TikTok quickly pauses dating live chat test

TikTok has paused a test of a dating feature that put singles in live chats, Business Insider reported.

Over the past week, TikTok tested the tool, which was in a section of the app called "hangout." Users were invited to join chat rooms with "great people" or "awesome people to meet," according to Business Insider. The chatrooms ranged from unrelated to dating to more sexual in nature, like a chatroom for lesbians looking for "big beautiful women."

A TikTok spokesperson told Business Insider that the app wouldn't recommend dating livestreams to users unless they'd already followed the host creator. TikTok livestreams can only be hosted by users over 18, according to the app's community guidelines, and the app won't recommend "restricted content" to teens under 18.

The spokesperson also told Business Insider the test was seen by a subset of users in the U.S. and a few other markets, but it's now paused, as is a broader test of the "hangout" social livestreaming section.

Like other social media apps (like then-Twitter), TikTok isn't an explicit dating app, but people have found love therege despite this. Meta was the first social media giant to formally enter the dating app scene with Facebook Dating, which apparently has over 20 million users.