Bumble’s Stand For Safety initiative in India is back for its second edition

Popular dating app Bumble has brought back its Stand for Safety initiative in India again for the second edition. This initiative is a safety handbook created in partnership with the Centre for Social Research (CSR) and Nyaaya to “drive awareness around digital safety and support the community in recognising and combating online abuse, bullying, and discrimination”.

CSR is a non-profit organisation that works on creating a “violence-free, gender-just society” in the country and Nyaaya is an independent open access digital resource that provides simple and actionable information that educates people about their legal rights and how to exercise them.

Bumble recently conducted a nationwide study about how online harassment is affecting people around the country. The study revealed that 1 in 2 people, 50 per cent, have encountered hateful content online and at least 1 in every 4 women have “witnessed negative comments about their physical appearance and abuse against women at least once a week”.

40 per cent of the people surveyed said that they have faced hate-speech online and bullying “with regards to discrimination against a particular group or community and their physical appearance”.

More than 52 per cent of the people surveyed said they felt angry after facing hate and bullying online while 48 per cent said that being bullied and encountering hateful content online has made it difficult for them to trust other people.

“We are delighted to partner with the Centre for Social Research and Nyaaya to create this one-of-a-kind safety handbook to support our community and equip them with crucial information to recognise and combat online abuse, discrimination and harassment. Bumble is built on the core values of kindness, respect, inclusivity and equality, and safety has been central to Bumble's mission from day one. Our ‘Stand for Safety’ initiative further demonstrates our deeper commitment to creating a world where all relationships are healthy and equitable,” said Mahima Kaul, Head of Public Policy APAC at Bumble.

“Equal, equitable and inclusive online spaces can become a reality when we all work together. We are happy to have partnered with Bumble in India in their efforts to make the Internet a safer and kinder space especially for women and other marginalised communities. Creation of Bumble’s Safety Handbook is a vital step in the right direction, and the purpose is to give agency to the users, and to empower them with the right tools to fortify their well-being, while navigating the online space,” said Jyoti Vadehra, Head, Media and Communications at Centre for Social Research.

Bumble said that it is going to keep working towards updating the handbook and platform guidelines and adding more stop words in multiple regional Indian languages. The dating app has some in-built safety features like a Safety + Wellbeing Centre, the support for women to just use her initials to create the dating profile, a Private Detector that uses AI too automatically detect and blur unsolicited nude images, and it also explicitly bans all unsolicited and derogatory comments made on any users' appearance encouraging users to report such behaviour on the app.

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