Tinder BANS underage kids after being slammed for letting 13-year-olds ‘swipe right’
Dating and hook-up app says under-18s are no longer welcome amid concerns that children could lie about their age to meet adults
Tinder has promised to stop underage boys and girls using the app to arrange hook-ups.
The infamous dating app has announced that anyone aged under 18 is now banned from using its services.
It estimated the policy change will result in Tinder losing 3 per cent of its 50 million users.
In a statement, Tinder VP of Communications Rosette Pambakian said: "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.
"We believe this is the best policy moving forward."
Before the ban, youngsters could use Tinder to talk to each other, but not to adults. This prompted concerns that kids could lie about their age in order to dodge the ban.
Last year, Claire Lilley, head of child safety online at the NSPCC, said she was "extremely worried" about kids and dating apps.
"The particular problem with dating sites like Tinder is that the environment tends to by highly sexualised, with a lot of innuendo, sexually suggestive chat and semi-nude pictures," .
Tinder has previously been described as a “Willy Wonka factory of sex” which encourages sex-mad people to behave like “greedy kids in a sweet shop”.
Hook-up apps have been blamed for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and have even been linked to rapes and other crimes.
Earlier this year, police figures revealed that crimes linked to dating apps Tinder and Grindr have jumped by 650 per cent in two years.
In 2015, British police forces received 277 crimes reports which mentioned Tinder - a up from 21 in 2013.
Grindr was mentioned in a further 135 alleged crimes, but was mentioned in just 34 during 2013.
Commenting on the figures, Professor Andy Phippen of Plymouth University, said: “If we base the formation of a relationship on a photo and a few lines of text, how do we know that person is who they say they are?
“We tell kids: 'Don’t trust who people say they are online’. But the adult
population go merrily about their way thinking it is a good way of hooking
up.”