OkCupid Has Been Lying To You!

As revealed yesterday in a blog post, OkCupid has revealed that they have experimented on their members by manipulating how compatible matches were, and removing profile pictures to see of that had an impact on responses to ads, among other things.

We trust online dating services to do their best to find us a match in life and love. By “experimenting” with how the profiles are that completed by members are displayed to other members and by taking liberties with how we are told their matching system works, the success or failure of the individual member becomes secondary to the data that OkCupid generates about their members.

Certainly, as long as online dating remains two-dimensional, there is only the possibility of meeting someone you will like. But by manipulating compatibility results OkCupid has crossed the line for being a trustworthy dating service, regardless of how much or little we know about how they generate compatible matches between members.

This quote taken from the blog post is deceiving:
“… if you use the Internet, you’re the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That’s how websites work.”

Websites may re-align their content, write headlines to garner more attention, but at the center of the written word is supposed to be the truth about the subject at hand. By overstepping that boundary OkCupid has certainly disrespected their 30 million members.