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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.
No, the government is not making it illegal to ask someone on a date. No, they are not flirting with doing so.
"How about you guys self-regulate so we don't have to get involved?" is the exact same thing our governments have done with television since forever. Guess what? It didn't lead to TV being banned.
The dating apps will put together a voluntary Code of Conduct that mostly says they need to do the things they're already doing, maybe with a bit less tolerance for unsolicited dick pics, and life will go on. No legislation will be drafted, introduced, or passed.
You know what would happen if the government did make it illegal to ask someone on a date? That government would become very unpopular. So they won't do it.
Edit: Also, we already had a regime change since that Kulak post you've linked to. So who are you proposing to replace the current lot of "inhuman totalitarians" with? Back to the last bunch?
This seems to be a recurring problem. We might have to write a new constitution, Douglas MacArthur style.
Do you think there's any chance at all that maybe invading another country, overthrowing a democratically elected, popular government, and forcibly imposing a new constitution is perhaps a slight overraction to Tinder being asked (with no actual penalty attached) to follow rules that it gets to write for itself?
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You think Akihito wants a new imperial possession?
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