Launches first-of-a-kind safety guide to equip and empower women in India to recognise, prevent and combat digital abuse
83% of women in India experience online harassment of some kind, 1 in 3 women experience it weekly
70% of women believe cyberbullying increased since lockdown in 2020
Mumbai, Maharashtra [India]: Bumble, the women-first social networking app, has launched a new initiative ‘Stand for Safety’ as part of its mission to create a safer, kinder, and more respectful internet. In response to ever-growing safety concerns, Bumble is releasing a safety guide, in partnership with Safecity, Red Dot Foundation’s flagship public safety platform, to empower women in India to identify, prevent and combat rising digital abuse. Through this initiative, Bumble continues to demonstrate its commitment to a zero-tolerance policy for hate, aggression, or bullying of any kind.
“Through Bumble’s Stands for Safety initiative, we hope to equip and empower women in India with crucial information to understand and recognise, prevent and fight digital abuse. We are happy to collaborate with Safecity who has been doing incredible work on creating safer spaces for women worldwide. We will continue to demonstrate our commitment to creating safer, healthy relationships on our platform and in our communities.” commented Priti Joshi, VP of Global Strategy & Operations at Bumble.
A recent nationwide survey by Bumble found 83% of women surveyed in India experience online harassment of some kind, and 1 in 3 women experience it weekly. A further 70% of women believe that cyberbullying increased since lockdown was announced in 2020. Over half (59%) of women surveyed said they feel unsafe and just under half (48%) feel angry.
Speaking on the partnership, ElsaMarieD’Silva, Founder, Red Dot Foundation, commented “We are excited to partner with Bumble and create awareness on digital rights and online safety. Many women are silenced and intimidated in online spaces due to harassment and bullying directed towards them. Today’s environment requires everyone to be comfortable and knowledgeable when accessing and utilising digital spaces for various aspects of life. We hope our safety guide will help them navigate these spaces safely and confidently.”
Bumble is committed to fostering a safe and inclusive space for its community to connect for healthy and equitable relationships. As a geographic-specific feature for the Bumble community in India, a woman can choose to use only the first initial of her name to create her Bumble Date profile and can share her full name with connections when she feels ready and comfortable.
Bumble has a robust block and report feature within the app, and has made it easy for its community to block and report anyone who makes them uncomfortable on our app, or anyone whose behaviour goes against our Community Guidelines. Bumble also has a photo verification feature to help prevent catfishing within the app. Another Bumble feature that leverages AI, Private Detector can capture, blur and alert users that they’ve been sent an unsolicited nude image making it the user’s choice to either delete, view, or report the image. Bumble recently updated its terms and conditions to explicitly ban any unsolicited and derogatory comments made about someone’s appearance, body shape, size or, health and became one of the first social networking apps to ban body shaming. The app uses automated safeguards to detect comments and images that go against its guidelines and terms and conditions, which can then be escalated to a human moderator to review.
Bumble’s community in India can also access the safety guide within the app under its recently launched Safety + wellbeing center, a resource hub built to help our global community to provide them with a safe and healthy dating experience.
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About Bumble app: Bumble, the women-first dating and networking app was founded by CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014. Bumble connects people through dating (Bumble Date), friendship (Bumble BFF), and a professional networking (Bumble Bizz). No matter the type of relationship, women make the first move on Bumble. Bumble is built on the importance of equitable relationships and how crucial they are to a healthy, happy life. They’ve built their platform around kindness, respect, and equality – and their community plays an important part in that. Bumble holds its users accountable for their actions and has zero-tolerance for hate, aggression, or bullying. Bumble is free and available worldwide in the App Store and Google Play.
About Red Dot Foundation: Red Dot Foundation works at the intersection of gender, data and tech, urban design, and community engagement. Its flagship program is Safecity, a platform that crowdsources personal stories of sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces. This data which may be anonymous gets aggregated as hot spots on a map indicating trends at a local level. The idea is to make this data useful for individuals, local communities, and local administration to identify factors that cause behaviour that leads to violence and work on strategies for solutions. Safecity is consciously working on digital awareness, rights, and safety with corporations, communities, and youth.
Methodology
The research was conducted by Dynata between 23rd February to 3rd March 2021 among women aged 18-34 across India.
Divya Agarwal
