Bumble

Image: Bumble

Dating app Bumble is rekindling its “Stand for Safety” initiative in India to help combat online abuse.

According to Business Today India, the company released a guidebook created in partnership with the Centre for Social Research (CSR), a non-profit, and Nyaaya, an open-access digital resource center that educates people about their rights. The guide will “drive awareness around digital safety and support the community in recognizing and combating online abuse, bullying, and discrimination.”

Bumble decided to relaunch the initiative after conducting a survey across India on the scope and effects of online harassment. The company found that 50 percent of respondents had seen hateful online content, and around 40 percent have faced hate speech and bullying in regard to their particular community, or to their physical appearance.

Bumble is focusing beyond its popular dating app and adding a new social networking feature to its BFF platform.

Bumble BFF uses the same swipe-based matching found on the dating app, but will expand options for users to include networking groups where they can connect and chat with each other based on topics of interest, according to Tech Crunch. Bumble had hinted that it was testing this new feature and it was “doing well,” according to its first quarter earnings call.

While Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd didn’t offer many details about the new feature on the call, she did describe it was a way to help “people to discover and get to know each other around shared joys and common struggles.” She also noted that over 40 percent of “active BFF users” were checking out the new feature and the various networking groups, sharing that its one-month retention was more than 75 percent, according to Tech Crunch.

Shares of dating company Bumble Inc rose 11 percent after news of the company’s earnings were released, with revenue beating analyst expectations.

According to Reuters, the number of total paying users across Bumble properties increased by 7.2 percent to 3 million during the first quarter of this year, increasing revenue to $211.2 million, surpassing analyst expectations of $208.30 million. Bumble apps include its signature apps, Badoo, and French dating app Fruitz among others.

Research firm Apptopia also found that Bumble downloads in the U.S. increased 20.6 percent during the first quarter, and monthly average users rose 13.7 percent compared to the same quarter last year.

Many dating app users have complained about getting unsolicited nude photos, and are now demanding digital consent before a communicating with a match.

Dating apps have been struggling with what to do about this issue for a while, but since the pandemic attracted many new users to dating apps, the problem has grown. According to The New York Post, A World Wide Web Foundation survey found that 52 percent of young women and girls said they had experienced online abuse, including threatening messages, sexual harassment and being sent lewd photos without consent. A whopping majority of 87 percent said they believe the issue is only getting worse. 

Dating app Bumble launched a feature called Private Detector to counteract this problem. Private Detector works with AI to detect when a nude photo is sent and blurs the picture before the recipient can see it, allowing them to block and report the user without having to see it first.

Image: Bumble

Bumble Inc has taken a big step in assisting users who have experienced sexual assault and abuse through its new online trauma support center, created in partnership with Bloom and now available to users of its Bumble and Badoo dating apps.

The support center offers online courses to help with emotional healing, and is available to users who report sexual assault or relationship abuse over the apps. They will receive a code for free access to a customized version of Bloom’s support specific to daters, with three self-guided courses: Healing from Sexual Trauma; Society, Patriarchy, and Sexual Trauma; and Dating, Boundaries, and Relationships. The dating apps will also offer one-on-one chat support and up to six therapy sessions for certain cases.

Kenya Fairley, Bumble’s Head of Member Safety Support said in a statement: “We are grateful to be able to remove many known barriers that survivors face when seeking trauma support, from privacy to cost, to allow them the opportunity to begin their healing journey at their own pace."

Dating app Bumble has been urging states to pass bills similar to the one it initiated in Texas, which makes it illegal for people to send unsolicited nude photos electronically. In mid-April, Virginia passed such a bill into law.

According to the new law, any adult sending an unsolicited “intimate image” electronically to another adult could be fined up to $500. The law defines intimate image as a “photo, film, video, recording, digital picture or other visual reproduction of a person 18 years of age or older who is in a state of undress so as to expose the human male or female genitals.”  

USA Today spoke with Bumble about how company's head of public policy for the Americas, Payton Iheme, reached out to Virginia Senator Jennifer McClellan for help with the legislation, since the company had success a few years ago passing a similar bill in Texas. The Virginia Senate had voted down another lewd photos bill two years before that carried criminal penalties, but since the new bill introduced civil penalties only, lawmakers felt more comfortable passing it into law.