Bumble launches safety guide for women to tackle online harassment

Bumble on Wednesday announced the launch of a new initiative called ‘Stand for Safety’. The women-first dating app has partnered with Red Dot Foundation’s flagship public safety platform, Safecity, to launch a safety guide for women. In a survey conducted by Bumble it was found that 83% of women in India experience online harassment of some kind, and 1 in 3 women experience it weekly. Around 70% of women also believe that cyberbullying has actually increased since lockdown.

Commenting on the launch of the safety guide, Priti Joshi, VP of Global Strategy & Operations at Bumble said, “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.”

The safety guide is accessible through this link, and it features different types of online abuse, what they are and steps for women to take if they experience it. The safety guide isn’t limited to Bumble but any social platform. For cyberstalking, the safety guide suggests documenting incidents, ending contact immediately, and also reporting and blocking them. This can be applied for any form of online abuse like doxxing wherein someone reveals your personal information without your consent. An official complaint can also be filed on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, or one can report it to the police.

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In situations where someone is impersonating you online you can start by warning your contacts about it, and also report and block the fake profile. More complex situations include concern trolling where someone shows that they’re giving you support but in reality they’re actually criticising you. Flaming is another one where people post disrespectful comments online. In both cases, reaching out to that person and asking them to refrain from doing so is advisable. But in more serious cases, an official complaint can be filed as well.