Earlier this month, journalist Christophe Haubursin published a YouTube video called “Something very weird is happening on Tinder.” In the video, which has over 1.5 million views as of this publication, Haubursin described a way to workaround to Tinder’s Face Check feature — the facial recognition that is now required for all U.S. users as of Oct. 2025.

What Haubursin and his interviewees discovered is a bunch of profiles that appeared normal, but the last photo on each profile was…off. It was usually a digitally-altered image of a different person in a weird scenario, like on a billboard or in a Victorian painting. And if someone matched with this person and asked about the image, they dodged the question. Instead, they asked to move the conversation to WhatsApp, where it became clear they were romance scammers.

But how did they evade Face Check? Haubursin found that Tinder and Hinge, both owned by Match Group, only need one photo for the facial recognition software. So these people may be the actual person in that odd image, and able to pass the face scan. Then, they could grift images of other people from the internet to use for the bulk of their profile.

Tinder didn’t respond to Haubursin’s request for comment, but it did respond to Mashable’s. 

“We’re aware of the concerns raised about our Photo Verification and Face Check features. In recent weeks, we’ve taken action to strengthen our Photo Verification badging logic, including requiring greater consistency across profile photos and additional reviews to achieve higher confidence in cases that warrant extra scrutiny,” a Tinder spokesperson told Mashable. “Face Check, our more recently launched verification system, builds on Photo Verification to help confirm accounts belong to real users. We are committed to continuously improving and investing in our systems to keep Tinder safe and authentic for our users.”

Mashable also recently spoke with Hinge’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, Ben Celebicic, about this, as Haubursin also replicated this on Hinge (which began implementing Face Check after Tinder). Celebicic hasn’t seen Haubursin’s video, but he did say that there’s a constant battle between trust and safety teams and policy-violating actors. 

“They’ll find new ways,” he said. “We’ll find ways to prevent them from accessing the platform.”

There’s not going to be a single product the team builds that will fully prevent people from bypassing our solution, Celebicic continued. He said they have a big team working on these issues, and they’re in tune with new ways bad actors try to penetrate the platform and work to fix them.

Around one-third of Hinge’s workforce is dedicated to trust and safety, the app told Mashable, and Match Group invests $125 million annually in this area.

Trust and safety is a major concern for dating apps. In Sept. 2025, two senators sent a letter to Match Group CEO Spencer Rascoff, urging him to do something about romance scammers on the platforms. In Dec., a class-action lawsuit against Match Group claimed that a serial rapist was allowed on Tinder and Hinge after several women reported him. 

Facial recognition scans have boomed recently thanks to the influx of age-verification laws, which require a robust method of proving someone’s age in order to access certain content, usually explicit content. These methods include uploading a government ID to a platform, using a credit card, or in other cases, scanning your face. But, like with Face Check, people have found workarounds to evade the scan and see the content they want to see.

By Robert Scucci
| Updated 1 hour ago

When I fired up 1987’s Robot Holocaust on Tubi, I was expecting a Mad Max-style scenario with a bunch of clankers running amok and wiping out humanity. Instead, I got a weird, loincloth-laden odyssey where the most expensive special effects are red lights, and the villain is basically a giant, walking, talking Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama. I know I’m being anachronistic by comparing a 1987 film to a character that didn’t exist until 1999, but that’s the comparison I’m making, and I’m sticking with it.

Let me have this, because the other reality I have to live with is that this movie is pretty rough. There are barely any robots, and what transpires hardly qualifies as a holocaust. The male-to-female buttcheek ratio sits at a clean 50:50, and the nudity isn’t even the good kind. Everybody’s wandering around in punishing heat all day, so you just know the smell is so bad you can almost taste it.

It’s Listed As A Sci-Fi But It’s More Of A Fantasy Quest

The best way to describe Robot Holocaust is an ill-fated cross between Mad Max and the original Star Wars trilogy. You’ve got a ragtag group of city-dwelling slaves living under the thumb of the Dark One, with his laws enforced by Torque (Rick Gianasi), the robot who looks like Zoidberg.

These wasteland slaves are trying to overthrow the Dark One, and their plan mostly involves a lot of unsexy walking as they run into enemies, obstacles, and, occasionally, robots.

Leading the charge is Neo (Norris Culf), a New Terra drifter accompanied by his C-3PO-esque companion, Klyton (Joel Van Ornsteiner). Along the way, he links up with Deeja (Nadine Hart), Nyla (Jennnifer Delora), Bray (George Gray), and Kai (Andrew Horwath), all of whom are fed up with the Dark One’s evil machinations and willing to trudge half-naked through asphalt and overgrown wasteland to do something about it.

Alliances and wills are tested, but the goal stays the same. Our heroes, and there are too many of them to really invest in, especially given their almost aggressive lack of charisma, need to find the Power Station where the Dark One resides and wipe out him and his goons once and for all.

Amateur Hour, But Not Without Its Charm

While Robot Holocaust mostly plays like a college film project with no budget, I can appreciate what writer-director Tim Kincaid was going for with limited resources. Most of the exterior shots look like people wandering around the outskirts of NYC, and most of the interior scenes feel like they were filmed inside a Spirit Halloween. A lot of my enjoyment came from the production notes I made up in my head, like, “Places, everybody! This fog and these fake spiderwebs set us back $25, making it the most expensive scene we’re shooting!”

That said, I’ve got to give the cast credit for committing to the vision, even if they’re reaching pretty far to get there. The robot costumes actually look decent from a distance, but the illusion falls apart in the close-ups, which we get way too often.

At the end of the day, Robot Holocaust is perfect home-viewing material. It’s only 79 minutes long and packed with a healthy dose of camp. It doesn’t make much sense, and when the primary antagonist is finally revealed, it’s basically just a guy dressed like an egg. For that reason alone, it’s worth a watch because it’s just so random.

As of this writing, you can stream Robot Holocaust for free on Tubi.

By TeeJay Small
| Updated 24 seconds ago

When Netflix first made their pivot from DVDs-by-mail to home streaming, they revolutionized the way that people consume media. At the time, consumers were raving about a seemingly unlimited library of movies, TV shows, and even some proposed original programming. This came with zero ads, for a monthly subscription fee that cost less than the price of a single movie ticket. Streaming exploded in popularity, so much so that numerous studios and production companies rushed to develop platforms of their own.

In 2026, there are dozens of streamers, mostly offering small libraries of mindless junk sandwiched between more ad space than Times Square. The golden era of streaming might be dead for the likes of Netflix, but some streamers are still new and fresh, providing a glimpse into that short, sweet period when prices were low and production values were high. For my money, I’d say Apple TV+ is one of the best streaming services currently on the market.

A Worthwhile Loss Leader

Apple TV+ was first launched back in 2019. At the time, the streamer had very few original projects, and needed to quickly establish itself as a worthwhile investment. To do this, they priced their subscription at just $4.99 per month. They also included a free one-year subscription with the purchase of any new Apple hardware.

Over time, Apple producers began snatching up fresh, original IPs with reckless abandon, spending hundreds of millions on projects such as Oprah’s Book Club, The Banker, The Greatest Beer Run Ever, The Problem With Jon Stewart, Ted Lasso, and more. They even courted famed auteur directors like Martin Scorsese to opt for Apple exclusive premieres over the more traditional full theater release.

Today, Apple TV+ is rapidly becoming the premiere streamer for fresh new sci-fi shows. Severance is probably the most popular example of this, but Apple also has projects like Silo, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and Pluribus, created by Vince Gilligan. While this suite of high-quality shows is impressive, Apple’s real value is in their propensity to reinvent what a streaming platform is capable of. They’ve integrated the now-defunct iTunes Store into the streamer, so you can rent or purchase movies that aren’t streaming anywhere else. They also host podcasts, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and myriad other forms of bonus content.

There’s a larger reason why Apple TV+ is so good right now, and unfortunately, it’s sort of doomed to disappear. The truth is, the entire service is a loss leader. This term usually refers to things like $5 rotisserie chickens or Costco’s $1.50 hot dog meal, but it applies just as well to the landscape of streaming media. Apple TV+ is designed to get you invested in other aspects of the tech company, and they can afford to take a loss on it because they sell millions of iPhones each year. Netflix was also capable of burning through capital in its infancy, which is why we all fondly remember when it didn’t have ads and didn’t cost twice as much as a trip to the theater.

Right now, Apple TV+ costs $12.99 per month. That’s still a great price when compared to other streamers, and it’s well worth the price for Severance alone. While I have no doubt that Apple execs will tighten the leash on the streamer down the line, the service is currently in its experimental era. The bottom line is that it’s always good to get in on the ground floor of something. Streaming services seem to have a distinct life cycle, and Apple is currently living in the sweet spot.