanded the case to the Ninth Circuit and referenced their resolution in a separate case, Twitter v. Taamneh, discovering “little if any” declare for aid.
Match says it’s enhancing the protection of its apps. Throughout its most up-to-date earnings name in November, Match Group and Tinder CEO Spencer Rascoff mentioned the corporate was “doubling down on belief and security throughout our platforms” as a result of “belief is core” to its “long run success.” He spoke of the protection instruments being built-in into the corporate’s portfolio — like video verification expertise, suggestion algorithms, and AI-assisted moderation instruments.
A few of these instruments, Rascoff admitted, are reducing the apps’ month-to-month lively customers, however, he added, “the truth that we’re capable of enhance person outcomes at minimal impression to income” is “a very good signal.”
Since 2022, the corporate has been struggling to return its inventory value to even a 3rd of its peak. Rascoff, a enterprise capitalist and cofounder of the true property web site Zillow, lower headcount on the firm by 13% after taking the reins in February.
In December 2025, the Courting Apps Reporting Challenge retested whether or not banned customers might nonetheless join new accounts on Match Group’s courting apps, with out mendacity about who they’re. Testing confirmed that banned customers might join once more on Hinge, Loads of Fish, and OkCupid with the very same title, birthday, and profile images used of their banned accounts. Match Group didn’t reply to an inquiry concerning the product testing.
On Tinder, nonetheless, testing confirmed that some new customers at the moment are prompted to take a video selfie, in order that Tinder can use facial recognition to “verify customers are actual and match their profile images.” The brand new safety characteristic is named Face Verify, and Tinder has launched it in a number of states and international locations. This characteristic additionally might not have prevented Stephen Matthews from returning to a courting app, as he by no means lied about who he was.
Reporters additionally checked their previous accounts from February, which had the identical title, birthday, and profile images because the banned accounts, to see whether or not Match Group or its moderation methods finally banned them. Each account that reporters checked was nonetheless in good standing.
Alexa believes that she wouldn’t have been harmed if Hinge had invested extra in prioritizing ladies’s security. “If these firms are making billions of {dollars}, they positively have the sources to make them efficient and protected,” she mentioned.
She mentioned she not makes use of courting apps.
“I’ll by no means date the identical once more,” Alexa mentioned. “I’ve sort of even accepted that I might be completely tremendous being alone for the remainder of my life if it means maintaining myself protected from what occurred to me.”
The Courting Apps Reporting Challenge produced this story in partnership with the Pulitzer Heart’s AI Accountability Community and The Markup, now part of CalMatters, and copublished with The Guardian and The nineteenth.
This story was produced by The Markup and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
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