Toxicity and hate speech are spreading across the web, be it Twitter (TWTR), Facebook (FB), YouTube (GOOG, GOOGL), Snapchat (SNAP) – or even dating sites.
The female-focused dating site (BMBL), which went public on Thursday, has explicitly banned unsolicited and derogatory comments about anyone’s appearance, body shape, size or health.
“We are not afraid to take a stand for what we believe is consistent with our values and mission. Historically, we banned weapons from our platform, and just two weeks ago we banned any form of body shaming. This will not be tolerated on our platform, “Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd told Yahoo Finance Live on Thursday.
While Bumble has a zero-tolerance policy for hatred and toxicity, the company has also taken several public positions on what it considers harmful behavior. “This includes language that could be considered fat-phobic, proficient, racist, coloristic, homophobic, or transphobic,” Bumble said in a Jan. 27 announcement that such behavior could result in a warning or ban for repeated offenses or particularly harmful comments. .
Herd told Yahoo Finance on Thursday that Bumble prioritizes holding users accountable for their behavior. “In the real world, there are crash barriers, laws, consequences for your behavior. We’re not trying to, you know, censor people, but we’re trying to tell you that if you want to behave badly, you can’t do it here,” said Herd, who previously co-founded the dating site Tinder.
‘We look at the life cycle of women’
Founded by Herd in 2014, Bumble now reaches 42 million monthly active users in 150 countries. Bumble’s main differentiator is that women have to take the first step in heterosexual matches.
Bumble currently has Bizz and BFF offers, designed for users to meet their next business partner or best friend. Herd’s vision of expanding Bumble both vertically and horizontally reflects her ambitions to grow up with women who may have signed up on the app for the first time to find a boyfriend or girlfriend.
“We look at the woman’s life cycle or the person’s relationship trajectory. When you think about all the different touchpoints you have in your life that are truly a derivative of your relationships, be it the quest for love or once found love, how you get into the next chapter – engagement, marriage, fertility, everything that comes after with those journeys, ”she told Yahoo Finance.
Herd has a personal mission to empower women and curb bad behavior, especially online. She sued her former employer, Tinder, for sexual harassment and eventually settled for an undisclosed amount.
And Herd, whose company is based in Austin, Texas, vocally backed a Texas law that banned “cyberflashing” or the sending of unsolicited lewd photos. House Bill 2789 went into effect on September 1, 2019, making the electronic transmission of sexually explicit material a Class C felony with a fine of up to $ 500 if the person receiving it did not consent. Herd has said she wants to work with Congress to pass similar legislation at the federal level.
Shares of Bumble closed 76% above the IPO price on its first two days as a publicly traded company.
Melody Hahm is Yahoo Finance’s West Coast Correspondent on Entrepreneurship, Technology and Culture. Follow her on Twitter @melodyhahm and on LinkedIn.
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