Rick Song
Contributor
Rick Song is co-founder and CEO of Persona.
More posts by this contributor
The next era of moderation will be verified
It’s time for social media and dating apps to face the music and curb fraud, deception and disinformation on their platforms once and for all.
In the beginning, social media and dating apps represented small corners of the internet with just a handful of users. Today, Facebook and Twitter are so big they influence elections, make or break vaccine campaigns, and move markets.
Dating apps like Tinder and Bumble are not far behind, with millions upon millions of people looking to their services to meet their “forever” mate.
But the fun and games are over now. You’ve chosen profit over trust and safety. You have created a gateway for identity theft and online fraud.
Today we all have a friend who’s been “catfished” on Bumble or Tinder; we all have family members who’ve been victimized by online Twitter and Facebook scams. Every day, we hear of new cases where malicious actors steal identities — or create fake new ones — to commit fraud, spread misinformation for political and commercial gain, or promote hate speech.
In most industries, users with fake identities really only impact t …
