How to find true love on Session

It’s a private thing

Folks, pop on some Barry White, get cosy with your boo and settle in, because it’s time to bring a little love to Session. We've been taking a bit of time recently to talk about how Session is actually a really great platform for dating/meeting new people — for a variety of reasons (particularly anonymity), all of which the very talented Alex wrote about here. After all, as Alex so eloquently wrote, isn't it nice when Session isn't all doom and gloom?

Today, we really wanna highlight the importance of privacy across all relationships. Whether you're meeting new people or hanging with the love of your life — it’s important that your relationship stays between, well, just the two of you, and isn't being read by someone else. Because your relationship belongs to you. And yes, that extends to the digital world as well.

And in awesome news, this is something we're seeing from a few of our users recently, so we thought we’d share it across our channels — but Session really should have a place in your heart (cute right). Session is the place where love is born — or at the very least a secure, private and encrypted place for you to feel safe to talk openly with someone special. Session is one of the only digital spaces left in this overly surveilled world where you have the security of knowing that nothing you say, send, sext, or describe with cartoon eggplants will be viewed outside of the people who send and receive the message.

These "chats" apply to both relationships that are newly blossoming and those who are so in love that they think it’s a good idea to have a shared Facebook account (idk why so many people do this, but you do you). You have the right to private communication, and that means your messages shouldn't be scanned by algorithms, read by tech company employees, or face the risk of exposure from malicious hackers — regardless of whether your convos are intimate or reminding you to pick up a bottle of wine on the way home.

We don't normally yank our own chains so much, but as we wrote about here — a lot of messaging/dating apps are not that safe (at all) and a lot of them are used to target already marginalised people and communities.

The reality of the landscape

Whilst this little section definitely comes with some caveats — I wanna take a second to talk about safety, and what Session’s adaptability means for all its users.

Even having a brief look at the landscape of messaging platforms used for dating (and in turn dating apps), you quickly see a history rooted in attacks—harassment, trolling, stalking, bullying, solicitation, you name it— targeting marginalised groups. This is happening on messaging platforms that most people don't think twice about as using as their daily social drivers.

LBGTQIA+ communities report facing higher levels of harassment (with up to nearly 50% of individuals having faced a personal experience) and are often targets of some pretty horrific online behaviour, and this is something we see happening across the globe. Queer communities who rely on communication and dating apps often have to deal with terrible standards of privacy and digital safety, leaving users vulnerable and at risk — yeah we're looking at you Grindr (and don't even get us started on Snapchat) .

Cherry on top

“But you know, there's nothing wrong with tinder or IG DM's”.

Every now and then you come across a story so crazy that you have to check your research twice just to make sure you read it correctly. But if there ever was a story that’ll reinforce the necessity for private and encrypted communication, well, this is it.

As tin foil hat as this anecdote may sound, we need to talk about the NSA. ICYMI, strap in because everyone should be more aware about the "LOVEINT" leak and the reality of spyware tech abuse. Essentially, purely because they a) can and b) are insecure; NSA spies have repeatedly been caught exploiting their position of power by leveraging access to tech in order to jaw hits floor "snoop" on their partners, lovers and get this — first dates. WTF. This isn't even a new or recently developing story — first blowing up in 2013, with historic cases of this practice being recorded as far back as 2003 — and unfortunately continuing to this day.

In 2011, one NSA employee working at an overseas base spied on the calls of her foreign boyfriend and other foreigners she met socially because she wanted to find out if they were “shady characters.”

How's that for an excerpt — THE AUDACITY.

Safe sext

Let’s be real, because we’re all grown ups, but your private messages should be private for a reason — and we love that.  Whether you're looking to further build your relationship, kickstart one or if you work in an industry that requires a little more peace of mind (teachers, academics, etc) session really does have you covered. And you shouldn't be afraid to use it with your partner either - we recently took a twitter poll and found out that nearly 40 percent of our users do get intimate with session (oh la la).

But why shouldn't you — I know we mention it all the time — but were proud of the fact that our messaging app is decentralised, end-to-end encrypted and completely private. So don't be afraid to 🍆 because the only person who can see your message is the person you send it to. Again, all we ask is please don't use Snapchat for this stuff.