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Culture

Tinder is adding a 'panic' button to help address the safety anxiety of first dates

Tinder is adding a 'panic' button to help address the safety anxiety of first dates

When you meet someone on a dating app, you risk so much more than just getting your heart broken.

Forget the traditional "bad date," there are countless literal horror stories of women being sexually assaulted by people they met on a dating app. According to UK's National Crime Agency, the number of sexual offenses involving dating sites and apps rose by 450% between 2014 and 2018. To make things worse, recent reports discovered that many dating apps, including Tinder, don't screen for sexual offenders. Thankfully, the already haywire world of dating is getting a little safer as Tinder rolls out a slew of safety features, including a panic button.


The "Tinder Timeline" will allow users to upload details about their date, including location, before they actually go meet up with a stranger from the internet. Users can share the Tinder Timeline with friends, because it's always smart to let someone know where you're going to be.

RELATED:Woman posts awful 'tips' a guy sent her after a bad Tinder date. Love is dead.

Once on the actual date, users can press the panic button if they feel unsafe, and the app will contact emergency services with highly accurate location data and details about the date. First, emergency services will send a text so the user won't have to tip their date off by talking. If the text goes unanswered, dispatchers will send a code and call the user. If there's still no answer, emergency services will be sent to the rescue.

The new tools are available on the "Safety Center" section of the app. In order to actually use the panic button, users will have to download Noonlight, a personal safety app that Match Group recently partnered with. Right now, the panic button is only available on Tinder, but Match Group has plans to offer the panic button on other Match Group dating apps, including PlentyOfFish, OkCupid, and Hinge.

RELATED:For a decade, a man's last tweet was a joke about a girl. 10 years later, he shared a happy ending.

Match Group is the first dating company to invest in an emergency response service, according to chief executive Mandy Ginsberg. Tinder has been around since 2012, and it almost seems a little late for the app to get in on the safety game, but thank goodness it's happening at all. Apps are making our lives easier, but they also have the power to put people in sketchy situations in ways that didn't exist before. Just ten years ago, you'd be crazy to get in a car with a total stranger. Today, it's just Uber – an app that has also ramped up its safety measures following controversy.

Dating shouldn't put you in danger. Women have often relied on things like "women's intuition" to avoid danger on dates. Now, we have technology to back up those tried and true techniques.

Joy

Sorry, Labradors. After 31 years, America has a new favorite dog.

The American Kennel Club has crowned a new favorite.

via Pixabay

A sad-looking Labrador Retriever

The sweet-faced, loveable Labrador Retriever is no longer America’s favorite dog breed. The breed best known for having a heart of gold has been replaced by the smaller, more urban-friendly French Bulldog.

According to the American Kennel Club, for the past 31 years, the Labrador Retriever was America’s favorite dog, but it was eclipsed in 2022 by the Frenchie. The rankings are based on nearly 716,500 dogs newly registered in 2022, of which about 1 in 7 were Frenchies. Around 108,000 French Bulldogs were recorded in the U.S. in 2022, surpassing Labrador Retrievers by over 21,000.

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via Google and Freepik

Google's new personal information removal submission page.

In the internet era, the idea of personal privacy is all but a myth. With a few keystrokes just about anyone can get your home address, phone number, email, age and the names of your family members. The fact that this information is readily available puts us all in the dangerous position of being the victim of fraud, stalking and violence.

What makes the situation even worse is that our information was put online without any of our consent.

The good news is that Google just made a big change that gives us all a little more control over our personal information. On April 27, the company announced it will allow anyone to request removals of their personal information from its Search feature.

“Open access to information is a key goal of Search, but so is empowering people with the tools they need to protect themselves and keep their sensitive, personally identifiable information private. That’s why we’re updating our policies to help people take more control of their online presence in Search,” Michelle Chang, Google’s Global Policy Lead for Search, announced on the company’s blog.

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via Pexels

A woman sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat

Everyone wants to know how long they will live and there are many indicators that can show whether someone is thriving or on the decline. But people have yet to develop a magic formula to determine exactly how long someone should expect to live.

However, a doctor recently featured on the "Today" show says a straightforward test can reveal the likelihood that someone aged 51 to 80 will die in the near future.

NBC News medical contributor Dr. Natalie Azar was on the "Today" show on March 8 and demonstrated how to perform the simple “sit to stand test” (aka sit-rising test or SRT) that can help determine the longevity of someone between 51 to 80.

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Joy

An 8-year-old snuck his handwritten book onto a library shelf. Now it has a 56-person waiting list.

Dillon Helbig's 81-page graphic novel— written by "Dillon His Self"—captured the hearts of his local librarians and their patrons.

Dillon Helbig's 81-page graphic novel captured the hearts of his local librarians.

Writing a book is no easy task, even for adult professional writers. Many would-be authors dream of a day when their work can be found on library shelves, unsure if it will ever come.

But for 8-year-old Dillon Helbig, that day has already arrived—in truly unconventional fashion—thanks to his own determination to make it happen.

Dillon wrote his 81-page graphic novel, "The Adventures of Dillon Helbig's Crismis" (written by "Dillon His Self") in a hardcover journal with colored pencils over the course of a few days. He even put a label on the back of the book that reads "Made in Idho" [sic] and put an illustrated spine label on it as well. Then, without telling anyone, he brought it to his local library in Boise, Idaho, and slipped it in among the books in the children's section.

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Becca Moore and Raul Torres having margaritas.

Becca Moore is a popular TikToker with over 800,000 followers who's known for her funny, laid-back takes on dating. Like any influencer-type she was at the Coachella music and arts festival in Indio, California recently. While she was at Coachella, she was robbed of her phone, rental car keys and wallet.

“I went to Coachella this weekend and I thought this guy was kinda hitting on me but then he just robbed me,” Becca says at the beginning of her three-minute TikTok video with over 3 million views. After the festival, she was left with no ride, money, or means to get in contact with friends and family. She was stranded in the desert.

Becca’s friend’s hotel called her an Uber so she could get to a local store to buy a new phone. The driver she was incredibly lucky to be connected with was a lot more than a guy with a car in a time of need, he was a guardian angel named Raul Torres from Fresno, California, six hours north of Indio.

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Joy

44 years ago he became her protector after a terrible act. Today, they've been reunited in love.

Betsy and Irv are finally getting the happy ending they deserve. Together.

It’s pretty safe to say that everyone loves a good love story.

There’s a whole genre of music and movies dedicated to the idea of someone being swept off of their feet after circumstances tried to keep them from their true love. Romance novels could single handedly keep public libraries and bookstores afloat. Everyone loves "love" and the story of Betsy and Irv just takes the cake. Betsy Sailor attended Penn State University as a business major, which was almost unheard of in 1978 and Irv Pankey attended the university while playing football. The pair’s paths never crossed, until an unfortunate incident bonded the two forever.

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