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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.Also, after the miserable dating flashback that led up to my current miserable dating life passed, a few things occurred to me that make this doubly pointless.
Lots of communication on dating apps happens OFF APP. It's common wisdom that moving to text or instagram DMs or the like is the next step of "intimacy" in a match; typically where you go once you've gotten a Yes to the date, but before the woman turns out to be mysteriously busy. Supposedly it sets you apart from the competition; in order to see you, she doesn't have to open up an app full of other dudes. This is universal advice given to men, the only disagreement I've seen from women is whether they prefer text, facebook messenger, instagram, or snapchat.
So of course the last time I checked Reddit's Hinge and O.L.D. subs, the advice being given to women was that men only want to move off-app so they can freely abuse you and send dick pics. Only the app is safe, which is fucking terrible advice to women AND men (men who take it seriously find their matches flake even more often, women who take it seriously would turn down men making perfectly normal courtship overtures). The people saying this seemed very distinct from the local "dating gurus," just an odd little set of commenters that would chime in whenever moving off app came up.
I suppose makes sense if your goal in using a dating app is to never see a dick pic rather than using it to date. It's just frustratingly ass-backwards.
Also, the apps themselves don't allow the sending of random pictures from a device's drive. You'd have to send an Imgur link or something. There isn't really a way to receive dick picks, wanted or not, on Hinge itself.
All this together makes the legislation even dumber and harder to enforce; since it'd mean reporting someone for behavior that happened on a totally different platform. My last experience of Tinder was turning up for an agreed-upon date only to be stood up; going back to Tinder itself revealed she had unmatched me right when the date was supposed to start, so I couldn't have reported her if I wanted to. The last thing I heard from her was she was "just leaving the house."
This means that all the people you've ever been matched with need to be visible to you after they've unmatched you so you can report them for off-app behavior, even if they've unmatched you themselves.
Say it with me people: There is no legislation.
One of the (very good) reasons why the government would prefer to see a self-regulatory system here rather than a legislated one is precisely because the dating apps can design it to take account of how they actually work. Yes, governments making dumb rules about things they don't understand is a problem in many areas - but self-regulation is a good way to avoid that problem!
The fact that Hinge doesn't allow men to spam dick pics at women is surely intentional - and quite likely that's the sort of thing that will end up in the industry-designed rules.
I was already saying it in my head when I read that line, just due to your previous posts.
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