KinkD, a BDSM Dating App, Launches AI to Remove Nude Photos in Chats in Response to Texas Law

The world has never been fair for women, this is particularly true in the context of online dating.

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Feb 27, 2020, 08:32 ET

NEW YORK, Feb. 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Though online dating is meant to be a blessing for the modern world, sadly also remains a minefield of sexual harassment, the most common of which is unsolicited nude pictures from men to women.

In the latest effort to tackle this issue, KinkD, a niche dating app featuring subcultures of BDSM, fetishes & kinks, has enlisted AI-powered image recognition technology to prevent users from sending sexually explicit photos through the chat interface. This new functionality was designed to make a response to a new law in Texas (https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/86R/billtext/html/HB02789I.htm) that criminalizes unsolicited lewd photos. The new law went into effect on September 1, 2019, and the violator will be punished by a fine up to $500.

"The new Texas law has raised our concern about safety of female users, that's why we ran a survey, sampling 2000 women on our app. The results showed that almost 90% of the respondents have, at some point in their lives, received at least one unwanted sexual picture," said John Martinuk, the co-founder of KinkD app. "I think, these worrying statistics just back the assumption - women are prone to be the subjects of aggressive sexualization."

According to the KinkD tech team, the AI system will automatically detect the nudity of any photo based on its algorithm. If a user tries to send a nude selfie to someone through the chat platform, the photo will be removed automatically and the system will inform the user of the removal immediately. "We want to create a safe environment, not only for female users to avoid sexual harassment, but also to help all users on KinkD to keep the law," said John Martinuk.

The KinkD team had finished the Alpha testing, on a random selection of 10% of its users. During the test, the algorithm behind it removed almost 200 nudes everyday. This final version of the AI system was officially launched on Feb 23, 2020. It now removes about 2500 nude photos every day. "We know that it is still not perfect and we've gotten some complaints from our users saying that the system removes some of their bikini photos. The whole team is striving for further improvements, hopefully, it can give us a glimmer of hope for the online dating world again," said John Martinuk.

About KinkD:

KinkD is a kinky dating app for Fetish & BDSM enthusiasts, now with over 1 million users. The app is available on Appstore and Google Play.

Official site: https://www.kinkdapp.com/

Appstore:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1126201375

Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kinky.fetlifestyle

Contact:
John Martinuk
+16472676834
[email protected]

SOURCE KinkD