OKCupid Dating Web Site Says it Lied to Users in Experiment

When you sign up for a dating website, you are supposed to be set up based on your interests, and maybe even your looks.

The co-founder of OkCupid.com admitted the online dating web site set up people as part of an experiment.

“I think it’s kind of false advertisement,” Michelle Cady said.

In one of the experiments, people who were highly compatible were told they were a bad match and vice versa.

In another experiment, the website hid singles’ profile pictures for several hours to encourage people to message each other without knowing what they look like. When they brought the pictures back online, many of the conversations stopped.

“It shouldn’t become a game to them to see how many people they can hook up together,” Michelle Cady said.

The Cady sisters had mixed views on the experiments.

“Sometimes people go for a generic type of person and they date that kind of person over and over and wonder why it never works out, and maybe it’s because they’re being closed minded,” Nicolette Cady said.

Some of the guys did not mind the mix up.

“Because I’m overall, kind of a shy person. But I think in that situation it would definitely get me out of my comfort zone,” Herman Soyfer said.

The co-founder, Christian Rudder, is not apologizing. He wrote, ”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.”

Some singles say that is a good thing.

“People don’t know what they want necessarily,” Nicolette Cady said.

Contact Us