A recent report into Tinder by Good Morning Britain has shown the potential dangers of under-18s using the app, just days after the company shut its service for minors.
Good Morning Britain producer Athene Hunt posed as a 13-year-old girl named Amy on Tinder for one week.
During this time she received 200 matches, 122 of which messaged her.
Good Morning Britain said that of the 122 males who sent “Amy” messages, 70% were over the age of 16.
Hunt commented on the types of messages that her fake profile received, saying: “It was absolutely shocking. I mean seconds into matching on that app we were having explicitly sexual messages sent.
“It wasn’t a conversation that escalated into that, it was direct requests for sex from the very off and worse later on.”
This news comes after Tinder revealed it has decided to stop its under-18s service, which let users between the age of 13 and 17 swipe and chat.
But during their research, Good Morning Britain’s team said they had encountered profiles of users above the age of 18.
One man seen on the dating platform was as old as 24, Hunt said, revealing his age in his bio, where he also said he was “laughing at the internet”.
The researchers said eight men directly asked the 13-year-old for sex and two users made direct requests for nude pictures.
Another five asked Amy to contact them using an encrypted app, and another 10 gave their encrypted contact addresses on their profile page.
This coincides with prior concerns about how such apps check users’ ages, with some members simply lying about their age on Facebook, which then allows them to create a profile on Tinder with the new age.
Speaking about its decision to shutter the under-18 service, Tinder’s VP of communications Rosette Pambakian said in a statement last week: “On a platform that has facilitated over 11 billion connections, we have the responsibility of constantly assessing our different user experiences.
“Consistent with this responsibility, we have decided to discontinue service for under 18 users.”
Good Morning Britain has claimed that their research led Tinder to change its policy, but the Hollywood app said it was something the company had been thinking about doing over for a year.