In short:
Almost all women surveyed in a new Australian study reported encountering harmful behaviour on dating apps, with many taking their own precautions to stay safe.
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many → survey → precautions
Researchers say platforms should do more to prevent systemic risks as the federal government considers a digital duty of care.
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government → say → care
Consultation on Labor's proposed digital duty of care closes on Tuesday, with advocates saying it has capacity to curb online abuse.
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it → propose → abuse
Women are being forced to act as their own safety system on dating apps where experiences of sexual harassment, manipulation and controlling behaviours are widespread, a study has found.
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study → force → harassment
Australian researchers found 99 per cent of heterosexual women surveyed had encountered at least one harmful behaviour on a dating app in the previous three months.
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cent → find → months
Unsolicited explicit messages, attempts to monitor activity, love bombing, negging and gaslighting are common experiences on dating apps, according to the study released on Tuesday by the Minderoo Foundation-funded Behaviour Insights Team (BIT).
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messages → monitor → Team
Women reported routinely screening profiles for warning signs, withholding identifying information and carefully managing interactions to protect themselves from potential harm.
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Women → report → harm
These accounts have fuelled calls to ensure a proposed digital duty of care was implemented to require online services to tackle systemic risks.
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duty → fuel → risks
Researchers have argued the scale of the problem showed women could not be expected to manage the risks alone, with dating platforms better placed to prevent harm before it occurred.
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it → argue → harm
Women coaching each other to stay safe
Brisbane resident Rebecca Wilson, 33, said her harmful dating app experiences have included receiving "completely unsolicited" and "aggressively sexual" messages, photos and videos.
Ms Wilson said she was also once stalked by a man she had met via an app.
"
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she → coach → app
We went on one date.
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We → go → date
I said to him, 'Look I'm just not interested anymore', and he didn't get the message," she said.
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she → say → message
"Weeks later he kept popping up at the same places as me … following me around.
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he → keep → me
He touched me at a bar right in front of my friends when it was clearly unsolicited."
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it → touch → friends
With only minimal information on the man, Ms Wilson said she could not easily report him to authorities.
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she → say → authorities
One issue was that using the "block" feature on the app meant she lost the ability to collect identifying material to progress a complaint.
"
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she → use → complaint
There's no way of being able to know the identity of who you were talking to," Ms WIlson said.
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WIlson → be → who
Ms Wilson said she and her friends have "coached" each other through how to navigate online dating safely.
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she → say → dating
"The current mechanisms are really just not enough on these apps," she said.
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she → say → apps
Harmful behaviour 'normalised'
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behaviour → normalise → ?
The most common harmful behaviours on dating apps were psychological and emotional, which were encountered by 95 per cent of the 1,008 women across Australia surveyed for the BIT study.
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which → encounter → study
About 89 per cent experienced monitoring and surveillance activity and 88 per cent reported being sent unsolicited sexual images and videos, and being pressured and manipulated into sending sexual content.
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cent → experience → content
Almost six in 10 women reported fear-based controlling behaviour, including threats of physical harm.
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women → report → harm
Of those, only about 22 per cent reported those threats to the platforms.
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cent → report → platforms
Among women who made reports to platforms generally, about 19 per cent felt their complaint was "barely" or "not at all" taken seriously, while 64 per cent said they were taken at least "somewhat" seriously.
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they → make → platforms
Lead researcher Karen Tindall said the findings showed there was a need for greater efforts by the platforms to tackle "genuinely preventable risk".
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findings → say → risk
"Right now, a lot of these behaviours are so normalised that women blame themselves or they think they are overreacting," she said.
"
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she → normalise → themselves
This data and research should validate women's experience and should shift the conversation toward fixing the system itself."
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data → validate → system
Dr Tindall said there were features built for safety that could lead to harm, such as preventing screenshots to prevent against image-based abuse.
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that → say → abuse
"But that also removes a woman's ability to document what happened," she said.
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she → remove → ability
"I'm not saying those safety features should be removed, but it means that safety features need to be tested for how they will be worked around, and whether they will work as intended.
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they → say → ?
Duty would shift responsibility onto platforms
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Duty → shift → platforms
The findings have been released as the federal government consults on its proposed digital duty of care, which is intended to require services to identify and mitigate foreseeable risks rather than relying on users to report harm after the fact.
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which → release → fact
The draft duty for adults could apply to dating platforms on which users have faced serious abuse, stalking, sexual violence or image-based abuse.
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users → apply → abuse
It would mean services were required to identify and mitigate systemic risks that could enable such conduct.
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that → mean → conduct
While the initial debate has focused on social media, the proposed duty would apply more broadly across digital services, including dating and messaging apps, online games, search engines and AI services.
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duty → focus → apps
Minderoo Foundation gender equality executive director Jacqueline Joudo Larsen said a digital duty of care could prevent harm and protect Australians.
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duty → say → Australians
It is the single biggest lever to curb the reach, scale and speed at which abuse is occurring by shifting responsibility from individuals to companies that are designing and operating online platforms," she said.
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she → curb → platforms
"This is a standard that we hold other sectors to and it should be no different for the online space."
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it → hold → space
Ms Larsen said technology had "transformed" how people met, connected and built relationships.
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people → say → relationships
…and 12 more, not listed.
The Aporia