The way Tinder goes, letting you swipe yes or no through a plethora of young people (both male and female, even if you set your gender preferences to just one), giving you the freedom to pick who messages you, you'd have thought that the bosses were sort of socially progressive enough to know that it's not cool to treat a woman like shit.
However, their former marketing vice president and co-founder, Whitney Wolfe, alleges that co-founder and CEO Sean Rad and co-founder Justin Mateen did just that.
In an official complaint, filed to LA's Superior Court, Wolfe claims that the men subjected her to 'horrendously sexist, racist and otherwise inappropriate comments, emails and text messages.'
The abuse was, Wolfe says, 'the worst of the misogynist, alpha-male stereotype too often associated with technology start-ups', and apparently the men took away her co-founder title because she was 24 and, as she claims they put it, her inclusion 'makes the company look like a joke… devalues the company.'
Wolfe also says that during an argument, Mateen ignored her at a party and when she asked why, he replied: 'You're a whore' and called her some more names, like 'a gold digger' and 'a disease'. He also sent her mean, racist text messages accusing her of hanging out with a 'Muslim pig' according to Buzzfeed. When Wolfe complained to Rad, instead of sorting the problem, she claims he fired her.
Justin Mateen has been suspended in the wake of the allegations. 'It has become clear that Mr Mateen sent private messages to Ms Wolfe containing inappropriate content,' a statement from IAC (the team in charge of Tinder and Match.com) to USA Today read. However, it denies Rad fired her. 'We unequivocally condemn these messages, but believe that Ms Wolfe’s allegations with respect to Tinder and its management are unfounded.'
It's all pretty worrying, not just it's true that because Wolfe says she had to put up with their bullshit, but because these are the guys who created the first and foremost way so many of us are now dating. Are dickheads providing the architecture of our love lives? We guess the courts will decide.
** Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson**
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.