new delhi,mar 24
Online dating app Bumble has announced the launch of its new initiative ‘Stand for Safety’ in partnership with Red Dot Foundation’s public safety platform Safe City. The women-first dating app, Bumble has posted a safety guide on its website educating women on how to identify and tackle online abuse on any platform .Bumble India has shared a few statistics from their nationwide survey as well. They have reported that 83 per cent of women in India have faced online harassment of some sort and one of three of these women had to endure it weekly. The incidents of cyberbullying did not see a decrease since the lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, 70 per cent of the women in the survey believe these incidents have increased during this period. Bumble also said that 59 per cent of women in the survey felt unsafe.The safety guide from the app mentions six common types of digital abuse and harassment — cyber stalking, doxxing, online impersonation, concern trolling, flaming, outing or leaking personal videos. The guide emphasises on reporting the incident and registering an official complaint on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal or to the police.In the case of cyberstalking the guide advises women to document all incidents, ending contact immediately and to report, block the person on the platform. This also applies to Doxxing where the bully reveals personal information without the user’s consent, including full name, home or office address, phone number, or any other identifying details.If someone faces online impersonation, she can start out by warning all of her contacts about the fake profile and report it on the platform. The guide also asks users to not tolerate concern trolling which in simple words means that the harasser might seem concerned about the person but only using it to criticise. The most common example of concern trolling can be fat shaming.Flaming is one of the most common online abuse women face in the form of disrespectful comments, inappropriate language, superficial lies, character assassination and others. Once, again it is advised to report and file a complaint about these cyber harassers immediately on the platform. The last one is outing or leaking personal videos which can include intimate moments. Bumble encourages users to take a legal route against these actions as it is a serious offence and punishable by law. Bumble also says that users can visit the app’s Safety and Wellbeing Center for more resources.
