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Continuing on with The Motte's theme of the week, the Australian Federal Government has given the online dating industry a year to implement a 'voluntary' code of conduct in the face of 'online sexual violence' or presumably face regulation.
This ultimatum seems to be motivated by “An investigation by the Australian Institute of Criminology last year found three-quarters of online daters had been subject to some kind of online sexual violence in the past five years.”
Finding the referenced report 'Dating App Facilitated Sexual Violence' (their term, not mine) seems to include amongst other acts:
- Pressured the respondent to give them information about their location or their schedule
- Continued to contact the respondent even after they told them they were not interested in having a relationship with them
- Pressured the respondent verbally to perform unwanted sexual acts (eg making promises, lying, repeatedly asking or insisting etc)
- Sent the respondent an unwanted sexually explicit message
- Sent the respondent an unwanted sexually explicit photo or video of themselves
- Pressured the respondent to meet them in person when they did not want to
This would include dick pics or non-consensual sexually explicit language sent through a dating app, along with other mundane dating activity. The march to broaden the definition of sexual violence to include 'making women uncomfortable' continues.Australia, is usually a follower of countries like Canada and the UK when it comes to these sorts of policies, but it does occasionally become the first mover when there is the chance of getting a cheap political win (and to seem like it is doing something in the face of more serious issues such as the housing crisis).
The linked news article is kind of buried down the state news media's front page and references the federal government's
karensocial services minister who has previously worked on 'cyber safety' committees. There is a fair chance this is a complete nothing burger that will blow over and is just the govt making noises rather than actually intending to follow through, but time will tell.I don’t think people are fully grasping what is happening here.
The Australian government is flirting with making it illegal to ask someone on a date.
“Pressuring the respondent to give them information about their location or their schedule.”
“Pressuring the respondent to meet them in person when they did not want to.”
This is what asking someone on a date is. You don’t know if they want to until you ask.
Some have speculated in these very comments that destroying dating apps is good actually, because then people will start meeting each other and going on dates somewhere else (where exactly this “somewhere else” would be is left unspecified). This is a folly. The kind of government that bans dating apps for allowing and facilitating people to ask each other out is the kind of government which will ban in-person dating scenes too. Think that’s too extreme? This is Australia we’re talking about. I’m totally on Kulak’s side if the Australian government goes through with this. These inhuman totalitarians need to be taken out by any means necessary.
...Isn't this making it illegal to ask a second time after receiving a non-affirmative response the first time?
It seems to me that the above would be a move toward more legible dating rules, and that a lot of the awfulness of the current situation comes from a lack of legibility. It might actually be an improvement, if there's common knowledge between men and women that if the woman gives a non-affirmative, that connection is irrevocably burned.
It never will be, though, because Chad will ignore the rules and women won't call him on it. So it just becomes another test for men, with high stakes if he loses.
Worse: Not even Chad is immune when The Rules are applied capriciously and retrospectively at women's whim. In addition to it being another test for men in general with high stakes if a given man fails.
That too is a feature: some level of [assholery - power/Chadliness] gets you cancelled.
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