Something very weird is happening on Tinder

0:00 Something strange is happening on the world's biggest dating app.

0:05 Lemme show you.

0:06 Same guy, same guy, same guy, same guy, same guy.

0:11 What is that?

0:12 (soft playful music) Here's another one, and another one.

0:16 This all began when my friends started

0:18 sending me weird profiles he kept coming across.

0:21 Over and over, he'd see profiles that looked relatively normal,

0:24 normal interests, normal bios and normal photos, until the very last one.

0:31 The last photo was always a little strange,

0:35 a face that didn't match the rest of the profile,

0:38 often poorly edited into another image or illustration,

0:42 and my friend wasn't alone.

0:44 I went digging and I only found one Reddit post and one Instagram reel about

0:49 this, but the comment section was full

0:51 of people who had seen these profiles too.

0:54 [Ronald] Then you keep clicking through and then it's just like a drawing,

0:58 some random photo that doesn't make any sense.

1:01 [Stephanie] Times Square with like the NASDAQ thing,

1:03 an anime drawing of an Asian guy,

1:06 a bobblehead drawing of like an Asian guy with a soccer ball.

1:09 [Ronald] The random line drawing, the random old master painting.

1:13 When this started happening, I was like,

1:14 no one is gonna believe me that this is a thing.

1:19 So why do so many accounts on Tinder have a final photo that looks like this?

1:25 (soft playful music continues) I have not been on dating apps in a long time,

1:36 so when I first saw this, I felt a little bit out of the loop

1:41 and I wondered if maybe this was just some kind of reference that I don't get,

1:47 some kind of in-group signal that I am just not aware

1:51 of, and I quickly learned I wasn't the only one who thought that.

1:54 (upbeat music)- It first started with a weird photo

2:00 of like a billboard with an Asian man and a lamppost

2:05 that obviously had nothing to do with the rest

2:07 of the profile of the person it was attached to.

2:10 And then I kept seeing it pop up over and over and over again.

2:13 Same photo each time?

2:14 Same photo, yes, the same photo.

2:17 (upbeat music) When I saw it again,

2:24 it's like maybe this is some sort of like club's not the right word for it,

2:28 but maybe it's like a signal like, oh,

2:30 this, if you see someone with this last photo, it means something.

2:34 But like I'm not hip enough to know

2:35 what this like last photo means, but it's like, is that some sort of signal,

2:39 some sort of like weird sex thing, like what does it mean?

2:43 And it's also always like stereotypically like

2:47 hot European looking like model guys, right?

2:53 Could this final photo be signalling something to other people on Tinder?

2:58 Something that Stephanie and I just weren't in the know about?

3:02 (man speaking in a foreign language) A reverse image search reveals

3:07 that this is Chinese actor Wang Yibo in an ad for a mini shaver,

3:12 but take a closer look, and you can notice something strange.

3:15 His face has been altered, sometimes altered in different ways,

3:21 and as I found more examples, they all had that in common.

3:25 The face from the original image had been replaced

3:28 and the original images came from all over the internet,

3:31 a 19th century portrait posted to Instagram,

3:34 a poster for a Korean Shakespeare production,

3:37 a collection of albums by a German singer,

3:39 a memorial billboard for a businessman in Ghana,

3:41 and an optical illusion painting by a Ukrainian artist.

3:45 If these images were indeed a secret signal or a reference to something,

3:49 I would expect them to have something in common,

3:53 but they were random, from all corners of the internet.

3:56 The only thing that they seemed to have in common was how they were manipulated.

4:02 (upbeat music) Okay.

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5:31 Okay, let's get back to the strange final photos taking over Tinder.

5:35 [Ronald] But then you get that photo and it's like, what is that?

5:38 Yeah, this is the craziest thing I've ever seen,- [Ronald] Like is that Bach.

5:42 (soft playful music)- As I kept talking to people who had seen these profiles,

5:48 I heard more theories.

5:50 Maybe it was all bots.

5:54 [Ronald] makes me think that they are just like

5:55 bots created by the app itself to increase engagement.

5:59 The apps only really work if you pay,

6:01 so they just paint like this fantasy picture to keep you

6:04 engaged and to keep you spending that $40 or more a month.

6:07 Even though AI is really good, it's not that great.

6:11 So there being a random portrait

6:14 of a Austrian empress thrown in some guy's profile,

6:19 it's kind of just like, this is AI just like failing.

6:24 So you think these profiles are kind of being generated automatically.

6:30 to sort of boost numbers on the platform,

6:33 but in the process of making those new profiles,

6:38 they kind of mess some things up.

6:40 [Ronald] Yes, I think that is part of it.

6:42 They hook you in by posting a photo of a guy

6:45 that's too good to be true because he's not true.

6:50 Ronald's theory had a lot going on.

6:53 Could these be AI generated profiles created by Tinder to boost engagement,

6:58 but with a recurring AI malfunction that left

7:03 a random photo at the very end of the profile?

7:07 With more reverse image searches, I figured out that these were real people,

7:12 but not who the profiles claim to be.

7:15 This isn't Morris in the New York area, It's Andrea, a dentist based in Rome.

7:21 This isn't Daniel, it's Augusto, a tax lawyer in Brasilia, Brazil,

7:26 and this isn't Robbie, it's Umit, a content creator in Izmir, Turkey.

7:30 So the profiles were clearly impersonating other real people.

7:36 They weren't AI, but who's behind that impersonation?

7:40 What is going on your Tinder?

7:43 As I talked to more people who had actually matched with profiles like

7:46 these, I learned that they typically wanted

7:48 to move the conversation over to WhatsApp.

7:51 (soft music) Where after a lot of sentimental banter,

7:56 they would eventually try to talk to you about cryptocurrency.

8:00 And if you ask them about the final image on their profile,

8:03 they would get kinda weird and maybe even block you.

8:07 And now an account on a dating app trying to move

8:10 the conversation over to WhatsApp

8:12 and then steering that conversation towards cryptocurrency,

8:15 these are all telltale signs of a romance scam,

8:19 where criminals use a fake online identity

8:21 to gain a victim's trust and affection,

8:24 before manipulating or stealing from them.

8:27 If you wanna learn more,

8:28 the very first video on this channel is a deep dive into this phenomenon.

8:33 According to the FBI in 2024,

8:35 approximately 59,000 people fell victim to romance related scams in the US,

8:40 losing over $672 million.

8:43 Many of these scams operate out of Southeast

8:45 Asia where the scammers are victims themselves,

8:48 recruited by predatory tactics and forced

8:51 to work brutal labour inside fortified compounds.

8:54 As I kept looking into this, I started

8:56 to notice some similarities across all of these profiles.

9:00 They were always men, always in their late thirties or early forties,

9:05 always looking for a long-term relationship.

9:08 And I realised kind of late into this whole process, they always had this icon.

9:17 What is that?

9:19 Bot Scammers beware.

9:20 Tinder has a new feature that helps make sure your next crush is the real deal.

9:25 The dating app is rolling out a facial verification feature,

9:28 it's called Face Check.

9:29 Tinder certainly hopes that it's the end

9:31 of catfishing and scams on their platform.

9:34 [Christopher] In October, 2025,

9:35 Tinder rolled out a new feature for US users, Face Check,

9:39 where you can take a short video selfie within the app

9:41 to confirm that you match the face in your profile photos.

9:45 As part of the announcement, Tinder released a compilation of songs

9:49 from the point of view of heartbroken bots.

9:53 Got dumped by Tinder's Face Check♪♪ Tinder's Face Check.

9:56 [Speaker] Face Check.

9:57 [Speaker] Face Check.

9:58 Tinder's Facecheck said I wasn't human enough,♪♪ Well, now I'll never find love.

10:03 Face Check is a form of what's called liveness detection.

10:06 That means that it's not just checking to see

10:08 that your face matches the one in the photos,

10:10 but also checking from movement to prove that you're actually

10:13 there and that your selfie video hasn't been digitally altered.

10:17 It also estimates your age and checks whether

10:19 your likeness is being used by any other profile.

10:23 The software behind Face Check was created by a company called FaceTec,

10:27 a facial recognition security company

10:28 whose clients include various financial services

10:31 all over the world and the US Department of Homeland Security.

10:35 According to Tinder's press release,

10:36 users get a blue photo verified badge if the scan face matches a profile photo.

10:42 Bingo,.

10:43 A profile photo, not all profile photos,

10:48 not some profile photos, just a profile photo.

10:52 (soft music) What if these profiles were created by someone pretending

10:56 to be someone else and this manipulated final photo was their actual face?

11:01 It's obscured and hidden at the very end,

11:03 but just identifiable enough to pass Face Check,

11:07 since Face Check only needed one profile photo out of nine to match.

11:12 On many platforms, a verified badge reassures other

11:16 people that you are who you say you are.

11:18 On Tinder, you can even change your settings

11:20 so that only verified users can send you messages.

11:23 So bad actors trying to scam or catfish people benefit from having that badge.

11:28 They'll be seen by more people and those people

11:31 will be more likely to trust them.

11:35 (soft music) That was my hypothesis.

11:40 If that was true, it would mean Tinder Face Check kind of sucks.

11:45 It would mean that a scammer can convincingly pretend to be someone else,

11:49 not with any sophisticated technique, but by slipping in a photo that looks

11:54 like this at the very end of their profile.

11:57 I mean, what, I mean the thing is like this is kind of, I have no idea,

12:00 like really what's going on here.

12:02 So like I.

12:04 [Christopher] I called up Walter Scheirer to run my hypothesis by him.

12:07 Walter is a professor of engineering and the author of a "History of Fake

12:11 Things on the Internet." And he studies

12:13 the reliability and security of facial verification.

12:17 But I sort of am sceptical that, you know,

12:19 you just need a single photo to match for this to, but it is possible, right?

12:25 It's not out of the realm of possibility.

12:28 I don't know, do you have any thoughts on how you would reverse engineer this?

12:31 Where I'd, you know, download Tinder and put a bunch of maybe like

12:36 AI generated photos of what looks like the same person?

12:39 Exactly, yeah, Just perform your own experiment and see

12:41 if you can still use the profile, right?

12:43 Yeah.

12:44 I think that's clearly what I would do as a first step.

12:46 And then if that works, you kinda have a hint that the face verification

12:50 is extremely weak and this probably is a romance scam.

12:57 Okay, let's give it a shot.

12:59 (upbeat music) I downloaded Tinder and created

13:01 a profile imitating the strange profiles we'd seen.

13:04 I generated AI images of a man in his early forties and generated

13:07 an image with my face in the style of this final photo.

13:13 I look like a Hobbit.

13:15 I uploaded my fake profile photos and my manipulated

13:18 real one and then came the moment of truth.

13:21 I'm ready.

13:22 The photo verification test.

13:26 As it processed my results, I waited.

13:29 I went out for lunch and by the time I came back, I had an update.

13:34 (soft music) It worked, my profile was verified.

13:52 Okay, the experiment worked.

13:54 Here's CJ, 31 years old.

13:56 Boom, I can't believe this worked immediately.

14:00 I was genuinely expecting this to get flagged or for it

14:05 to not work or for it to have to take a few tries, but it worked immediately.

14:10 There we go, it's official.

14:14 This one photo got my profile verified.

14:17 If I deleted that photo, I would lose my verified badge on the entire profile,

14:22 but I wanted to see just how far I could push it.

14:25 (upbeat music) So I kept creating more images of myself

14:29 to see just how many would pass Face Check, and get me a verified badge.

14:33 (upbeat music continues) I tried AI face swaps and messy Photoshop jobs.

14:42 Create an image, take Face Check, and wait, over and over.

14:55 (upbeat music continues) And every single one got me verified.

15:02 So mystery solved.

15:04 you can get a photo verified account

15:07 on Tinder while pretending to be someone completely different,

15:10 simply by including one image that kind of looks like you.

15:15 That's why these profiles look like this.

15:18 (soft music) I ran the same experiment on Hinge.

15:23 Hinge is owned by the same parent company

15:25 as Tinder and also uses Face Tech for facial verification,

15:28 and the result was the same.

15:30 A single matching image resulted in an entire verified profile.

15:35 Hinge did appear to have a higher threshold,

15:37 so it would reject some of the images that Tinder verified.

15:41 A FaceTec representative told me that that difference could be because Hinge

15:44 is setting its profile pic matching to a higher sensitivity level than Tinder.

15:49 Then I ran the same experiment on Bumble.

15:51 On Bumble, only one image passed the verification test.

15:56 It was this one.

15:57 And after verification,

15:58 every photo that didn't match my face was automatically deleted.

16:03 So props to Bumble for actually being kind of secure.

16:07 (soft music) I reached out to Tinder to let them know what I'd found.

16:10 But as of publishing this video, I haven't heard back.

16:14 The core issue is that Tinder only requires one profile photo

16:17 to match your face in order to get a verified badge.

16:21 I understand why they might not wanna require that every photo pass Face Check.

16:26 You might wanna include a photo where your face

16:28 isn't visible or a meme that shows off your personality,

16:31 but right now you can create a verified profile using eight

16:35 photos of people who are not you and just one that is,

16:40 and that undermines what this badge is supposed to signal.

16:45 One possible fix would be giving each photo its own verification marker,

16:50 so that users could see which images actually match the verified face.

16:54 Maybe that's a UX nightmare,

16:55 but it would make what is currently an easily exploitable system,

16:59 significantly harder to game.

17:05 They implement these tools that are supposed

17:07 to be like this, we're keeping you safe,

17:09 we're helping you make sure that like what's really happening is happening.

17:14 But now we can't even trust that.

17:16 If I can't trust that like the verification process is working,

17:21 then I can't trust any of it, really.

17:25 Dating apps are a very weird and vulnerable

17:28 little corner of a very big internet, but across that internet,

17:33 facial verification tools like this one

17:35 and other tools that use our biometric data,

17:39 are becoming more and more common and they come with a big promise,

17:43 that if we hand over deeply personal information about our bodies,

17:48 we'll get something valuable in return.

17:50 A system where everyone is who they say they are,

17:53 but that promise only means something if we

17:55 can agree on what this technology actually guarantees.

17:59 Because if we're stuck with an internet where you have to prove

18:02 who you are without being able to trust that anyone else actually has,

18:07 that sounds like a bad deal.

18:10 (soft music) Hey, thank you so much for watching.

18:13 This was a really, really fun video to make.

18:16 The idea for this video came from talking

18:18 to somebody else and a lot of my favourite

18:20 videos that we've made for the channel start

18:22 that way with an organic question from somebody else.

18:26 It gives me a nice satisfying assignment.

18:28 And if you have a question that you want to see answered on this show,

18:31 I wanna hear from you over at newpress.com.

18:34 It's a website I'm helping build with some fellow journalists

18:36 where you can help our reporting and participate in conversations

18:40 and really get a sense of the stories that we're

18:43 working on down the pipeline as they're in progress.

18:46 It's a great place to see the behind

18:48 the scenes of how videos like this get made.

18:51 Okay, I'll see you there.

18:54 (soft music)