Bumble Calls on UK Legislators to Improve New Cyberflashing Bill
Contributed by: kellyseal on Wednesday, April 26 2023 @ 08:50 am
Last modified on Wednesday, April 26 2023 @ 01:38 pm
Dating app Bumble is dipping into politics again, this time in the U.K. The company has joined forces with Grazia magazine, UN Women UK, and celebrity Amy Hart to encourage legislators to change the proposed Online Safety Bill (OSB), which deals with the issue of cyberflashing.
The proposed bill’s language includes determining whether the cyberflasher (the person sending unsolicited nudes to someone without their knowledge or consent) had harmful intent, which Bumble says would be difficult to prove. Critics say that this also gives a lot of room for the accused to claim they sent these images as a “joke,” according to AOL.com.
In March, Bumble issued a press release[*1] acknowledging the milestone that the UK government agreed to make cyberflashing a criminal offense under the OSB. In the same release, they advocated that “to drive societal change, any new law must be based on non-consent.” The company argued that instead of focusing on the intent of the sender, the law should be focused on whether or not the recipient gave prior consent.
“This is the emerging international standard that we’re seeing across the United States, recognizing the violating nature of the harm, and making accountability, and enforcement, more likely,” the company said in its press release.
The research backs up Bumble’s concern: a recent poll from YouGov found that 41 percent of millennial women have been sent an unsolicited nude photo by a man without their consent. Bumble also conducted its own survey among its members, and found that 48 percent of respondents aged 18 to 24 received unsolicited photos without their consent in the last year. The company studied responses from almost 1,800 people in England and Wales, according to AOL[*2] .
Bumble also found that 35 percent of women have received unsolicited sexual photos while at work, 27 percent received them on public transit, and 19 percent received them simply walking down the street, according to another survey the company took in February 2023.
The U.K. population is concerned, too. Bumble also found in its February 2023 survey that 86 percent of U.K. adults said that more needs to be done about cyberflashing.
Bumble added in its press release advocating for the new law in the U.K. the harm that is caused from the rampant cyberflashing occurring today: “The distress caused often leaves a lasting impact, changing how women perceive safety and interact with the internet as a whole.”
For more on this dating service, check out our Bumble dating app review.