S’More Among First Dating Apps In The World To Use AWS Rekognition to Verify 100% of Users and Create a Safer Dating Environment

S’More, the anti-superficial dating app founded by former Magic Labs executive Adam Cohen-Aslatei, announced it is using advanced Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud services to build one of the safest and most secure dating apps on the market. S’More is among the first U.S. dating apps to use Amazon Rekognition, a deep learning-based image and video analysis service, to protect daters from fake profiles and remove banned content. The timing could not be more perfect as dating apps tend to see a rise in fraud and catfishing around the holiday season.

Authenticity is a top priority for daters in 2021, with 71% of S’More users saying in a recent survey that they plan to be more authentic in their photos, messages, and more. Amazon Rekognition is helping to create this more authentic dating environment by enabling S’More to find false profiles & ‘catfishers’ 50% faster and increasing the chances that inauthentic profiles can be removed before they interact with verified users. In addition, S’More can remove users who break the app’s photo policy by having banned content in their profile photos, including depictions of hate acts, racist images, fake or licensed photos, images of illegal activity, pornography, foul language, and more.

S’More previously verified each user upon registration. Amazon Rekognition will enable S’More to automatically re-verify the user whenever a profile photo is changed via facial recognition, and can also check for banned content using the service’s content moderation capability. The technology will also enable S’More to block accounts of known catfishers or bad actors if they try to return.

S’More has over 300,000 users only 18 months out of beta. Its interface hides a user’s profile image, only to slowly reveal it after steady back-and-forth conversation between both parties. Singletons can hear a person’s voice, listen to their favorite music, and connect over content before their image is revealed, giving more people a shot at love. S’More also offers services like blurred video dating to help users get to know a person before making the leap to meeting in person. Per the S’More dating survey, 64% of women said they will go on at least three virtual dates before meeting someone in real life. Daters are more discerning post-COVID, and technology is bolstering S’More’s unique safety measures and anti-superficial approach.

In the future, Amazon Rekognition could also help S’More users understand which facial expressions and types of profile photos lead to greater engagement, conversations, and other data to help them create stronger profiles, which could help them speed up the process of meeting the right person.

In addition to Amazon Rekognition, S’More uses a variety of AWS cloud services including Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), which allows the company to scale its computing resources along with the growth of its community.

S’More continues its mission of creating the safest dating environment with a 100% verified user base, free of artificiality and bad actors that can hinder meaningful connections. “Weeding out false profiles is paramount to the user experience on S”More,” said S’More founder & CEO Adam Cohen-Aslatei.  “AWS services offer next-level technology and protection for our singletons that cannot be found on other dating apps. My hope is that all relationship apps provide a safer experience to the millions of singles out there. Enough is enough. We have the technology to do better as an industry, now we need to make it a priority and take action!”

“By building on AWS, S’More has the performance, security, and breadth of services it needs to create a safer, more engaging community for its rapidly growing user base,” said Eric Feagler, Global Startups Leader, Amazon Web Services, Inc. “We look forward to continuing to help S’More reinvent the online dating experience in the years ahead.”

S’More can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store, and can be found on Instagram @smoredate. Read more about Amazon Rekognition here.

ABOUT S’MORE

S’More brings a less superficial approach to dating. Instead of swiping past endless profiles of airbrushed selfies,  S’More slowly reveals profile photos and other visual content the more you chat, giving many more people a shot at love. Gone are the days of instantly judging a person based on little more than a selfie. S’More features rich media and interactive profiles. Hear a person’s voice and listen to their favorite music before seeing their photos. S’More also encourages users to connect over content like celebrity dating videos. Meet others who like the same content and then start a private chat instead of the transactional approach of traditional dating apps. The app features a public behavioral score to weed out bad actors and encourage top-notch behavior. That, plus blurred video dating, has made S’More a standout product. It’s similar to the show Love is Blind on Netflix or Bantr from Ted Lasso.

S’More also has raised over $3M in funding (including investments from Mark Pincus founder of Zynga) and has become the among the fastest growing dating apps in the U.S. having launched in early 2020. S’More also has its own celebrity dating show on Instagram, having filmed over 80 episodes during COVID. Celebrities reveal their craziest dating stories, play hilarious games, and provide useful dating tips. And top talent such as actresses Olivia Culpo, Tom Bilyeu (founder of Quest Nutrition), and Bravo and Bachelor alum like Sutton Stracke from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Raven Gates from The Bachelor have all appeared on the show. S’More has even signed a production deal to produce streaming content about anti-superficial dating.