Tinder feature to reject old photos

Good morning and happy Monday.

I realized over the weekend that I’ve used the same profile photo for social apps, LinkedIn, and other things for nearly 7 years now. Thankfully, I haven’t been horribly disfigured or aged much (aggressively knocks on wood), I just look more tired than I used to. To quote Indiana Jones, “it’s not the years, it’s the mileage”.

The implications of using an old photo on social or LinkedIn aren’t the worst. It does, however, start to feel weird when you have old photos on dating apps. The technical term for this is catfishing, ie, not looking like your profile pictures.

Tinder needs to strike a balance between accurately representing users while giving them the freedom to use the photos they want on their profile. What if, to mitigate catfishing, promote engagement, and keep profiles fresh, they didn’t allow you to add images older than a certain date? The problem with this is that the date feels arbitrary and it creates more work for the user.

There’s an additional problem, which is when people go through surgery or physical alterations. I’m not getting a hair transplant (because it’d look insane), but if I did, I wouldn’t appreciate not being able to upload old photos of my luscious locks.

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