TikTok pulled its live dating experiment after chat rooms veered into explicit territory. The feature, tested in the US and a few other markets, is now paused indefinitely.
TikTok has paused a dating feature it tested over the past week that dropped users into live group chats with other singles, a company spokesperson said. The tool lived inside a section of the app called "hangout," which is built around multi-guest experiences, and invited users to join chat rooms with "great people" or "awesome people to meet," according to different versions of the feature viewed by Business Insider.
The dating option, available to a subset of users in the US and a few other markets, is now being paused, the spokesperson said, noting that TikTok regularly experiments with features that may not see a broad release.
During the brief stint, some chat rooms in the category looked unrelated to courtship. Others got raunchy. One livestream encouraged viewers to comment in order to vibrate a "creator's XXL electric buttplug," for example. Another chat room was looking for lesbians seeking "big beautiful women." The experience read like an uncanny mix of Tinder, Twitch, Clubhouse, and Omegle.
TikTok's community guidelines limit livestream hosting to creators over 18. The app won't recommend "restricted content" to users aged 13 to 17, and the spokesperson said users wouldn't have had dating livestreams recommended to them unless they already followed the host creator.
Live dating is one of several experiments running on TikTok, which routinely tests ways to lift engagement and push beyond standard short-form video. The company operates a full-service e-commerce platform and is casting actors for its own micro dramas.
The push into dating may have drawn on activity on Douyin, TikTok's sister app in China. Livestream blind dates have grown popular there, with digital matchmakers hosting sessions for singles on Douyin and competitors like RedNote. Features that gain traction on Douyin often land on TikTok next.
Other US social platforms are also weighing dating as a business line. Facebook built out a full dating suite to compete with Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble. Partiful, an event-planning social network, launched a dating feature in 2026. X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and even LinkedIn have sparked romance through comments and DMs, though none have dedicated dating products.
TikTok's spokesperson did not say whether the dating feature would return or when the pause might lift.
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