Jason Hernandez got out of prison in 2015 and started making up for lost time. He’d done nearly 18 years on federal drug conspiracy charges, and only escaped life behind bars because then-President Barack Obama granted him clemency. He settled down near Dallas, began volunteering in schools, visited the White House and wrote a book.
Then he decided to start dating, so he downloaded Tinder. He was open about his past, and at first, it was fine. But a couple months ago, he got a notification: “Your account has been banned.”
This article was published in partnership with NBC News.
Although he can’t prove the reason why, he’s been booted from half a dozen other apps with similar prohibitions tucked into their terms of service: People with felonies — anything from a $10 drug conviction to capital murder — are banned for life. These policies aren’t new, but their enforcement has been haphazard.
That could change. Match Group, which owns Tinder and a host of other dating sites, plans to launch a feature allowing daters to run background checks on potential matches. The company says its efforts are aimed at keeping users safe. But civil rights advocates say the record checks extend an unfair practice of imposing “collateral consequences” long after people have finished their sentences, and will disproportionately affect people of color without actually improving safety.
Oh, so it’s “civil rights… an unfair practice… ‘collateral consequences’ and people of color…”, but no one cares when similar bans on Facebook, AirBnB, etc. affect hundreds of thousands of people forced to register?? 🙄
The pendulum spins rather than swings now.
Exhibit 2: “The Feminist Script for Punishment”
Just for starts, it’s a violation of the federal fair credit and collections act… It’s not legal to run background checks willy-nilly as they seem to be proposing.
Garbo(ge) relies on 2 very human traits… that people are either “too in love” with their phone numbers, or they are required by law to register them.
What about those people who were arrested but not convicted? What happened to innocent until proven guilty? And there were some good points in that article.
Does anything that has been done over the past 4000 yrs by anybody make anybody else safer. Ask the children in Gaza, or the millions in poverty in India. Ask those escaping from the gangs in Central America, or all of the families going hungry in the U.S.
Yet what do we see on T.V.? A president touting an Electric powered pickup. WTF!
The entire human race, you, me , everyone of us, should bow our heads in shame. Jeff Bezos has Billions, yet what does he do with it instead of helping others? He purchases a $500 million yacht. The line in ‘ The Matrix’ says it all. Humans are a virus. More interested in expanding than improving. Consuming rather than developing. Destroying rather than building.
I see what is happening to our so called “ leaders”, bought and paid for by corrupt corporations and bowing to deep pockets just to stay in power. Talking constantly but saying nothing.
Time to pull the plug on the whole lousy system.
My past is my business and nobody else has a right to know. Find a different place to stick your nose, try looking at what’s wrong with you. This bull is something in our culture we need canceled!!
Dating apps are nothing but a haven for scammers and catfish anyway. Why would anyone want to use them?
It’s 2021 no matter what you do who you meet or where you go people are gonna run a background check on you especially if your meeting people on dateing apps
Im not surprised we all know sex offenders can’t do all the kool normal things in life I don’t know why they even try but they do and get upset when they find out their nolonger apart of Society
Sex offenders aren’t even allowed to die in peace you’ll be 80 years old in a wheelchair sleeping under the freeway and they’ll still arrest you for FTR and put you in a 2 man cell with a psychotic killer from the Mexican mafia serving a life sentence with nothing to lose.
Me personally I gave up on social media years ago so I could careless
Good luck 😈
This whole idea of not doing business with someone with a felony record will eventually gum up our economy quite nicely. As the opportunities of where to live, shop, flirt, work, etc., are reduced and as the 51 legislatures keep adding to the list of felonies, in time a significant portion of society will suffer “civil maiming.”
Years back someone wrote a book claiming the average person commits three felonies a day. And that was just federal felonies. Include state offenses and it climbs, plus I’m sure the Feds have added to the pile. (A big steaming one, IMO.)
There are certain apps which ban people convicted of sex offenses, not just any felony. Which is funny because nowhere near all offenses including those related to sexual conduct or content involve violence. Even crimes associated with violence are not always violent. Judging someone on past behavior automatically or up front without context not only makes people less safe, it’s downright stupid.
It does nothing and is extremely stupid. I met my wife of nearly 12 years on a website named plenty of fish. I went back to write a positive review but discovered they now ban people on the registry. We’re a success story for the website, but their own discrimination prevents a story from being told…..