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Tinder tests profile-sharing feature

Michelle Avenant
By Michelle Avenant, portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 08 Mar 2016
Tinder's new profile-sharing feature allows users to play matchmaker with their friends or share profiles they find funny or interesting.
Tinder's new profile-sharing feature allows users to play matchmaker with their friends or share profiles they find funny or interesting.

Matchmaking app Tinder is testing a new feature that allows users to share profiles they find with friends.

The feature will "give [the user's friend] the ability to swipe on the profile" if the user thinks their friend might be interested, the company announced in a blog post.

A small number of Tinder users will see a "share" button on other users' profiles, which will give them a link they can share via text. Not designed for public sharing on social networks, the link will disappear after 72 hours or five clicks: whichever happens first.

Other uses

Despite this precaution, many tech writers have pointed out the feature could be used for several other functions besides matchmaking.

Bustle's Lea Rose Emery suggests the feature can be used to show friends the profiles of one's current love interest or ex.

Others have noted the "share" feature will make it easy for users to collectively laugh at profiles they find funny or absurd.

Poking fun at Tinder users is by no means a new genre, having spawned numerous Buzzfeed listicles and even entire blogs. Humanitarians of Tinder, for example, is a Tumblr blog devoted to ridiculing those who use photos of themselves with children from developing countries as tools in their online sexual pursuits.

Tinder's new "share" feature will make mocking users easier, says The Cut's Kat Ward, noting that taking multiple screenshots "if the profile is truly a goldmine of nonsense" can be tedious.

Despite the features the site has put in place to make the links temporary, "five clicks is the ideal number if you're dropping a ludicrous profile in your favourite group text chain," Ward adds.

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