EVERYDAY VIOLENCE: WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES OF INTIMATE INTRUSIONS ON TINDER
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Rosalie Gillett Bachelor of Justice (Honours)
School of Justice | Faculty of Law Queensland University of Technology 2019
Keywords
Intimate intrusions
Dating
Tinder
Dating apps
Normalisation of abuse
Continuum of sexual violence
Walkthrough
Cross-platform convergence
Trivialisation
Minimisation
Invalidation
Platform governance
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Abstract
In 2014, Gable Tostee was charged with the murder of Warriena Wright, who fell to her death from Tostee’s high-rise apartment balcony after they met via the mobile dating application (app) Tinder. Although Tostee was acquitted of all charges, Wright’s death demonstrated the potential for serious harm when meeting with relatively unknown internet strangers. In the years following Wright’s death, an abundance of popular and social media reports have shed light on women’s experiences of abuse on the platform. While such reports are good at identifying the behaviours, there remain wide inconsistencies in terms of if, when and how experiences commonly associated with digital dating are conceptualised as abusive. But Intimate intrusions, which I define as behaviours that made women feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe, on dating apps like Tinder, are a pressing social issue. Despite emerging popular and scholarly interest in gendered violence and online abuse, to date, little is known about women's everyday lived experiences of intimate intrusions in mobile dating contexts.
This thesis investigates women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on the dating app Tinder. To better understand women’s experiences, this research draws upon data from 17 semi-structured interviews with women aged 18 – 30 years who were current or former Tinder users living in Brisbane, Australia and had experienced what they themselves defined as intimate intrusions through the app. To supplement the interview data, and provide information about Tinder’s textual content, aesthetics, functions and features, the thesis also presents a comprehensive walkthrough of the app (Light et al. 2016). Findings from this research (1) help to identify the commonness of women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder; (2) demonstrate how intimate intrusions on Tinder are routinely normalised as part of digital dating cultures; and (3) highlight the cumulative impact everyday intimate intrusions can have for women who experience such behaviour. This is a significant area of study because relationship patterns established early on, as well as experiences of abuse, have potentially long- term implications for health and well-being (Hlavka 2014). At the same time, the normalisation of intimate intrusions experienced via dating apps, such as Tinder, may reinforce a wider culture that supports violence against women.
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Table of Contents
Keywords ...... i Abstract ...... ii List of Figures ...... vii Statement of Original Authorship ...... viii Acknowledgements ...... ix Previously Published Content ...... xi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1.1 Aim and Research Questions ...... 3 1.2 Background and Context ...... 5 1.3 Terminology ...... 9 1.4 Chapter Outline ...... 10 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 14 2.1 Introduction ...... 14 2.2 Connecting Insights from Woman Abuse Research ...... 14 2.2.1 Dating Violence ...... 14 2.2.2 Sexual Harassment ...... 17 2.2.3 How Women Understand and Respond to Dating Violence and Gendered Harassment ...... 19 2.2.4 Attitudes toward Violence and Abuse against Women and Girls ...... 21 2.2.5 The Normalisation of Abuse ...... 23 2.3 Theoretical Framework ...... 26 2.4 Social Constructionism ...... 30 2.4.1 Constructions of Gender ...... 30 2.4.2 Intimate Intrusions as Flattery ...... 31 2.5 Serendipity in the Modern Age: Mobile Dating Apps ...... 31 2.5.1 Tinder: Where ‘Any Swipe Can Change Your Life’ ...... 32 2.6 Risks Associated With Dating Apps ...... 34 2.6.1 Technological Risks ...... 35 2.6.2 Interpersonal Risks ...... 36 2.7 Safety ...... 38 2.8 How Platform Governance Contributes to Intimate Intrusions on Social Media Platforms ...... 39 2.8.1 Toxic Technocultures ...... 41 2.8.2 Arbitrary Enforcement of Platform Rules ...... 44
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2.8.3 Lack of Meaningful Transparency ...... 46 2.9 Conclusion ...... 47 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ...... 49 3.1 Introduction ...... 49 3.2 Epistemological Foundation ...... 49 3.3 The Walkthrough Method ...... 50 3.3.1 Tinder Walkthrough ...... 51 3.3.2 Walkthrough reflections ...... 53 3.4 Qualitative Semi-Structured Interviews ...... 54 3.4.1 The Social Media ‘Scroll Back’ ...... 55 3.4.2 Interview Sampling and Recruitment ...... 56 3.4.3 Interview Reflections ...... 57 3.5 Data Analysis: Thematic Analysis ...... 58 3.6 Limitations ...... 59 3.7 Ethical Considerations ...... 60 3.7.1 Ethics Considerations for Walkthroughs ...... 60 3.7.2 Ethics Considerations for Interviews ...... 61 3.8 Conclusion ...... 63 CHAPTER FOUR: INTIMATE INTRUSIONS ON TINDER ...... 65 4.1 Introduction ...... 65 4.2 Online Intimate Intrusions ...... 67 4.2.1 Sexualised Messages ...... 67 4.2.2 Sexual Double Standard ...... 70 4.2.3 Angry When Turned Down ...... 71 4.2.4 Critiques of Women’s Appearances ...... 73 4.2.5 Possessive and Controlling Messages ...... 73 4.2.6 Flashing in the Digital Age: ‘Dick Pics’ ...... 76 4.2.7 Ordinary Intrusions: ‘More Than I can Count’ ...... 79 4.3 Physical Intimate Intrusions ...... 80 4.4 Disguised Identities: Misrepresentation on Tinder ...... 83 4.5 Negotiating Contradictions ...... 87 4.6 The Cumulative Impact of Intimate Intrusions on Tinder ...... 91 4.6.1 Pushing Women off Tinder: “That’s how I Minimise it; I Just Don’t Use it” 92 4.6.2 Changes in Offline Behaviour ...... 94 4.6.3 Changes in Offline World View and Perspectives: “I Feel Like I Can’t Trust Anyone Now” ...... 95 4.7 Conclusion ...... 97
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CHAPTER FIVE: WOMEN’S AGENCY AND PLATFORM RESPONSES ...... 99 5.1 Introduction ...... 99 5.2 Tinder’s Safety Framework ...... 100 5.2.1 Terms of Use ...... 100 5.2.2 Community Guidelines ...... 102 5.3 Safety Design and Service Features ...... 102 5.3.1 A Guide to Tinder ...... 103 5.3.2 Safety, Security and Legal Information ...... 106 5.4 Mechanisms for Responding to Violations of Terms of Use ...... 107 5.4.1 Unmatching ...... 107 5.4.2 Reporting ...... 108 5.4.3 Banning Users ...... 110 5.5 Dating Safety Page ...... 111 5.5.1 Online Behaviour ...... 112 5.5.2 Offline Behaviour ...... 112 5.6 Menprovement Initiative ...... 113 5.6.1 Reactions ...... 114 5.7 Testing Tinder Reporting ...... 116 5.8 How Users Experience Safety on Tinder ...... 117 5.8.1 Limitations on Cross-Platform Linking ...... 117 5.8.2 Cross-Platform Convergence ...... 118 5.8.3 Unmatching ...... 125 5.8.4 Reporting ...... 126 5.8.5 Banning Users ...... 129 5.9 Dating Safety Page ...... 132 5.9.1 Online Behaviour ...... 135 5.9.2 Offline Behaviour ...... 136 5.10 Menprovement Initiative ...... 138 5.11 User Innovations to Mitigate Intimate Intrusions ...... 140 5.11.1 Analysing User Profiles and Motivations ...... 141 5.11.2 Presenting the Self ...... 142 5.12 Conclusion ...... 143 CHAPTER SIX: THE NORMALISATION OF ABUSE ON TINDER...... 145 6.1 Introduction ...... 145 6.2 Obligatory Interactions ...... 146 6.2.1 Pressurised Sex ...... 148 6.3 Digital Omnipresence ...... 152
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6.3.1 Technology-Facilitated Stalking: ‘Oh My God, This Guy’s Obsessed with Me’ ...... 154 6.4 Invalidating Intimate Intrusions on Tinder ...... 156 6.4.1 Men’s Invalidation Strategies: ‘You call it Abuse, but You Love it’ ...... 157 6.4.2 A Continuum of Invalidation ...... 158 6.5 Minimising Men’s Behaviour and Intimate Intrusions ...... 159 6.5.1 Men’s Normal Behaviour: ‘Just Typical Guy Stuff’ ...... 160 6.5.2 Pathologising Aberrant Behaviour: ‘I Think He Obviously Had Some Mental Issues’ ...... 163 6.5.3 Ordinary Aberrations: ‘He Seemed Normal’ ...... 164 6.5.4 ‘And Nothing Happened, it was Just a Very Creepy Walk’ ...... 165 6.5.5 Ongoing Concerns: ‘I Don’t Worry About Myself, I Just Worry About the Rest of the Women’ ...... 168 6.6 Conclusion ...... 170 CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION ...... 172 7.1 Introduction ...... 172 7.2 Findings ...... 172 7.3 Recommendations ...... 177 7.3.1 Tinder’s Culture ...... 180 7.3.2 Engage with Anti-VAW Experts ...... 180 7.3.2 Enforce the Rules ...... 182 7.3.3 Provide Better Information Resources and Mechanisms for Women to get Help ...... 184 7.3.4 Design Opportunities to Help Women Manage Who They Interact With 185 7.3.5 Engage with Women ...... 186 7.4 Limitations and Future Research ...... 187 7.5 Conclusion ...... 189 References ...... 191 Appendix A ...... 221 Semi-Structured Interview Schedule ...... 221
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List of Figures
Figure 5.1: Tinder’s Terms of Use ...... 101 Figure 5.2: Tinder’s Community Rules ...... 102 Figure 5.3: Tinder’s help screen ...... 103 Figure 5.4: Tinder’s log in screen ...... 104 Figure 5.5: Tinder’s Common Connections affordance ...... 105 Figure 5.6: Automated decision-making on Tinder ...... 107 Figure 5.7: Tinder’s unmatch screen ...... 108 Figure 5.8: Tinder’s ‘reported’ screen ...... 109 Figure 5.9: Tinder’s ‘report user’ screen ...... 109 Figure 5.10: Tinder’s blog post ...... 111 Figure 5.11: Tinder’s blog post ...... 111 Figure 5.12: Tinder’s Safety Tips ...... 113 Figure 5.13: Tinder’s Reactions feature ...... 114 Figure 5.14: Tinder’s ‘Menprovement Initiative’ promotional YouTube video ...... 116 Figure 5.15: Tinder’s ‘Menprovement Initiative’ promotional YouTube video ...... 116
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Statement of Original Authorship
The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made.
Signature: QUT verified signature
Date:
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Acknowledgements
This thesis would not have been possible without the expert knowledge and unwavering support of my incredible supervisors: Associate Professor Molly Dragiewicz, Dr Elija Cassidy, Associate Professor Nicolas Suzor, and earlier in my candidature, Dr Kelly Richards. I am so lucky to have been surrounded by such an amazing group of scholars spanning three disciplines. I am constantly in awe of and unquestionably jealous of your brilliance! Thank you so much for everything you have given me throughout my candidature. Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the university’s financial support, including an Australian Postgraduate Award and Postgraduate Scholarship in Southern Criminology.
I am deeply indebted to the 17 women who participated in my study. The re-telling of your experiences has been pivotal to the themes presented throughout this thesis. Without your truly invaluable insight, my thesis wouldn’t be what it is today. Given the popularity of Tinder, and the little research that has focused on women’s experiences of abuse in mobile dating contexts, your contributions are immensely significant. My sincerest thanks to you all for being a part of this.
My most heartfelt gratitude goes to all of the friends I have made at QUT. I have been so fortunate to spend my candidature surrounded by my wonderful friends in G block. A special mention goes to Alice Witt, Michelle Ringrose, Eli Close, Matty Morgan, Bridget Weir, Laura McGilivray, Antonia Horst, and Darshana Sumanadasa. I have thoroughly enjoyed our long chats, shared laughter, and of course, our daily coffee trips to Merlo. Your friendship has made my candidature such a memorable experience. I am also grateful to the wonderful friends I have made in QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre. You are such a supportive and brilliant group of people.
I am particularly grateful for the assistance given by Dr Kylie Pappalardo. Thank you so much for all of the hard work and effort you put into the writing group. I’m sure I can speak on behalf of all the PhD candidates who have attended these sessions when I say that they have been immeasurably helpful, motivational, and pivotal in helping us to grow into mini scholars. Your genuine commitment to our learning and well-being is admirable. Thank you!
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I am also indebted to Dr Hope Johnson. Our (very) long lunches have helped me to grow and craft my ideas and ease my thesis concerns. Your constructive suggestions have really helped me to create this thesis.
To my incredible partner Michael; I am so grateful for your unwavering love, kindness, patience, and support. Thank you for listening to my (daily) candidature complaints and concerns. I’m sure you are just as happy as I am knowing that I have finished this thesis!
Finally, thank you to my wonderful family, whose love and guidance are with me in whatever path I take.
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Previously Published Content
Portions of this thesis have been published as:
Gillett, Rosalie. 2018. “Intimate intrusions online: Studying the normalisation of abuse in dating apps.” Women’s Studies International Forum. 69: 212-219. doi: 10.1016/j.wsif.2018.04.005.
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Warning: Please note that in giving voice to women's experiences of intimate intrusions experienced via Tinder, this thesis necessarily contains explicit language and graphic descriptions of intimate intrusions.
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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
In 2014, Warriena Wright fell to her death from Gable Tostee’s Gold Coast high-rise apartment balcony after they met via the location-based mobile dating application (app) Tinder (Silva, 2016). In the days following Wright’s death, Tostee was charged with her murder, for which he pleaded not guilty. The trial took place in Brisbane’s Supreme Court in October 2016, and I was able to attend two days of the six-day trial. On one of these days, the prosecution played segments of the three-hour audio- recording Tostee had kept of his evening date with Wright. Tostee made regular audio- recordings of his dates. In a post he published on a body building forum before the trial, Tostee (2014) explained: ‘I regularly made audio recordings of my drunk nights on the town in case something happened.’ The recording exposed Tostee exclaiming: ‘you’re lucky I haven’t chucked you off my balcony, you goddamn psycho little bitch.’ And finally, Wright could be heard screaming ‘no’ 33 times before falling to her death. Despite the prosecution’s efforts, the jury could not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Tostee was guilty of the charge. After over four days of deliberation, the jury returned a not guilty verdict (Hunt 2016). Despite Tostee being acquitted of all charges, the incident nevertheless functioned in the public sphere as a demonstration of the potential for serious harm when meeting people from dating apps (Silva 2016). At the same time, the audio-recording exposed Tostee’s conversation with Wright, which while not meeting definitions of crime, was disturbing, given the abusive conversation between the pair.
But Tostee’s trial prompted more questions. On the final day of the trial, it was discovered that a juror had posted several photographs to her public Instagram account in which she identified herself as a juror and discussed her thoughts on the case. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the presiding judge Byrne J was unfamiliar with the photo-sharing platform the juror had posted to. As such, he was given a brief explanation of Instagram before rejecting the defence barrister’s application for a mistrial (Silva 2016). Given Justice Byrne’s unfamiliarity with Instagram, it is important that criminological scholars do work to illuminate the issues around social media use and existing legal definitions of gender-based abuse that helps to bring further nuance to those terms that takes on contemporary technologies and cultures of use.
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One year after Tostee’s trial, I commenced interviews for this study with 17 women who had experienced uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe Tinder interactions. The casual intrusive language that stood out to me in Tostee’s recorded argument with Wright that was played in the courthouse that day in October 2016 seemed to be all too similar to the language that consistently appeared in the Tinder messages that the women I interviewed read aloud to me directly from their mobile phones. Sitting at a Brisbane café, Josie read aloud some of the messages she received from men through Tinder’s private messaging affordance: ‘[s]ome dude said “nice smile and tits by the way, I’d like to cum on them.” That was his first message.’ Reacting to Josie’s declaration of her feminist identity, another potential suitor proclaimed: ‘feminists should be killed.’ Keira recounted a message from a lawyer who hypothesised, ‘you look like you would get it.’ She questioned: ‘what would I get?’ the man replied: ‘the D, obviously.’ In her search for a boyfriend, Kimberly recalled receiving an unsolicited photograph of a man’s flaccid penis in a text message, with the accompanying words ‘send help.’ She also recounted her experiences of being called a ‘fucking idiot’ and ‘cock repellent’ by two different men on Tinder. These vignettes highlight some of the messages that made interviewees feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe in the context of mobile dating on Tinder.
Significantly, the interviewees’ experiences were not limited to online settings. Lara, for example, recounted her experience with a Tinder date who became angry when she did not want to go back to his house following a dinner date. Upon leaving the restaurant, the man pushed her against his motorbike. As a result of this incident, her leg was burnt by the motorbike’s exhaust pipe. Months later, during her interview for this project, she showed me her leg where it bore a visible scar. Georgia felt similarly pressured to go inside her Tinder date's home. Once there, her intuition led her to explain, ‘by the way, I’ve got my period.’ She recounted her concern when the man locked the door behind her as they entered his house. He immediately began kissing and groping her despite her best efforts to go for the walk the man initially invited her to go on. She further recalled, ‘[h]e must’ve touched my crotch and was like “oh well you must be wearing a tampon then because I can’t feel any pad.”’ Francesca recalled being scared in her own home. Despite living 45 minutes away, one of her Tinder matches explained: ‘oh, I’m just at the park down the road from yours.’ The women I interviewed spoke freely about these incidents and expressed the everyday nature of
2 these interactions. As Sasha said: ‘I think they’re super common and I think there isn’t that much that can be done to stop it.’
1.1 Aim and Research Questions
The central aim of this thesis is to better understand women’s experiences of intimate intrusions facilitated through the dating app Tinder. I define intimate intrusions throughout this thesis as experiences that make women feel uneasy, uncomfortable, or unsafe. Women’s everyday experiences of intrusion are relatively understudied compared with research on behaviours that meet legally-defined criminal acts. Despite this focus, it is important to afford women the chance to discuss the experiences they themselves define as making them feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe. In this way, this thesis aims to better understand the forms of intrusion that have escaped the critical gaze of researchers and the public alike, to offer women’s voices to the burgeoning academic literature. Rather than using pre-determined categories of abuse, which might fail to document important experiences, this thesis investigates the range of intimate intrusions that occurred in the context of women’s Tinder use— according to these users themselves. Accordingly, this thesis explores intimate intrusions that occurred in both online and offline settings, directly through the application, and in physical or face-to-face interactions facilitated by the app.
To address the above research aim, this thesis investigates the following research questions:
1. What are women’s experiences of intimate intrusions in the context of Tinder use? 2. How do women understand these intrusions? 3. How do women respond to intimate intrusions when they happen? What measures, if any, do they use to mitigate future intimate intrusions?
This is an empirical study about women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder. As such, this thesis addresses these research questions using a qualitative research methodology. To better understand Tinder’s features and functions, and the affordances of the application as a sociotechnical setting for intimate intrusions, my first phase of data collection included a detailed 'walkthrough' of the platform (Light et al. 2016). As explained in Chapter Three, a walkthrough is an empirical method used to investigate mobile apps. Data were also collected through 17 semi-structured
3 interviews with 18-30-year-old women living in Brisbane, who were current or former Tinder users, and had experienced intimate intrusions facilitated through the platform. In light of the aim presented above, the personal experiences of interviewed women are the focus of this thesis.
I argue that intimate intrusions facilitated by Tinder and similar dating apps form a continuum of sexual violence that have cumulative effects that are worthy of study alongside physical violence. I adopt Liz Kelly's (1988) continuum of sexual violence to conceptualise women's experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder. While physical violence is widely recognised as abusive, this framework provides an opportunity to interrogate everyday patterns of normalised abuse that appear pervasive in mobile dating contexts. The continuum is a useful framework to better understand women’s experiences in mobile dating contexts because it demonstrates how seemingly mundane events share commonalities with those worthy of legal and media attention (Kelly 1988). And significantly, while Tinder may facilitate and amplify experiences of intrusion, the continuum can help us understand how all forms of sexual violence are linked by social attitudes. The continuum of sexual violence provides a useful framework to understand such complexities.
Importantly, this thesis does not suggest criminal legal responses to intimate intrusions facilitated by Tinder and similar dating apps. New laws are beginning to address incidents where women have experienced intrusion online; however, laws are often inconsistently applied ‘along intersectional lines of structural inequality that continue to exempt wealthy, white men from consequences while posing disproportionate unintended consequences for poor women of color’ (Suzor et al. 2018, 7), and arguably women more broadly. An added complication stems from the United States Communications Decency Act (“CDA”). Importantly, § 230 of the Act provides a ‘safe harbor’ whereby intermediaries can avoid being treated like publishers. This safe harbor means that platforms generally cannot be held responsible for the content their users publish (Tushnet 2008). Accordingly, legal responses to intimate intrusions on Tinder are not the focus of this thesis.
This thesis stands to contribute to the Australian knowledge by investigating the under- studied area of intimate intrusions in the context of the dating app Tinder. Findings from this research (1) help to identify commonness of women’s experiences of intimate
4 intrusions on Tinder; (2) demonstrate how intimate intrusions on Tinder are routinely normalised as part of digital dating cultures; and (3) highlight the cumulative impact everyday intimate intrusions can have for women who experience such behaviour.
1.2 Background and Context
In her 1985 research on women’s experiences of male violence, Elizabeth Stanko foregrounded the importance of studying everyday violence. She coined the term 'Intimate intrusions', which she defines as behaviours ‘women themselves perceive and/or experience as intimidating, threatening, coercive or violent’ (Stanko 1985, 1), to shed light on the everyday forms of men’s threatening, intimidating, and violent behaviours women experience. Stanko (1985, 9) argued that because intimate intrusions are common, ‘women’s experiences of sexual and physical violation take on an illusion of normality, ordinariness.’ Lundgren et al. (2001, 18) term this problem the ‘normalisation of abuse.’ Scholars have long stressed that violence against women is comprised of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse (Dobash and Dobash 1979; Kelly 1988; Stanko 1985). More recently, the popularisation of the term ‘coercive control’ to refer to the broad range of behaviours comprising abuse in relationships highlights the importance of non-physical forms of abuse (Stark 2007). To date, however, research on gender-based abuse has largely focused on physical violence in cohabiting or marital relationships, as reflected in the term 'domestic violence’ (Kelly 2012).
Scholars have recently begun to increase the level of scholarly attention given to women’s experiences of digitally-mediated abuse and harassment (Jane 2017; Woodlock 2016; Ybarra et al. 2017). Jane (2017), for example, has documented the insidiousness and harmfulness of ‘gendered cyberhate’ in the face of feminist efforts of resistance. However, so far, most of the contemporary attention to paid gendered forms of digitally-mediated abuse has been on the relatively public experiences of harassment and abuse of women around key incidents such as #gamergate1 (Chess and Shaw 2015; Massanari 2017); the non-consensual distribution of sexually explicit images referred to as image-based sexual abuse (McGlynn and Rackley 2017;
1 #Gamergate refers to the online hashtag campaign of misogynistic hate directed at women in the gaming industry (see Chess and Shaw 2015). Those involved in creating the campaign purported to do so because they were frustrated by a ‘lack of ethics within gaming journalism’ (see also Massanari 2017). 5
McGlynn et al. 2017); coercive or pressured sexting (Ringrose et al. 2012); blackmail (Bluett-Boyd et al. 2013; Henry and Powell 2016); and the ways that social media have exacerbated the impact of bullying on young people (Kofoed and Ringrose 2012; Weinstein and Selman 2014). While shedding important light on these problems, this body of research has primarily focused on different genres of abusive behaviours than those that typically fit into dating and relationship contexts.
Technology has transformed dating practices in recent years. Online contexts have become ‘a normative way of meeting people and establishing relationships’ (Quiroz 2013, 181). While the opportunity to date online has been possible for many years and popularised with the advent of Match.com (Ranzini and Lutz 2016), the proliferation of mobile phones, and increasing accessibility of the internet (Kelley 2011) have spurred an increase in spatially aware apps directed at those seeking new friendships (Chen and Rahman 2008), sexual encounters, and dating relationships (David and Cambre 2016). The exponential growth of mobile dating apps such as Tinder is an important part of this development. Tinder users contact potential partners based on location proximity using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technology and mutual ‘likeness,’ wherein users indicate interest in others based on photographs and brief textual profiles. One of the key cultural and social changes brought on by contemporary apps is that online daters use smart phones instead of web-based browsers to date. And unlike the web-based dating platforms of the 2000s, Tinder’s location-aware software allows people to interact with nearby users (Smith and Duggan 2013).
Tinder’s unique affordances make the platform worth studying. The platform’s use of GPS technology, cross-platform linking to other social media platforms, and Facebook-verification, for instance, enable people to interact with others in new and unique ways. While Tinder operates as the initial discovery hub, the platform’s affordances enable users to connect with others through a variety of social media platforms. The ability for users to do this demonstrates how Tinder is one app, which is part of a broader social media ecosystem. Convergence of social media platforms casts other platforms into an important role in women’s experiences of mobile dating on Tinder. If researchers are to better understand user experiences on Tinder, then, we must also pay attention to this broader system.
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Since its launch in 2012, Tinder has become associated as the contemporary face of dating and hook-up culture (Hess and Flores 2016). The app has been download over 100 million times (Tinder Inc. 2019) and approximately 10 million members use the app per day (Sumter et al. 2017). Tinder’s demographic skews young. In Australia, Roy Morgan (2015) research found that 8.8% of all people aged 18-24 years had used Tinder during the four weeks prior to being surveyed about dating app use. Due to its popularity, Tinder has the potential to shift norms around dating cultures and social interactions more broadly. And since Tinder has become such a big part of contemporary dating, it is important to try to understand women’s experiences in this new context.
As dating moves online, so does gender-based abuse. Indeed, social norms that shape offline interactions have been reproduced online (DiMaggio et al. 2001). But early internet enthusiasts (see for example, Barlow 1996; Rheingold 1993; Turkle 1995) predicted that the web would be a liberating space ‘…different from real, embodied face to face interaction’ (Baym 2010, 152). Some scholars envisaged an online experience distinct from the offline world (Haythornthwaite and Wellman 2002). This utopian vision imagined the internet as a potentially democratic space free from racism, sexism, and xenophobia (Herring 1996). Other early Internet researchers predicted dystopian outcomes such as ‘information overload, email addiction, uninhibited aggression, and the eventual breakdown of people's ability to engage one another face to-face’ (Herring 1996, 1). Contemporary research points to a middle ground in which oppressive and liberatory potentials coexist online (Baym 2010). Gender continues to be an important construct in mediated communication (DiMaggio et al. 2001). Indeed, the gender norms that underpin the harassment of girls and women in online spaces are the same in physical settings (Baym 2010, 71).
Dating has always been risky for women, as intimate relationships are a primary site of violence and abuse (Stanko 1990). However, while gender-based abuse is not new, the safety implications of technologically-facilitated modes of dating are unclear and are as yet to be adequately explored by digital media and gender-based violence scholars. Although experiences of physical dating violence and other forms of gender- based abuse are important, the ability to stay connected via digital media regardless of distance means that physical boundaries are not barriers to abusive behaviour.
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One of the things I do in this thesis is explore whether the internet is a context in which established abusive practices can be enacted or if it is a space in which new abusive practices are developed. Due to the immediacy of online communication and the ability to engage with a lot of people, it is reasonable to suggest that dating apps may facilitate intrusive behaviour between people who would not have met without the technology. In this way, dating apps have created new avenues for the conduct of established forms of abuse (Hess and Flores 2016). Dating apps have also made entirely new forms of abuse possible, such as GPS-facilitated stalking (Vitis and Gilmour 2017). But dating apps incorporate various safety measures, such as mechanisms for reporting abuse and blocking other users; electronic records of communication and location information that can be used to investigate any crimes that occur; and identity verification processes that link dating profiles to real-names via Facebook (Duguay 2016). Accordingly, electronically-facilitated meetings are also potentially safer than more traditional ways of meeting, such as speaking with a stranger in a public place.
The potential for intimate intrusions facilitated through Tinder and similar dating apps, however, has rapidly developed into a pressing social issue. Popular media reports and social media users expose the range of men’s intrusive behaviour on Tinder. For instance, women report receiving lewd ‘pick up’ lines (Bye Felipe 2019), and experiencing physical violence when meeting in offline settings (Edwards 2016). A Google search of ‘Tinder safety’ generates an abundant online discussion. The Daily Dot, an online newspaper which covers digital topics, questions ‘How safe is Tinder, really?’ (Lampen 2018). Bolde, an online magazine reports on ‘How to not get killed by your Tinder date’ (Powell n.d.). The Australian Government’s Office of the eSafety Commissioner (2019) even relays Tinder’s safety advice. Significantly, such online discussion provides insight into the safety concerns surrounding Tinder and dating app use, more broadly. Adding to this discussion, this study will provide a clearer picture of women’s intrusive experiences in the context of using the dating app Tinder.
It should be noted that while women and same-sex attracted people can be the perpetrators of intrusive behaviour, these interactions may have different dynamics and warrant specific attention. At the same time, gender is but one of many axes of oppression. Class, ethnicity, ability, sexuality, and age, among other factors, are important lenses through we might analyse Tinder experiences. These intersections
8 also warrant specific attention. Accordingly, this thesis deals with men's intrusive behaviour toward women. This is a significant area of study, since relationship patterns are established early on and early abuse often has a lasting impact (Hlavka 2014). It is possible that abuse experienced while using apps like Tinder has potentially lasting implications. At the same time, due to the popularity of Tinder, it is important to pay attention to the normalisation of abuse in mobile dating contexts, particularly as a factor that may reinforce a broader culture that supports violence against women.
1.3 Terminology
As noted above, for the purposes of this thesis, I define intimate intrusions as women’s experiences in mobile dating contexts that make them feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe. To account for the experiences that women may not understand as ‘intimidating, threatening, coercive or violent’, yet are still troubling for them, I depart from Stanko’s (1985, 1) original definition. Since women may view their experiences of abuse through a lens of ordinariness, and my intention to capture ‘everyday’ experiences of intrusion, I asked participants to describe their experiences on Tinder that made them feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe. Acknowledging the great terminological variation in research on gender-based violence, a small body of international research has focused on men’s intrusive behaviour. Although scholars have used different language, for example, men’s stranger intrusions (see for example, Vera-Gray 2016a); commonplace intrusions (see for example, Kelly 1988); and intimate intrusions (see for example, Kelly 2012; Stanko 1985), the common denominator that links these definitions is men’s disruption to women’s lives through ‘everyday’ forms of male violence (Vera-Gray 2016a). Returning to Stanko (1985), intimate intrusions is a useful term because it does not make assumptions about what the experiences are, where they occur, what they mean to women, how they affect women, how they respond to them, or the intent of the perpetrators. In this way, seemingly ‘typical’ events and those are that are widely recognised as abusive are open to investigation. Fundamentally, I am using this terminology in an attempt to provide a holistic and useful lens for studying women's lived experiences of intrusions on Tinder.
A holistic approach is needed because the public and researchers struggle to recognise and talk about abuse that does not meet current definitions of criminal
9 behaviour. While popular and social media reports are good at identifying intrusive behaviour, there remains a problem with conceptualising and naming the more ‘typical’ experiences as abusive. For instance, the popular Instagram page ‘Tinder Nightmares’ displays hundreds of ‘unspirational’ screen-captured messages sent between dating app users to over 2 million followers of the page (Hess and Flores 2016; Tinder Nightmares 2019). Crime and victimisation surveys shed light on women’s victimisation and have the benefit of being regularly conducted; however, these often fail to reflect the range and extent of abusive behaviours women experience (Dragiewicz 2011; Mooney 1996). Using the intimate intrusions framing to investigate women's lived experiences could help to overcome existing measurement and terminological challenges.
1.4 Chapter Outline
This thesis is comprised of seven chapters. This chapter has presented the background and context relating to intimate intrusions on Tinder. Chapter Two, the Literature Review, presents a critical analysis of the extant literature most relevant to this thesis. The literature review is focused on three main areas of research: the research on women’s everyday experiences of dating abuse and sexual harassment; mobile dating apps in general and Tinder in particular; and how platform governance contributes to intimate intrusions on social media platforms. To begin the review of the literature, I present empirical research on women’s everyday experiences of violence and abuse, including the available research on dating violence and abuse. This section reviews what we know so far about women’s abusive experiences in the context of dating and how women understand and respond to them. Chapter Two also presents my theoretical framework, Liz Kelly’s (1988) continuum of sexual violence, which explains how everyday abusive interactions are normalised in the context of dating and relationships. Chapter Two then draws together the work on harassment and dating violence with the emerging field of dating app studies by overviewing mobile dating apps and Tinder around core areas of interest for researchers of digital media. This discussion includes a review of the literature on the technological and interpersonal risks surrounding dating app use. To conclude the review of the literature, I outline some of the ways that platform governance contributes to women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on dating apps and social media platforms more broadly. This section includes a discussion of key concerns related to platforms’ toxic
10 cultures; arbitrary enforcement of rules; and meaningful transparency. Building on the current research landscape, Chapter Two concludes by demonstrating the ways in which this thesis advances discussions and contributes to knowledge in the relatively unknown area of women’s experiences of intimate intrusions facilitated through Tinder.
Chapter Three, Methodology, describes the research and analytical methods used for the research. To begin the chapter, I first discuss the epistemological foundation of the study. I then explain what research methods I use in the thesis, and justify their selection, with reference to the benefits of using the walkthrough method and qualitative semi-structured interviews, for this project. Next, I explain my convenience sampling method and targeted research population. After that, I discuss my approach to thematically analysing the data. I then address the limitations of the research, which require attention. Chapter Three concludes with an overview of ethical considerations for app walkthroughs and interviews.
Chapter Four is the first of the three results chapters. Similar to the following two analysis chapters (Chapters Five and Six), I draw from themes derived from my theoretical framework and literature review as well as new themes, which arose from the data set. This chapter answers research question 1: what are women’s experiences of intimate intrusions in the context of Tinder use? Additionally, the chapter begins to answer research questions two and three: how do women understand these intrusions?; how do women respond to intimate intrusions when they happen?; and What measures, if any, do they use to mitigate future intrusions? To answer these questions, Chapter Four presents and analyses the empirical findings I obtained from data collection. The experiences are organised thematically to highlight the range of intrusions participants discussed. More specifically, I outline the intrusive messages participants received online, and their experiences of physical intrusions, which occurred in offline settings. Following this, I highlight how the interviewees understood their experiences of intrusion in competing ways. I then discuss the cumulative impact of intimate intrusions by demonstrating some of the strategies the interviewees employed in physical settings to mitigate further experiences of intrusion.
Chapter Five is the second results chapter. This chapter continues to answer research question number three: how do women respond to intimate intrusions when they happen?; and What measures, if any, do they use to mitigate intimate intrusions in the
11 future? To answer this question, the focus of this chapter is two-fold: to present the findings from the technical walkthrough of Tinder and highlight how the interviewees used Tinder’s affordances and safety mechanisms to promote their safety. More specifically, this chapter outlines Tinder’s safety framework, design and service features, and initiatives to promote a safe Tinder experience. Supplementing the findings I obtained from the walkthrough of Tinder, this chapter investigates how the interview participants used Tinder’s affordances to mitigate online intimate intrusions. The interviewees’ experiences using Tinder’s safety mechanisms shed some light on their effectiveness in promoting user safety. This is done by examining participants’ engagement with Tinder’s mechanisms, and how the platform responded to violations of the Terms of Use. Significantly, this chapter investigates how Tinder’s unique affordances and characteristics can facilitate and amplify intimate intrusions. Chapter Five concludes with a discussion of the interviewees’ mitigation strategies that Tinder does not specifically promote.
Chapter Six is the third and final results chapter. In this chapter, I discuss the mainstream cultural values that normalise abuse, informing men's intrusive behaviour and women's minimisation of their own experiences. I focus on two overarching findings: the obligation and pressure the interviewees felt to engage with Tinder users; and the minimisation and invalidation of intimate intrusions on the platform. To begin, I demonstrate how the interviewees’ experiences strongly resonated with the research literature on male entitlement. This section demonstrates the obligation the interviewees felt to engage with their Tinder matches, and in ways that their matches preferred. Following this, I highlight how the interviewees’ Tinder matches and other known persons invalidated their experiences of intrusion by casting doubt on the incidents which took place. This chapter concludes with a discussion of how the interviewees minimised their own experiences of intrusion. Taken together, these findings importantly highlight how intimate intrusions are normalised in the context of mobile dating on Tinder.
Chapter Seven, the Conclusion, synthesises the study’s key findings to outline women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder. I then present my platform governance recommendations for Tinder to address intimate intrusions and improve women’s experiences on the platform. The chapter provides support for these recommendations by synthesising the interview participants’ experiences and platform
12 governance research to show how Tinder can address specific problems. To conclude the chapter, I provide directions for future research and practice informed by the outcomes of this project.
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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
Despite emerging popular and scholarly interest in gendered violence and abuse online, researchers are yet to explore women’s everyday lived experiences of intrusion in the context of Tinder use. This may be due in part to the rapid and fairly recent mainstream uptake of dating apps. At the same time, the normalisation of everyday experiences of intimate intrusions may camoflauge women’s experiences. Indeed, gender-based violence researchers have largely overlooked everyday experiences of intrusion, instead remaining focused on the more obvious manifestations of physical violence and sexual assault.
To begin, this chapter evaluates the empirical research on women’s experiences of dating violence and sexual harassment. I then describe the theoretical framework guiding this thesis, the continuum of sexual violence. After this, I evaluate the literature describing how everyday abusive interactions are normalised in the context of dating and relationships. I then review the literature on mobile dating apps in general and Tinder in particular, focusing on the potential technological and interpersonal risks that usage may incur. Following this, the review of the literature highlights how platform governance can contribute to intimate intrusions on Tinder and social media platforms more broadly. Finally, the chapter concludes by demonstrating the ways that this thesis advances discussions and contributes to knowledge in the relatively unknown area of women’s experiences of intimate intrusions facilitated through Tinder.
2.2 Connecting Insights from Woman Abuse Research
2.2.1 Dating Violence Women’s experiences of dating violence are under-studied relative to research on adult domestic violence between married and de-facto partners (Dillon et al. 2015; Ragusa 2016). Some studies have included both married and dating women, but have failed to distinguish between findings across groups (see for example, Mouzos and Makkai 2004). Similarly, perpetrator categories may include ‘stranger’ or ‘known person’ (see for example, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2012), which means that boyfriends, dates, married and de facto partners are often not disaggregated. A
14 robust body of international research on domestic violence has helped us to understand married and cohabiting women’s experiences; however, the findings may not be as useful for understanding women’s experiences in less-established relationships and dating contexts. While commonalities may exist, women who are not bound by the ties of marriage or cohabitation may, in fact, experience different forms of abuse (Kimmel 2002). This is important to consider because a focus on women in married and de-facto relationships may mean that some women’s experiences might not be captured in studies focused on domestic violence.
It is also worth nothing here that while there are likely to be differences in how women experience abuse when they are casually dating or engaged in more established relationships, this thesis does not make a distinction between these relationship categories. Like other contexts, Tinder users may engage with the service to hook up, casually date, or establish long-term relationships with other users. It may be the case that experiences of intrusion differ based on how users engage with others on the service. While there may be important distinctions between abusive behaviours perpetrated by boyfriends or dates, researchers have predominantly grouped these categories together (see for example, Easteal 1992). Because of this, the following sections review the literature focused on women’s experiences of abuse at various stages of relationships.
Researchers who have focused on dating violence have often explored the experiences of adolescents and young people. In particular, United States-based scholars have focused on women who reside on university campuses (Nabors and Jasinski 2009), and dating violence among high school students (O’Keefe 1997). Studies on university students' experiences have explored the association between fraternity and sorority membership (Kalof and Cargill 1991), alcohol consumption and sexual assault in dating relationships (Boyle and Walker 2016; Smith et al. 2003). Similarly, Australian dating violence research has focused on small samples of adolescents, with a smaller number of studies including young adults (Cale and Breckenridge 2015; Crime Research Centre and Donovan Research 2001; Chung 2005; Chung 2007). This research shows us that understanding the beginnings of abuse within relationships is imperative. However, the small number of studies focused on adult women’s experiences indicate that studies limited to young people may not reliably capture the extent of dating violence.
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Despite media attention to the issue, there is no recent, representative, purpose- designed study of violence against women (VAW) in Australia. While dating violence remains relatively under-studied in Australia, we know that it is not uncommon. A small number of Australian studies provide information on dating violence in adult heterosexual relationships. The primary sources of data include the Women’s Safety Survey (WSS) (ABS 1996), the Personal Safety Survey (PSS) (ABS 2005; 2012; 2016), and the Australian component of the International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS) (Mouzos and Makkai 2004). Most recently, the PSS (ABS 2016) found that 7.4% of women reported having experienced sexual or physical violence by a boyfriend. Older studies, however, found higher rates of dating violence for similar categories. For instance, the IVAWS (Mouzos and Makkai 2004) indicated that 23% of women experienced physical or sexual violence by a current boyfriend during the 12 months preceding the survey. Of the women who experienced violence by a man since the age of 15, the WSS (ABS 1996) found that 34.1% of the perpetrators were boyfriends or dates. In addition to these sources, Easteal’s (1992) pioneering national research on rape and sexual assault provided some earlier insights on dating violence. Of the 2,852 participants (96.2% respondents were women), 13% reported experiencing sexual assault perpetrated by a boyfriend or date.
Measurement and terminological variation could help to explain these statistical differences. The PSS (ABS 2012, 2016), for example, aggregates types of violence into individual incidents, coded according to the ‘most serious’ form of violence, as defined by the researchers. The most recent national survey combines different types of VAW into incidents. For example, where an incident involved sexual and physical assault, the event was categorised as a sexual assault. In the PSS (ABS 2012), the number of incidents is counted, rather than the multiple types of abuse to produce prevalence rates. Arguably, this design conceptualises women’s experiences on a hierarchy whereby seemingly less-serious events are overlooked (Kelly 1988; Kelly and Radford 1990). Counting incidents in this way may lead to an under-reporting of intrusive behaviours in dating contexts. At the same time, given the hidden nature of violence and abuse, abuse figures are undoubtedly conservative (Easteal 1992). In her pioneering United Kingdom based study of sexual violence survivors, Kelly (1988) observed that a disproportionate focus on individual categories of abuse, such as rape, for example, meant that official crime statistics and victimisation studies could not
16 accurately measure the prevalence and frequency of abuse, and were, therefore, limited in their reliability.
Much dating violence research has focused on the prevalence of abuse rather than the contexts, meanings, and outcomes of women’s experiences of abuse. For example, the much-critiqued Conflict Tactics Scale (see for example, Bethke and DeJoy 1993; Follingstad et al. 1991; Straus 1979) has been primarily used in psychological research to advance claims that women and men are equally violent based on decontextualised prevalence rates for behaviours (Loseke and Kurz 2005). Such claims are misleading as they fail to discern offensive from defensive violence and address well-documented issues related to gendered reporting patterns (Ackerman 2016; Dragiewicz and DeKeseredy 2012). Nonetheless, these research findings indicate that abuse is not limited to marital or cohabiting relationships and point to the need to further explore dating abuse. And since dating apps are an increasingly common way for people to initiate dating relationships (Smith and Duggan 2013), these are important contexts to investigate.
At this stage, it is unclear whether women’s experiences of intimate intrusions facilitated via dating apps are most similar to dating violence or sexual harassment by known or unknown men. This ambiguity highlights limitations of current conceptualisations of abuse as it exposes the fluid nature of the boundaries of relationship categories. Given this fluidity, it is likely that experiences of sexual harassment and dating violence blur and overlap. For this reason, I now turn to the sexual harassment literature, which may help to situate women’s experiences in the context of mobile dating.
2.2.2 Sexual Harassment The current sexual harassment literature provides a useful background to inform research on women’s experiences on Tinder and other dating apps. A large body of international research has focused on sexual harassment in different contexts by a range of perpetrators. For instance, researchers have focused on sexual harassment in the workplace (Australian Human Rights Commission 2012; McDonald et al. 2015); educational settings (Australian Human Rights Commission 2017; Gådin 2012; Hill and Kearl 2011; Thompson 1993); and the role of communication technologies in facilitating online sexual harassment (Megarry 2014; Powell and Henry 2016; Smith
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2016a). This robust body of research demonstrates that sexual harassment is common for girls and women.
Current national data indicates that a significant proportion of women have experienced sexual harassment. Australia’s nationally representative PSS (ABS 2016) found that one in two women (53%) report having experienced some form of sexual harassment during their lifetime. Women most often reported inappropriate comments about their body or sex life, unwanted touching, grabbing, kissing, fondling, and indecent exposure by male perpetrators (ABS 2016). The PSS (ABS 2016) demonstrated that women’s experiences of sexual harassment in the preceding 12 months increased from 15% in 2012 to 17% in 2016. The most recent empirical study conducted by the Australia Institute (Johnson and Bennett 2015) on women’s experiences of street harassment found that 87% of the 1,426 participants had experienced a form of physical or non-physical street harassment at least once in their lifetime. Non-physical incidents included honking, wolf whistling, excessive staring, vulgar/lewd gestures, lewd and sexist comments, and repeated unwelcome sexual advances. Physical forms of street harassment included being followed, sexual touching, grabbing or groping, path blocking, indecent exposure, non-consensual kissing, and being threatened after rejecting sexual advances from a stranger (Johnson and Bennett 2015).
Most recently, Change the course: National report on sexual assault and sexual harassment at Australian universities (Australian Human Rights Commission 2017), a nationally representative student survey, demonstrated that 63% of women students report having experienced sexual harassment in a university setting at least once in 2016. The most common form of sexual harassment experienced was inappropriate staring or leering that made them feel intimidated (40%) (Australian Human Rights Commission 2017). Although it is not clear why a larger proportion of students report having experienced sexual harassment than women in the general population, this disparity could be attributed to measurement and terminological variation between studies. For instance, how the researchers defined sexual harassment could impact study participants’ understanding of what they should report. Further empirical investigation could help to shed light on these differences.
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While experiences of sexual harassment can negatively affect women’s lives, the majority of incidents are not reported. Change the course: National report on sexual assault and sexual harassment at Australian universities (2017) found that 95% of women students who were sexually harassed in a university setting did not make a formal report or complaint. Indeed, the study (The Australian Human Rights Commission 2017, 144) found that some students did not report sexual harassment because the prevalence of the behaviours led them to believe they were ‘a normal part of the college or university experience.’ But this is unsurprising, given ‘[c]atcalling, leering and inappropriate comments just seem like daily and sometimes unavoidable experiences for most young women’ (Australian Human Rights Commission 2017, 33). While the frequency of students’ experiences may have affected formal reporting rates, this might also suggest the survey’s findings are conservative.
2.2.3 How Women Understand and Respond to Dating Violence and Gendered Harassment While girls and women experience higher rates of harassment and abuse than boys and men, their experiences of violence are often invisible in the context of patriarchal gender norms which position men’s aggression as unsurprising and predictable (Hatty 2000; Hlavka 2014; Klein 2006; Lundgren et al. 2001; Shute et al. 2007; Stanko 1985; Thapar-Björkert and Morgan 2010; Wood 2001). Because of this, a hegemonic masculine construction of normalcy reinforces boys and men’s capacity to engage in aggressive behaviour to perform hegemonic masculinity, encouraging the idea that women must endure this behaviour (Hlavka 2014), and downplay the effects intrusive behaviour may have (Kelly and Radford 1990).
Indeed, women may minimise their victimisation through comments such as ‘nothing really happened’ if their victimisation does not amount to what they understand as sexual assault or abuse (Kelly and Radford 1990; Stanko 1993). Women may also not consider their experiences worthy of validation as they regularly experience intrusion, despite altering their behaviour to avoid further experiences (Kelly and Radford 1990). As Kelly and Radford (1990, 44) explain, ‘[t]hey [girls and women] are saying ‘nothing’ happened because they know that their perceptions of ‘something’ are unlikely to be validated.’ In their study of the normalisation of girls’ and women’s experiences of sexual harassment, Berman et al. (2000) explain that girls are socialised to expect pervasive forms of sexual harassment and threats of violence. As such, girls and
19 women may be expected to pre-empt men’s intrusions, meaning that when they are unable to fend off their intrusions, it can easily be construed as their fault. Because of this, women may blame themselves for men’s intrusions (Berman et al. 2000).
While women are expected to manage men’s behaviour, women who acknowledge the risks they face are sometimes pathologised (Vera-Gray 2018). But Stanko (1985, 2) argues that, ‘[b]eing on guard for women, though, is not paranoia; it is reasonable caution.’ Women take precautionary measures in public and private space as known men and unknown strangers may commit violent acts (Kelly et al. 1996; Stanko 1985; Stanko 1993; Tolman et al. 2016; Valentine 1992). Taken together, Kelly (cited in Vera-Gray 2017) refers to the routine mitigation strategies women adopt to avoid or cope with men’s violence as ‘safety work.’ Women employ such learnt strategies pre- emptively to avoid male escalation of violence, such as staring escalating to touching. For Vera-Gray (2016b), routine safety work “[…] repeated over time, becomes habitual: it is absorbed into the body as a kind of hidden labour.” In this way, safety work limits women’s freedom (Vera-Gray 2016b).
Most of the current literature on harassment focuses on how women manage public experiences of street harassment from unknown men. The main strategies women employ to distance themselves from men’s behaviours is through space, time (Shute et al. 2007; Valentine 1992), and attention diversion (Hlavka 2014). Similarly, in her research on women’s experiences of men’s stranger intrusions in public space, Vera- Gray (2014) found that women make conscious decisions to change their body posture and walking routes. Johnson and Bennett’s (2015) review of the Australia Institute survey indicated that many women avoid walking alone and exercising at night. Further entrenching the problem, Chung (2005) found that initially young women do not want to ‘offend or hurt the feelings’ of the young men who harass them. However, their responses may escalate to more direct strategies when passive responses are ineffective.
Women also adopt strategies to protect themselves online. In their United States- based nationally representative study of intimate partner digital abuse Ybarra et al. (2017) found that victims of intimate partner digital abuse employ protective strategies. Their recent findings indicate that 77% of victims of intimate partner digital abuse used at least one protective strategy. The most common strategies included changing their
20 e-mail address or telephone number (41%), reporting or flagging content that was posted online without permission (34%), and asking a friend or family member for help (33%). Regardless of how girls and women respond to gendered violence, management strategies can limit girls’ and women’s freedom as they adapt their behaviour through pre-empting potential intrusion (Fileborn 2014). As Larkin (1991, 112) argues, while women minimise their risk of victimisation by employing protective measures, ‘the psychological and physical costs of our endless vigilance and our constant violation are immeasurable.’
The advice that women are given on how to respond to men’s intrusive behaviour can negatively affect how they protect themselves. For instance, simplistic advice afforded to women about sexual refusals, such as ‘just say no’, fails to recognise the challenges women have in refusing men’s sexual advances. Sexual refusals ‘are complex conversational interactions, incorporating delays, prefaces, palliatives, and accounts’ (Kitzinger and Frith 1999, 293). Kitzinger and Frith’s (1999) conversation analysis of young women’s sexual refusals demonstrates how such advice may in fact be counterproductive, since it undermines the range of ways in which women communicate and protect themselves. Indeed, to more effectively navigate male violence, women may employ more passive strategies (Chung 2005). A focus on more direct approaches, then, may serve to devalue the range of strategies women use to refuse sexual encounters and other unwanted experiences.
2.2.4 Attitudes toward Violence and Abuse against Women and Girls Attitudes towards violence against women and girls might help us understand why women experience intrusive behaviour on dating apps. As Kelly (1988) and Stanko (1985) stressed, attitudes toward violence and abuse are central to understanding it. Studies on attitudes toward VAW can expose information about cultures that facilitate violence. They can also help us to understand the concurrent condemnation and prevalence of abuse by illuminating where people draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and the contexts in which those lines shift.
The primary study of attitudes toward violence against women in Australia is Young Australians’ Attitudes to Violence against Women (Harris et al. 2015), a representatively sampled study of 1,923 young people aged between 16-24 years and 9,566 adults aged 35-64 years. The survey found that the majority of young people
21 consider physical forms of abuse including slapping; pushing; forced sex; threats to throw, smash objects and hurt others as VAW (97-98%). A lower percentage of young people (82-85%) recognise harassment via phone calls, text messages, and emails as VAW. The majority of young people (84%) agree that electronically tracking a female partner without consent is serious; however, almost half (46%) consider non- consensual electronic tracking to be acceptable in certain circumstances. These findings show us that physical abuse is more easily recognised as a form of VAW than non-physical forms.
One conclusion that we can draw from these findings is that attitudes about what constitutes abuse and acceptable behaviour in interpersonal relationships may not be as advanced as we might assume. Interpersonal violence is accepted by a sizeable minority of young people, especially when it occurs within intimate heterosexual relationships (McCarry 2010; Totten 2003; Xenos and Smith 2001). The Young Australians’ Attitudes to violence against women (Harris et al. 2015, 31) survey found that 69% of young women and 50% of young men perceive VAW as a prevalent problem. Despite 58% of young people scoring moderate to high in the ‘understanding of violence against women scale’, 86% also scored moderate to high on the ‘violence- supportive attitudes construct’, in other words, having a high level of attitudinal support for VAW (Harris et al. 2015, 49). These findings suggest that while most people endorse items categorising a variety of forms of abuse as violence or abusive, many also hold violence supportive attitudes. These contradictions need to be addressed in order to move past condemnation of physical violence to prevention of the whole landscape of gendered abuse.
Attitudes toward violence against women can affect the perpetration of violence and shape how others respond to women’s victimisation (Flood and Pease 2009). Indeed, Harris et al. (2015, 35) argue that:
Men who use violence have strong adherence to beliefs justifying and excusing violence. The support of these by people around them can make the problem worse and undermine the goals of legal and treatment interventions.
But an unintended outcome of anti-violence campaigns focused on physical violence against women to ensure it is taken seriously as a crime may be that non-physical
22 forms of abuse are ignored or minimised (Kelly 2012). hooks (1997, 271) argues that ‘[a]n over focus on forms of extreme physical violence leads to an acceptance of everyday physical abuse such as occasional hitting.’ Historically, public conversations about violence and abuse have often skirted around more difficult discussions of gendered patterns of disrespect, sexism, and sexual double standards in dating and other relationships (Stanko 1985). As a result, these underlying contributing factors to abuse remain largely unchallenged. This warrants considerable attention, since attitudinal support towards VAW, coupled with high rates of sexual harassment and dating violence among young people, in particular, points to the potential for dating app facilitated intimate intrusions. But the normalisation of non-physical forms of violence and abuse might suggest that these experiences are likely to be under- recognised, especially in a context where people largely communicate online. These implications demonstrate the need for an exploration of intimate intrusions in different contexts, including dating apps.
2.2.5 The Normalisation of Abuse By avoiding discussion of the underlying values that engender abuse, contemporary discussions on domestic violence in Australia may have given rise to an unintended outcome. An overwhelming majority of the population condemns domestic violence and sexual assault, and can recognise a range of physically violent and non- consensual sexual behaviours as abusive. However, a much smaller portion of the population understands non-physical forms of abuse as ‘violent’ (Harris et al. 2015). At the same time, significant portions of the population hold attitudes that are violence- supportive. Lundgren et al. (2001, 18) term this problem the ‘normalisation of abuse.’ Various scholars argue that women’s experiences of violence occur in the context of everyday aggression that women view through a lens of ordinariness (Hlavka 2014; Kearney 2001; Kelly and Radford 1990; Stanko 1985). At the same time that severe physical violence may be condemned, men’s coercive and controlling behaviour is frequently trivialised precisely because it is so common (McCarry 2007) and considered part of ‘normal’ male conduct (Berman et al. 2000; Kelly and Radford 1990). This construction of everyday violence effectively exonerates boys and men who commit violent, but expected, acts (Klein 2006). On this basis, Stanko (1985, 10) explains that women are often confused and do not know how to define men’s behaviour, despite feeling threatened by it. Because of this, the normalisation of
23 gendered violence is a barrier to combatting and preventing men’s violence against women (McCarry and Lombard 2016).
It is only when focusing on extreme forms of violence that the acts are disconnected from ‘normal’ male behaviour (Kelly 1988; Stanko 1985). Hearn (1998, 202) argues that ‘[a]s men do more violence… it becomes more taken-for-granted as part of their ordinary life rather than something exceptional.’ This disconnection allows for a focus on the pathological individual who committed the act, rather than the social interaction that led to the event (Stoudt 2006). Because of this, men’s aggression can easily affect and permeate their intimate relationships (Boyle and Walker 2016; Crosby 2011). Klein (2006, 147), for example, explains how ‘‘normalized masculinity’ and its effects are operative but invisible in public discussions of targeted violence against girls.’
Two recent cases illustrate the ways that cultural norms engendering violence and abuse can be maintained in the face of pervasive disapproval of dating violence. First, Paul Lambert stabbed Angela Jay after their brief relationship initiated via Tinder ended (Edwards 2016). Journalists described Lambert as a ‘psycho in a suit’ (Sutton 2016) and a ‘sadistic Tinder stalker’ (Banks and Kyriacou 2016). Although this critical incident demonstrated emerging problems related to violence when using dating apps, popular media pathologised Lambert’s behaviour and avoided discussing the normalised sexual possessiveness and entitlement that underpinned his behaviour. One popular media article published by the Daily Mail, for instance, described the experience of another woman who had previously dated Lambert. The woman is quoted explaining: ‘[t]he scariest thing is I never got any red flags.’ The article, however, then describes his incessant text messaging to the woman, before emphasising the attempted murder of Angela Jay (Nsenduluka 2018). The focus on Lambert’s physical violence normalises his sexual possessiveness and underlying entitlement that his behaviour demonstrated.
Second, as mentioned earlier, in 2014, Gable Tostee was accused of murdering Warriena Wright after she fell 14 storeys to her death from his high-rise balcony after meeting via Tinder (Silva 2016). Although Tostee was not labelled a ‘psychopath’, media coverage pathologised his actions throughout the evening and following Wright’s fall. One headline read, ‘Chilling CCTV shows alleged Tinder murderer calmly walking away for PIZZA while his date lay dead after falling from his balcony’ (Godden
24 and Vonow 2016). Tostee’s ‘abnormal’ behaviour positioned the event as atypical. Despite Lambert and Tostee’s alleged physical violence, pathologising them served to decontextualise their abuse from the social contexts which produced their behaviour (Stoudt 2006).
Although physical violence is important, focusing on physical violence can distract us from cultural norms that produce abusive behaviour. As a result, more ‘typical’ and common incidents do not receive much critical attention (Boyle 2017). This is problematic because:
The cultural atmosphere that says it’s okay for hundreds of men to catcall any woman in a public space is part of a continuum of misogyny that drives men to brutally injure women (Tweten 2016, 201).
As such, focusing on 'exceptional' cases of physical violence may mean that more common intimate intrusions are ignored (Vera-Gray 2014). Despite the popular media focus on physical violence, intimate intrusions facilitated via online contexts have come to the attention of social media spaces for entertainment purposes.
Some social media spaces frame men’s intrusive behaviour on dating apps as humorous. For example, the popular Instagram page Tinder Nightmares presents screen-captured messages sent between users on the app (Tinder Nightmares 2019). As described by Huffington Post contributor Vagianos (2014), the page ‘reveals the most awkward (and hilarious) parts of online dating.’ For example, one message reads: ‘[t]he games [sic] called Barbie, I’ll be Ken and you be the box I come in?’ Another says: ‘[i]f I was a watermelon, would you spit or swallow my seed?’ (Tinder Nightmares 2019). Following the page’s popularity, Tinder Nightmares founder Elan Gale created a book of seemingly amusing messages sent between users. Gale explained: ‘Tinder Nightmares is a hilarious look at some of the most epic fails of the often racy, always ridiculous, “romantic” exchanges on Tinder’ (Gale 2015). In an interview with The Guardian (Parkinson 2015), Gale said: ‘If I don’t find something funny I won’t post it.’
Women have also used humour to resist online abuse and highlight its absurdity. Spaces dedicated to women’s resistance, what Shaw (2016) terms feminist discursive activism, include the Bye Felipe Instagram page, which chronicles violent messages
25 sent between users on dating apps to ‘call out dudes who turn hostile when rejected or ignored’ (Bye Felipe 2019). Similarly, Anna Gensler’s Instagram page ‘Instagranniepants’ offers her 41,000 followers unflattering nude caricatures of the men who have harassed her on dating apps (Instagranniepants 2019; Vitis and Gilmour 2017). Giving a voice to women, while simultaneously connecting through laughter, online resistance practices can challenge men’s sexism (Vitis and Gilmour 2017). Although Tinder Nightmares does not explicitly function in this way, Hess and Flores (2016, 1099) argue that ‘[b]y outing the performance of toxic masculinity, Tinder Nightmares provides women with a form of discursive agency through the showcasing of witty replies.’ It is important to note that the Tinder Nightmares uploads are de- identified, which means we do not know who sent, received, and finally submitted the screen-captured conversations. However, most of the messages the Instagram account displays appear to have been sent by men to women (Thompson 2018). While submitters may consider the act a form of justice, we do not know the impact of the page on its followers. Therefore, the extent to which Tinder Nightmares challenges abusive behaviour requires further investigation. Engaging with Tinder Nightmares’ followers and contributors to determine how they interpret the interactions could help researchers to better understand these dynamics.
2.3 Theoretical Framework
To help recognise and better understand women’s normalised experiences of abuse in the context of Tinder use, this thesis adopts Liz Kelly’s theory of the continuum of sexual violence (Kelly 1988). The continuum demonstrates how seemingly mundane events share commonalities with those worthy of legal and media attention (Kelly 1988). By way of example, Kelly (1988) explored the intrusive refrain ‘cheer up love.’ Kelly (1988, 106) argued:
For women, sexual harassment ranges from physical assaults through to what, on the surface, appear to be innocuous remarks. The meaning behind the remark, the fact that through it men deny women the choice of which individuals to interact and communicate with and the intrusiveness of the encounter are what defines this, for women, as harassment. The expectation that women should be paying attention to and gratifying men, rather than preoccupied with their own thoughts and concerns, underlies this kind of intrusiveness. While the continuum illuminates the commonalities between events, it also allows women to understand their experiences by highlighting how ‘typical’ and ‘aberrant’
26 male behaviours shade into one another. To demonstrate this conceptualisation, Kelly’s (1988, 76) theorisation was constructed using two Oxford dictionary meanings, thus demonstrating how the word continuum can be understood in two different ways. First, ‘a basic common character that underlies many different events’; and second, ‘a continuous series of elements or events that pass into one another and which cannot be readily distinguished.’ Kelly (1988, 76) further unpacked these definitions by explaining:
The basic common character underlying the many different forms of violence is the abuse, intimidation, coercion, intrusion, threat and force men use to control women. The second meaning enables us to document and name the range of abuse, intimidation, coercion, intrusion, threat and force whilst acknowledging that there are no clearly defined and discrete analytic categories into which men’s behaviour can be placed (Emphasis in original). Kelly’s (1988) continuum sought to explore and better understand a range of harassing and abusive experiences, rather than single incidents and types of victimisation that had been studied prior to her conceptualisation. Reiterating this point, Vera-Gray (2014, 123) explained that the ‘theorisation marked a shift in thinking, from a focus on individual forms of VAWG as discrete categories to the recognition of commonality and connections between forms, impacts, responses and functions.’ From this perspective, all forms of sexual violence are linked by social attitudes, which are often trivialised and not recognised by legal framings.
The key points of the continuum of sexual violence are:
1. Abuse and harassment are not rare crimes. They are experienced by the majority of women and are therefore ‘ordinary’ rather than aberrant; 2. ‘ordinary’ experiences of abuse have cumulative effects that are as important as violence and; 3. the focus on forms of physical violence that are recognised as aberrant distracts us from addressing more common and everyday experiences of abuse.
Although Kelly’s (1988) framework demonstrates how forms of violence are connected, she maintained that the continuum should not be understood as a linear straight line or discrete categories (Brown 2012). Kelly (1988, 76) also explained that the continuum does not represent a hierarchical determination of seriousness, instead arguing that ‘the degree of impact cannot be simplistically inferred from the form a
27 woman experiences or its place within the continuum.’ In fact, Kelly (1988) sought to remove hierarchical frameworks which could allow normalised and ‘quieter forms of intrusion’ (Vera-Gray 2014, 125) to remain understudied. As such, Kelly’s (1988, 76) framework highlights all forms of intrusion as equal events as they have cumulative effects and impact on women in different ways. This conceptualisation also helped her to listen to women’s individual experiences to better understand their uniqueness. Kelly and Radford (1998, 56) further explained:
With the possible exception of murder (femicide), “seriousness” was not imputed to either forms of violence or their location within the continuum; the impacts of victimisation were conceptualized as the outcome of a complex amalgam of factors at the time and over time. As well as removing restrictive hierarchical framework, Kelly (1988) developed two new categories of abuse to respect women’s understanding of their experiences. The newfound categories include pressurised sex and coercive sex to denote ‘the way in which women named unwanted sex, with many unwilling to use the concept of rape’ (Kelly 2012, xvii). Kelly’s conceptualisation demonstrates how the splitting of men’s intrusive practices into the distinct groupings, often necessary for analysis, can disrupt attempts to reflect the meanings such practices have in individual women’s lives (Vera- Gray 2014).
Kelly (2012) observes that since she created the continuum of sexual violence in 1988, relatively few scholars have taken up the study of everyday intrusions and everyday harassment and abuse, continuing to focus on both decontextualised incidents and physical violence. Although domestic violence is the subject of much contemporary discussion, and is an important topic to study due to its effects, sexually harassing behaviours are considerably more common (Kelly 2012). In addition, dating abuse continues to be under-researched, with very little information available about it in Australia. As Brown (2012, 156) explains, ‘violent behaviour being part of normal life as something to which women adapt or minimise is among the reasons for it remaining such an under-reported crime.’ Kelly (2012, xxi) Further argues,
It is possible to analyse data in ways which are closer to lived experience – combining, for example, frequency, injury and fearfulness – but even here the questions currently used in surveys are rarely sufficiently nuanced since they tend to be constructed to reflect existing crime categories.
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Based on the review of the literature, it is evident that despite contemporary condemnation of gendered violence, girls and women continue to experience a wide range of abusive encounters with men that are so common as to be viewed as ordinary. The continuum presents a different way of thinking about abuse. This approach provides a more meaningful way to understand women's experiences of abuse than quantifying the prevalence of decontextualised behaviours. According to Kelly's (1988) model, different forms of gendered violence are linked by social attitudes that minimise and excuse violence against women. These shared attitudes are what we need to understand in order to decrease violence and abuse rather than just responding to them. In particular, the continuum offers a way to investigate women's experiences of ‘typical’ forms of intrusion. In this way, we can move beyond focusing on discrete incidents and illuminate the commonalities between women's experiences of ‘typical’ intrusions on dating apps and widely recognised forms of abuse. Indeed, as McGlynn et al. (2017, 28) noted in their study on image-based sexual abuse, the continuum of sexual violence's:
[…] breadth and flexibility creates a framework in which new experiences can be located and accurately understood as abusive— something which is especially important in this area where modes of perpetration rapidly change due to advances in technology.
The continuum of sexual violence helped me to investigate women’s experiences of intimate intrusions in the context of Tinder. This framework was useful to this thesis because it helped me to listen to how women understand intimate intrusions and their effects as well as how they proactively manage them on an everyday basis. By adopting the concept of a continuum and applying it to digital dating contexts, through Tinder, the current study helped to shed important light on the nature and impact of everyday behaviours women may find intrusive or threatening, but have yet to be afforded academic attention. At the same time, conceptualising women's experiences in this way enabled a greater focus on the cumulative effects of intimate intrusions in the context of mobile dating on Tinder. The continuum of sexual violence also provided the women I interviewed the opportunity to draw connections between multiple intrusive behaviours and allowed me to focus on experiences that have largely escaped the critical gaze of researchers and the public. If we are to better understand
29 women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder, these are important factors to consider.
2.4 Social Constructionism
2.4.1 Constructions of Gender Sociologists argue that gender is socially constructed for women and men (Connell 1987; Lorber 1994; Kimmel 2002). Gådin (2012) argues that while puberty and hormonal changes take place around the same time that boys begin to sexually harass girls at school, these behaviours cannot be explained by biology alone. Rather, one explanation argues that a process of socialisation occurs whereby the enacting of culturally appropriated gender roles dictates individual behaviour (Connell 1995). Tomaszewski (2013) argues that gender does not suddenly emerge when a person becomes an adult. Instead, gender is constructed in an ongoing process of socialisation that shapes a person’s attitudes and beliefs (Connell 1995). As such, children evaluate the responses from behaviours to determine what is congruent with their assigned gender (Aries 1996). Dominant constructions of masculinity position ‘real’ men as assertive, fearless, powerful and tough (Kenway and Fitzclarence 1997; Murnen et al. 2002), and accordingly, stereotypical constructions of masculinity exhibit a strict set of rules that men are expected to align themselves with (Messerschmidt 2000).
Theorising a socially constructed form of masculinity, Connell (1987) coined the term ‘hegemonic masculinity’ to describe the dominant and idealised role for men. In short, hegemonic masculinity refers to the model performance of masculinity in social life, which embodies the most honoured way to be a man (Connell 1995), ‘achieved through culture, institutions, and persuasion’ (Connell and Merrerschmidt 2005, 832). As such, hegemonic masculinity requires a specific set of characteristics to be attained to reach the highest status. For the most part, hegemonic masculinity depicts heterosexual men who exhibit physical strength, control, and emotional neutrality, among other socially constructed dominant traits (Connell 1987; Kenway and Fitzclarence 1997). Connell (1987, 183) explains that ‘‘hegemonic masculinity’ is always constructed in relation to various subordinated masculinities as well as in relation to women.’ Because of this, men may work to establish dominance over one another as well as over women (Kimmel 1994). Robinson (2005, 27) furthers explains:
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[e]ngaging such gendered performances is part of the cultural script, which constitutes hegemonic masculinity, thus rendering the boys’ sexual harassment as an appropriate form of interaction with girls in their views.
Femininity is also a social construct and provides a narrow set of gender roles for women. In contrast to traditional male gender roles, traditional female gender roles require girls and women to exhibit polarising characteristics (Aries 1996). For example, women are constructed as submissive, emotional, and passive (McCarry 2007; Tomaszewski 2013). Women are expected to be complicit with this construction and are oriented to accommodating men’s desires (Jordan 1987), what Connell (1987, 183) refers to as ‘emphasised femininity.’ For Connell (1987, 183), ‘There is no femininity that is hegemonic in the sense that the dominant form of masculinity is hegemonic among men.’ Because of this, although diverse forms of masculinity position men in subordinate roles, women are always at the bottom of this hierarchy (Kenway and Fitzclarence 1997). As such, Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) contend that hegemonic masculinity ideologically legitimises women’s subordinate position to men.
2.4.2 Intimate Intrusions as Flattery One of the potential outcomes of normatively gendered behaviour is that it can reinforce the idea that men are pursuers whose role it is to pursue women. Because of this idea, pervasive masculine traits may be used to justify intrusive interactions as flirtatious regardless of whether or not the act is warranted. At the same time, men’s intimate intrusions may be viewed and legitimised through a lens of flattery. Stanko (1985) argues that everyday sexual intrusions are construed as non-threatening flirtatious behaviours, which may reinforce the idea that the behaviour is flattering. According to McCarry and Lombard (2016, 136) and Gådin (2012, 1774), seemingly flirtatious yet harassing behaviour is commonly justified through the refrain, ‘he does it because he likes you.’ This pervasive idea normalises the belief that boys’ and men’s hurtful behaviour is, in fact, a form of non-threatening and desirable communication (Hlavka 2014; Lenton et al. 1999).
2.5 Serendipity in the Modern Age: Mobile Dating Apps
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Mobile dating apps present a modern way for users to interact facilitated by GPS technology. Although mobile device facilitated dating is a relatively recent development, these apps are not the first medium to enable dating practices. Evolving from newspaper advertisements, technology has long afforded ways to interact and build relationships (Ward 2017). The first mobile dating apps appeared in 2003, with many others emerging in 2007 and thereafter (Quiroz 2013). Dating apps are ‘unique in that they are accessed primarily via mobile devices and use fine-grained location information to identify nearby users’ (Blackwell et al. 2014, 1118). Using geo-locative technology, dating apps afford connections by notifying users when a potential interest is near (Aïmeur et al. 2013), enabling immediate online introductions with other members who are in the vicinity (Brubaker et al. 2014) ‘at the click of a button’ (Gatter and Hodkinson 2016, 2). On this basis, dating apps present a modern way for users to create seemingly serendipitous experiences that are, in fact, facilitated by GPS technology (Li and Chen 2010).
The popularity of dating apps has exponentially grown, with many people now using the internet to facilitate dating relationships (Duguay 2016). In particular, the number of young people between 18 and 24 years using dating apps has dramatically increased, with this age group being the most likely to use dating apps (Smith 2016a). Indeed, dating app use in the United States among 18–24 year olds increased from 5% in 2013 to 22% in 2016. Public attitudes toward using dating apps and websites have also become more positive within the last decade (David and Cambre 2016; Finkel et al. 2012). The once-pervasive stigmatisation of online dating has lessened in recent years (Gibbs et al. 2006; Farvid and Aisher 2016), leading to online dating via apps becoming an accepted and ordinary way to meet people (Masden and Edwards 2015). On this basis, Baym (2015, 97) contends, ‘Once stigmatized, online dating has rapidly become normalized.’
2.5.1 Tinder: Where ‘Any Swipe Can Change Your Life’ Launching in 2012, today Tinder dominates the mainstream heterosexual dating app market, with approximately 10 million members using the app per day (Sumter et al. 2017, 67), and over 30 billion total matches (Tinder Inc. 2019). Gatter and Hodkinson (2016) observe that while Tinder is marketed as an app for users 18 years and over, 38% of users are 16 – 24 years old. Tinder is specifically marketed to heterosexual
32 people and enjoys the participation of many heterosexual women, perhaps due in part to its marketing narratives foregrounding happy romantic relationships (Duguay 2016).
As is common with other dating apps, Tinder facilitates initial contact between its users, allowing individuals to view users' profiles based on location proximity using GPS technology (Carpenter and McEwan 2016; Sumter et al. 2017). David and Cambre (2016, 3) explain that ‘Tinder recognizes the user’s coordinates and locates other users within the perimeter and then scans those profiles to meet the search criteria.’ Based on such coordinates, and a small amount of eligibility criteria, user profiles, including a photograph and brief textual information (Hess and Flores 2016), are made visible to prospective interests who may browse through one at a time (Carpenter and McEwan 2016). It is with this game-like functionality that Mason (2016, 823) describes Tinder as a virtual ‘hot or not’ game whereby users can anonymously swipe left to discard a profile or right to indicate interest in other members' photographs and short profiles. A ‘match’ is created when two users exhibit reciprocal ‘likeness’ by swiping right on each other’s profiles (Hobbs et al. 2017). Once a match has been created, users may engage in communication through the app (David and Cambre 2016).
Tinder users have varied motivations for going on the platform (Gatter and Hodkinson 2016; Ligtenberg 2015; Mason 2016; Ward 2017). Some of the motivations scholars have documented for using the app include: love, casual sex, ease of communication, thrill of excitement, trendiness, self-worth validation (Sumter et al. 2017), relationship seeking, and entertainment (Snitko 2016). In their work on gender differences in goal orientations on smartphone dating apps, Carpenter and McEwan (2016) found that entertainment was dating app users’ primary reason for engaging with the platforms. However, their results also demonstrated that the most frequent dating app users were seeking sexual partners through these services. As Carpenter and McEwan (2016 n.p.) explain:
Using an app that focuses on appearance, and enabling one to quickly and easily meet people who are attractive, may also be associated with traits associated with a higher interest in sex. Sumter et al. (2017), however, argue that Tinder transcends hook-up culture and overlaps with other dating behaviours, thus should not be considered a hook-up app. Alternatively, Duguay (2016, 358) explains that Tinder has been marketed ‘as a
33 supplement to hook-up culture.’ This means that Tinder might operate alongside pre- existing dating and hook-up cultures.
2.6 Risks Associated With Dating Apps
While dating has always carried risks ranging from abuse to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), dating apps may raise important new questions concerning user safety. Although dating apps present a modern and technological approach to dating, scholars have recognised a host of risks associated with using dating apps, which are the focus of much of the current research. At this stage, dating app research mostly engages with questions of risks related to privacy and interpersonal safety. As Mason and Magnet (2012, 107) explain, ‘new technologies complicate how women experience violence as well as how they are able to protect themselves.’ Through an analysis of the ‘Tinder Nightmares’ Instagram page, Hess and Flores (2016) argue that Tinder users participate in heterosexist performances. The authors (Hess and Flores 2016, 1088) further explain:
Given that Tinder is perceived as a competitive space, men may feel pressured to engage in certain articulations of toxic masculinity that aid in establishing their power over women. Despite this recognition, to my knowledge, few studies have documented experiences of harassment on dating apps to date. Popular media reports (see for example, Banks 2016; Buttigieg 2017; Brown 2019) and a small number of online dating studies (see for example, Masden and Edwards 2015; Smith and Duggan 2013) provide some evidence of women's abusive experiences on dating apps. Smith and Duggan (2013) found in their quantitative survey of 2,252 adult men and women in the United States that 28% of online daters and dating app users had felt uncomfortable or harassed by someone who had contacted them through a dating website or app. 42% of female users and 17% of male users had experienced such contact. Smith's (2016b) unpublished Master's thesis examined sexual harassment on dating websites and apps and found that of the 319 women and men surveyed, 92.6% reported experiencing sexual harassment while online dating. Although Smith and Duggan (2013) and Smith (2016b) did not report disaggregated numbers on the experiences of dating app and online dating website users, Tinder's domination of the dating app market and online spaces dedicated to documenting intrusive interactions facilitated
34 through the app (Tinder Nightmares 2019; Thompson 2018) suggest that Tinder users may also experience these behaviours.
Adding to these concerns, Henry and Powell (2016) argue that the current Australian criminal law is ill-equipped in handling technology-facilitated sexual violence. Accordingly, the following discussion provides an overview of the potential technological and interpersonal risks of dating apps.
2.6.1 Technological Risks Much of the current research on mobile phone apps has focused on the challenges of technological risks related to privacy protection for mobile users (see for example, Atkinson et al. 2018; Cheung 2014; Farnden et al. 2015; Mason and Magnet 2012; Tsai et al. 2010; Li and Chen 2010). Scholars focused on computer engineering and human-computer interaction point out how photographs of users can provide identifiable information about the user’s appearance (Fitzpatrick et al. 2015). Indeed, mobile devices and dating apps specifically are increasingly being used to store and share sensitive information, potentially without user knowledge (Farnden et al. 2015). Aïmeur et al. (2013, 244) emphasise that even if a social media user reveals non- sensitive information, there could be ‘sufficient information scattered in various places to combine it, analyse it and obtain sensitive facts about the person.’ And this is particularly problematic, since ‘an individual giving out an innocuous piece of personal information is likely to think he is not revealing anything sensitive’ (Aïmeur et al. 2013, 244). At the same time, the presence of a mobile phone app could provide personal information about a user. In their research on mobile app privacy vulnerability, for instance, Atkinson et al. (2018) argue that the presence of a dating app on a mobile phone may suggest identifying characteristics such as age and relationship status.
Significantly, malicious users can simply extract messages and details from user mobile apps (Farnden et al. 2015). Personal information stored on dating apps, including private messages and sexual orientation can be easily obtained by malicious users (Atkinson et al. 2016; Fattori et al. 2013; Qin et al. 2014). Although users may wish to share innocuous personal information publicly, private conversations may contain sensitive information, and if exposed could have a large impact on the individuals involved (Patsakis et al. 2015). Light (2016) highlights the potential risks of providing personal and sensitive information online in his study of bots on Ashley
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Madison. During 2015, the hacking of ‘discreet’ dating website Ashley Madison saw approximately 37 million account records including e-mail messages, credit card details, and company information made publically available. Although the hacking highlighted the potential for personal information to be leaked, Light’s (2016) main focus was on the non-human actors, referred to as bots, which are deployed via fake profiles on the website to entice and engage with users in an effort to generate revenue. Light’s (2016) research demonstrated that although the bots were mentioned in the site’s lengthy terms and conditions of service, it is unclear whether users were aware of them. There is a good argument that his form of deception could be harmful to unaware users who may believe the bots they are communicating are actual fellow users.
Another technological risk is specific to Tinder and other apps that link to Facebook identities. When app users register with their Facebook accounts, people with malicious interests can gain access to more user information (Patsakis et al. 2015). But as Viswanath et al. (2012, 49) argue, ‘[t]he fundamental problem is that applications can hoard, transfer to others and otherwise abuse this access in violation of user expectations.’ Indeed, political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica gained access to 87 million Facebook users’ personal data through an online quiz, which was then sold to multiple third parties (Flew 2018).
Of course, Tinder and other dating app users can also impede on users’ privacy by screen-capturing private messages sent through the platforms’ instant messaging services (Hess and Flores 2016). As mentioned earlier, the popular Instagram page ‘Tinder Nightmares’ displays hundreds of ‘unspirational’ screen-captured messages sent between dating app users to over 1.7 million followers of the page (Hess and Flores 2016; Tinder Nightmares 2019). While the Instagram account’s operators blocks user surnames, this research illustrates the potential for screen captures to be shared without de-identification. As such, architectural mobile app features may present privacy risks for users of dating apps.
2.6.2 Interpersonal Risks Dating app users may also face interpersonal risks. A key issue is that of real-time location-sharing mobile technology, which can produce an environment for interpersonal privacy and surveillance risks (Cheung 2014; Mason and Magnet 2012).
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While location-sharing technology enables apps to provide users with interesting features, the privacy risks of sharing this data can be problematic (Li and Chen 2010, 22; Patsakis et al. 2015). Women who are fleeing dangerous relationships may be jeopardised by mobile phone facilitated GPS technology (Mason and Magnet 2012). For example, real-time location software present on social media websites and apps such as Facebook and Tinder could allow abusers to track their victims (Farnden et al. 2015; Mason 2016; Qin et al. 2014; Woodlock 2016). Illustrating this concern, Farnden et al. (2015, 2) argue that ‘with sufficiently accurate location data, it is theoretically possible to determine a user’s address, track their movements and even stalk a user throughout the day.’ Indeed, Qin et al. (2014) warn about the potential problems arising from accurate GPS positioning that can allow attackers to estimate a dating app user’s location. This can also be aided by the fact that most users include a photograph of themselves. Accordingly, GPS technology facilitated through dating apps may facilitate cyber-stalking (Qin et al. 2014).
2.6.2.1 Health Risks To date, gay men’s experiences using dating apps, specifically Grindr, have received a large amount of academic attention (see for example, Blackwell et al. 2014; Fitzpatrick et al. 2015; Goedel and Duncan 2015; Handel and Shklovski 2012). Most of this research is by public health scholars concerned with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and other STIs affecting app users. Some scholars have argued that dating apps for gay men create a platform for men to engage in high-risk sexual behaviours, which may contribute to the transmission of HIV (Goedel et al. 2016; Landovitz et al. 2012; Winetrobe et al. 2014). For example, Holloway et al. (2015, 113) suggest that it is possible that the ‘integration of individuals who engage in higher risk behaviors into the social networks of MSM [men who have sex with men], [may be] promoting peer norms that are more supportive of risky sexual behaviors.’ Dating apps can facilitate the opportunity for users to locate potential nearby individuals for sexual encounters (Burrell et al. 2012; Winetrobe et al. 2014). At the same time, dating apps connect users to a larger group of potential sexual partners (Goedel et al. 2016).
But despite a great deal of academic attention on gay men’s health, Aunspach (2015) cautions that this research encourages a construction of gay men as sexual deviants. In contrast to public health scholars’ research, Van De Wiele and Tong (2014) argue that Internet spaces for gay men have created a non-threatening environment whereby
37 users can form meaningful connections and sexual identities. In this way, gay networking sites ‘allow for the creation of a virtual community of sexual minorities’ (Gudelunas 2012, 348). Accordingly, internet spaces for gay men can facilitate a safe environment, create a sense of belonging, and contribute to user well-being (Baams et al. 2011). Similar positive outcomes of online dating may also be applicable to dating apps targeting heterosexual users.
The extent to which Tinder facilitates the risk of intimate intrusions is unclear. Smith and Duggan’s (2013) research indicated that experiences of harassment facilitated via online dating websites and dating apps are not uncommon. Although women’s experiences facilitated via Tinder are relatively unknown, the review of the literature depicts various potential risks associated with dating app use. Technological risks depict challenges related to privacy protection, and the ability for users to engage in criminal behaviour. At the same time, interpersonal risks related to the acquisition and transmission of STIs present on-going public health concerns. Although there is a body of literature that examines technological and interpersonal risks, this is contrasted by the literature which explains that using dating apps may, in fact, present a safer way to date. The research pertaining to this topic is discussed in more detail below.
2.7 Safety
A host of concerns surrounding user authenticity have dominated much of the research on online dating websites (Hancock and Toma 2009; Toma et al. 2008). Without the presence of a physical body, concerns around user self-representations and deception can arise (Baym 2015; Ellison et al. 2006). As Smith and Duggan (2013, 5) found, 54% of online dating users, inclusive of websites and apps, believed that other users had falsified profile information. More specifically, Gibbs et al. (2006) found in their study of self-presentation in online dating that 86% of their 349 online survey participants felt that other users misrepresented their physical appearance. For Baym (2015, 107), however, ‘[s]ometimes being deceptive is about presenting one’s ideal self more than a fictitious one.’ Although, Baym (2015, 100) also notes, ‘[w]ith some significant exceptions, most people, most of the time, use new media to act in ways mostly consistent with their embodied selves.’ While online dating users have expressed these concerns, Duguay (2016, 352) attributes Tinder’s success to ‘allaying concerns about the authenticity of potential suitors who can be met through the app.’
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Indeed, at the time of Duguay’s (2016) writing, Tinder required its members to register an account by linking their Facebook before using the app (Farnden et al. 2015). This registration process meant that Tinder users’ profile photographs were those displayed on their Facebook accounts (David and Cambre 2016). As such, identity concerns may be alleviated because Facebook requires its users create profiles using a ‘real’ name and have the ability to suspend accounts using fake names (Duguay 2016). It is notable, however, that Tinder users can now register an account using their Facebook or mobile phone number (Makhoul 2018).
Although Tinder users could potentially create fake Facebook accounts, Norcie et al. (2013) note that online social network users determine whether a person is genuine by looking at the number of friends they have on Facebook. It may be the case, then, that the majority of Tinder users are genuine participants. This might suggest that users may experience better security and privacy when compared with online dating facilitated through websites as links to social media pages provide insight into individuals (David and Cambre 2016). Tinder may create a safer environment for young people to initiate contact with prospective casual hook-up partners or relationships, due to the fact that users provide a personal account that is linked to their Facebook page. Accordingly, dating apps may provide a safer method of meeting people as a connection to social media accounts may hold users more accountable, through the presentation of more authentic user profiles (Duguay 2016). It is also possible that dating apps are safer than meeting a random stranger in person as the online context can offer a barrier to immediate in-person interaction.
2.8 How Platform Governance Contributes to Intimate Intrusions on Social Media Platforms Online intimate intrusions are not a new phenomenon. For years, digital media and gender-based violence scholars have documented women’s experiences of abuse in online spaces (see for example, Herring 2002; Morahan-Martin 2000). But despite pressure on platforms from scholars and civil society alike to improve their services for women and other marginalised groups, online experiences of abuse are commonplace (Amnesty International 2018). Indeed, we know that ‘[t]he greatest increase in digital hate has occurred on social media sites’ (Citron and Norton 2011, 1437). Recently, Amnesty International (2018) published a report documenting women’s experiences of violence and abuse on the online news and social networking
39 service Twitter. The report highlights how violence and abuse against women flourishes on the platform. These experiences have called into question the role of platforms in facilitating and contributing to intrusive behaviours on the services.
Significantly, platforms obscure their efforts to curb intrusive behaviour on their services through their claims of neutrality. But neutral platform is an oxymoron, as they reflect the values and beliefs of those who create them (Gillespie 2018a). As Davis (2018, 113) points out: ‘by virtue of how [technologies] are conceived, designed and deployed, they embody and display the best and worst of the humans that create them.’ At the same time, a platform’s affordances are influenced by the politics of their various stakeholders (Hemsley et al. 2018). Social media platforms also take on an active role in publishing their users’ content, given that the content a user posts, and that which is made visible, is decided by a platform (Suzor forthcoming). In other words, although social media platforms do not create the content their users post, ‘they make important choices about that content: what they will distribute and to whom, how they will connect users and broker their interactions, and what they will refuse’ (Gillespie 2017, 254). For these reasons, platforms wield immense control over the content users are given access to (Citron and Norton 2011).
Platform operators’ claims of neutrality assist their efforts to disclaim responsibility for their users’ behaviour. Most often, a platform’s terms of service (ToS) provide that users are responsible for their actions on the platform. The United States Communications Decency Act (“CDA”) provides platforms with further insulation by protecting them from liability for user behaviour. Specifically, § 230 of the Act provides a ‘safe harbor’ whereby intermediaries can avoid being treated like publishers. This safe harbor means that platforms generally cannot be held responsible for the content their users publish (Tushnet 2008).
Tinder and other dating apps hold users responsible for their interactions on their services. This helps platforms distance themselves from the responsibility of its users’ behaviour on the service. For instance, following Tinder user Nick Vedovi’s spate of racist and sexist abuse against multiple women on the platform, Tinder’s Vice President of Communications and Brand Pambakian distanced the platform from Vedovi’s behaviour in a blog post published on the official blog. Pambakian (2017) explained:
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Every day, we work to rid our ecosystem of bad actors like you. Why anyone would choose to go out into the world and spread hate I will never understand, but you do not have that choice on Tinder. Hate is not an option and we will continue to fight it wherever it rears its ugly head. But not only are platforms not neutral, the choices they make shape user participation. Indeed, how users engage with platforms depends on the space the service provides (Baym and boyd 2012; de Souza e Silva and Frith 2012). A platforms navigation design, what content is displayed most prominently, and decision-making processes around content moderation, for instance, shape user participation (Gillespie 2017). Accordingly, platforms can encourage or discourage user behaviour (Grimmelmann 2015).
Of course, online intimate intrusions are not the sole responsibility of platforms; however, these services can serve to reproduce and amplify these behaviours. In their study on hate speech and covert discrimination on social media, Ben-David and Matamoros-Fernández (2016, 1167) argue that:
[…] hate speech and discriminatory practices are not only explained by users’ motivations and actions, but are also formed by a network of ties between the platform’s policy, its technological affordances, and the communicative acts of its users. And researchers have found that online environments can reinforce and elicit sexual harassers’ behaviour (Barak 2005). However, Tinder and other platforms have been largely unwilling to accept responsibility for their users abusive behaviour (Albury et al. 2018). Holding users solely responsible for their behaviour on platforms detracts attention from a platform’s accountability. But platforms must be held to account for the intrusive behaviours they facilitate and amplify on their services. The following sections describe some of the ways in which dating apps and social media platforms more broadly can facilitate intrusive behaviour. In particular, ‘toxic technocultures’ (Massanari 2017); arbitrary enforcement of the rules; and limited meaningful transparency of platform decision-making can contribute to this problem.
2.8.1 Toxic Technocultures Digital media platforms can help to create and reinforce toxic cultures. In her study of the social news and community website Reddit, Massanari (2017) studied the campaigns of online hate against women #gamergate and The Fappening on the platform. For Massanari (2017, 333), sociotechnical networks may implicitly support, 41 enable, and propagate ‘toxic technocultures’, which she describes as ‘the toxic cultures that are enabled by and propagated through sociotechnical networks such as Reddit, 4chan, Twitter, and online gaming.’ Massanari (2017) argues that Reddit’s algorithm and governance enable a culture that supports anti-feminist and misogynistic activism, with users leveraging the platform’s affordances to coordinate campaigns of harassment and to facilitate the spread of discriminatory attitudes (Duguay et al. 2018). Importantly, her analysis highlights how a platform’s toxic technoculture can shape how users behave on the service. There is a real risk that dating apps platform-specific affordances, governance, and algorithms might reproduce toxic technocultures in similar ways.
Technology companies’ cultures may also affect user culture. In 2014, Tinder’s former Vice President of marketing Whitney Wolfe filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen wherein he was accused of severely harassing her. As it turned out, Mateen had sent Wolfe text messages calling her a ‘slut’, ‘whore’, and ‘gold digger’ (Oliver 2017). Later that year, Wolfe’s lawsuit against Tinder was settled for in excess of $1 million. It is possible that platforms created from cultures that support sexual harassment foster intrusive interactions on their services. In her reflective article of the male gaze, Oliver (2017, 454) argues that social media platforms were created by cultures that objectify women, what she refers to as ‘the culture of the male gaze.’ As Oliver (2017, 454) points out:
Given the continued use of social media to target, harass, and humiliate young women, even documenting party rape and the sexual assault of unconscious girls, it is telling that all of these technologies were born out of the male gaze and its concomitant symptomology. Similarly, Essig (2019, 68), in her work on dating practices and consumerism, argues that Tinder’s workplace culture ‘of misogyny fits with the larger critiques of the company for allowing male users to flood female users’ inboxes with pornographic photos and verbal abuse.’ Essig’s (2019) argument demonstrates how the attitudes of platform directors can impact on platform cultures.
Platforms’ architectural design and technical characteristics may further enable and reinforce toxic technocultures. Indeed, algorithms, buttons, and features ‘condition the social interactions they host, as well as effect broader social and political phenomena’ (Ben-David and Matamoros-Fernández 2016). Hate groups, for example, can use a
42 platform’s affordances to spread and legitimise hateful messages (Citron and Norton 2011; Gerlitz and Helmond 2013). Duguay et al.’s (2018) work on queer women’s experiences of patchwork platform governance on the platforms Tinder, Instagram, and Vine demonstrated how Tinder’s ‘obscure flagging button and the dominance of a sexually aggressive toxic technoculture appeared to support a norm of not reporting sexually explicit or deceptive behavior.’ On Reddit, Massanari (2017) observed that the karma point system shapes the prominence of anti-feminist activity on the platform. Given Reddit’s karma points are like a score, which reflect a user’s contribution on the service, the system incentivises a user to post material that maximises their karma earning potential. Indeed, at the height of #gamergate and The Fappening, users received a lot of karma from other users when they posted toxic content. This incentivised approach, combined with the popularity of #gamergate and The Fappening postings, further encouraged users to spread these campaigns. Massanari (2017) also argues that the ease of creating new Reddit accounts has contributed to its toxic technoculture, given the platform enables a user to engage in unethical behaviour with little consequence.
Tinder’s ‘swipe’ has become synonymous with modern hook-up culture. As discussed earlier, Tinder uses repetitive swiping motions for users to browse profiles and indicate a binary approval or disapproval of other profiles (David and Cambre 2016). Tinder’s link to hook-up culture was illustrated when the platform launched the now discontinued Tinder Social, an extension of the app that allowed groups of users to collectively swipe and meet up in groups. User and media reception of the feature highlighted the swipe’s deep-seated connection to casual sex, given that many thought the purpose of the feature was to hook-up (Duguay 2018). This connection, as Duguay (2018, 130) points out, ‘carries the baggage of gendered stereotypes and expectations.’
Some digital media scholars argue that Tinder’s interface and swipe functionality encourages the gamification of dating (Haywood 2018). For Haywood (2018, 148- 149), an outcome the swipe is ‘[…] that young men, through tropes of consumption and gamification, reinforce structures of objectification and structures of patriarchy.’ This reference aligns with Tinder co-founder Sean Rad’s sentiment when he explained, ‘[w]e always saw Tinder, the interface, as a game.’ He continued, ‘[w]hat you’re doing, the motion, the reaction.’ By Rad’s account, the interface was modelled
43 off a deck of cards, and discarding the top card is what coined the app’s iconic swipe (Stampler 2014). While it might be the case that Tinder’s swipe helps to create a toxic technoculture, other media and communications scholars warn against such determinism (see for example, Albury 2017). In light of such differences in scholarly thought, more research is needed to better understand the impact of Tinder and other dating apps’ affordances and architectural design on user culture.
2.8.2 Arbitrary Enforcement of Platform Rules Inconsistent and arbitrary enforcement of platform rules may further facilitate and reinforce intrusive behaviour on dating apps. Platforms most often articulate their rules in the ToS, community standards, and community guidelines (West 2018). These agreements state the behaviour that is prohibited on services, which frequently includes copyright and trademark infringement, nudity or sexualised content, hate speech, and harassment, among other things (Citron and Norton 2011). Should a user break the rules, a platforms ToS often provide the course of action the platform may take. Such action can include temporary suspension or permanent ban of the offending user (Grimmelmann 2015).
But social media services have enormous freedom in choosing how to respond to prohibited behaviours. For United States based platforms (where the majority are based), the ‘CDA’ immunises platforms’ responses to rule-breaking behaviours, leaving them largely free of legal constraint (Citron and Norton 2011). As Gillespie (2018a, 36) points out: ‘[…] social media platforms can claim “the right but not the responsibility” to remove users and delete content.’ This language protects a platform from liability for a user’s content, while also ensuring platforms’ discretionary power. For this reason, platforms unilaterally decide on whether or not behaviours meet the prohibited threshold, and therefore whether or not to remove users and their content from the services (Ben-David and Matamoros-Fernández 2016). Platforms’ silence around online hate, however, ‘can send a powerful message that targeted group members are second-class citizens’ (Citron and Norton 2011, 1441). This could mean that failing to respond to behaviour that violates a platforms’ ToS may serve to legitimise and reinforce it.
Scholars and civil society continue to document social media platforms hosting and facilitation of racism and racial abuse (Jakubowicz et al. 2017; Oboler 2012); violence
44 and abuse directed toward women (Amnesty International 2018; Buni and Chemaly 2014; Jane 2017) and the LGBTIQ community (Berecz and Devinat 2017). In 2014, for instance, Facebook hosted the pages ‘Fly Kicking Sluts in the Uterus’, ‘Raping your Girlfriend’, and ‘Violently Raping Your Friend Just for Laughs’ (cited in Abraham 2014). In response to these groups, Women, Action and the Media (WAM!), an independent non-profit organisation focused on gender justice in the media and a coalition of 100 women’s groups, published an open letter to Facebook calling on the platform to address the representation of rape and domestic violence on the service (WAM! 2013). After considerable media attention, Facebook complied with the Coalition’s letter by making a commitment to improve its approach to hate speech. While this was a step in the right direction, WAM!’s advocacy on the Facebook groups demonstrated the ease with which hate groups can post and spread their messages online (Abraham 2014). Without WAM!’s attention, it is unclear whether Facebook would have taken action against the groups. However, with Facebook currently hosting racially-abusive groups such as ‘Death to Islam’ (Ben-David and Matamoros-Fernández 2016), it is likely that the public attention WAM! generated was integral to platform’s removal of the rule-violating groups.
While we do not know a lot about how Tinder and other dating apps enforce their rules, it is clear that these platforms also host a range of rule-violating behaviours (see for example, Thompson 2018). As noted earlier, Tinder Nightmares and feminist Instagram campaigns such as Bye Felipe have highlighted the misogyny levelled at users on dating apps (Shaw 2016; Thompson 2018). These examples demonstrate clear articulations of prohibited behaviours occurring on dating apps. The extent to which these behaviours are moderated is unclear. However, given the humorous framing of the posts, and the large volume of intrusive messages displayed in these spaces, it is reasonable to suggest that dating apps fail to enforce their ToS.
But social media platforms are getting better at responding to users’ engagement in behaviour that violates the rules. As Suzor (forthcoming, 6) points out, social media platforms are ‘more clearly articulating their standards of acceptable behavior and banning users and groups that spread hatred and abuse. These rules are not yet uniformly enforced, but they are becoming enforced more regularly.’ In late 2017, for instance, Twitter implemented new rules to suspend or ban accounts affiliated with hate groups (Lenz 2017). This is a step in the right direction; however, more will need
45 to be done to improve women’s experiences in these spaces to effect meaningful change.
2.8.3 Lack of Meaningful Transparency When platforms do enforce the rules, such decision-making processes are often hidden and undetectable; this is no accident (Gillespie 2018b; Witt et al. forthcoming). Of course, content moderation has benefits for users. For instance, content moderation can render harassers invisible to their targets, which may remove the motivation for harassers to engage in such behaviour (Gillespie 2018b). While content moderation has undeniable benefits, the hidden processes that many social media platforms employ is fundamentally paternalistic. This approach reserves the ‘platform the right to decide not only what to hide, from whom, and why, but also when to override even the stated wants of the user’ (Gillespie 2018b, ii-iii). Researchers and civil society organisations alike have called on platforms to improve transparency by providing users with more information about content moderation processes (Bankston and Woolery 2018; Gillespie 2018b; Leetaru 2018; Matias et al. 2015). Despite such demands, however, platforms moderate their content in a ‘black box’ ‘that obscures internal decision-making processes from over 2 billion social media users around the globe’ (Witt et al. forthcoming, 1). As Perel and Elkin-Koren (2017, 184) put it: ‘[i]t is unknown what decisions are made, how they are made, and what specific data and principles shape them.’
Broadly, a lack of meaningful transparency obscures the opportunity for informed public debates ‘about how to regulate internet content in a way that protects freedom of expression and other legitimate interests’ (Suzor et al. forthcoming). But opaque decision-making can also create confusion for individual social media users (Suzor et al. forthcoming). In their study on transparency in the commercial content moderation practices of digital platforms, Suzor et al. (forthcoming) found that users whose content had been moderated without explanation were more likely to develop conspiratorial theories around why their content was removed. For instance, users suspected that the moderators had been politically motivated to remove their content. Such rationalisations breed further distrust and can encourage the development of conspiracy theories (Suzor et al. forthcoming).
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A lack of meaningful transparency may also further reproduce intrusive behaviour on social media platforms. For example, a platform’s failure to provide clear justifications for moderated content makes it difficult for users to learn the rules (Suzor et al. forthcoming). This finding supports earlier research which shows us that people are more likely to follow rules when they are clearly articulated to them (Cialdini et al. 1991; Matias 2017). More transparent responses from platforms could further help users to better understand the behaviours that are unacceptable (Citron and Norton 2011). Indeed, ‘[c]ontent considered ‘abusive’ by some might to others be partisan disagreement’ (Binns et al. 2017, 407). This suggests that clear articulations of prohibited behaviours could help dating app, and social media users more broadly, avoid engaging in it. Moving forward, the Santa Clara Principles (2018) urge social media platforms to publish the number of posts removed and users who have been temporarily suspended or permanently banned from the service; provide notice to these users and; give users the opportunity to appeal these decision-making processes. Taking these steps could improve understanding of content moderation systems and ensure the equitable enforcement of content guidelines.
2.9 Conclusion
The multiplicity of technological and interpersonal risks associated with dating app use, and high prevalence estimates of gendered violence suggest intimate intrusions facilitated through Tinder are an important topic to study. While researchers are beginning to focus on harassment and abuse facilitated through mobile dating contexts (Smith 2016b; Smith and Duggan 2013), more research is needed to provide a clearer picture of the problem. As indicated above, the majority of sexual harassment research has focused on interactions with strangers in physical public settings and in the work place. Although this research has helped to understand stranger sexual harassment, women’s experiences on Tinder may, in fact, be quite different as reciprocal ‘likeness’ must be indicated to communicate with other users through the app. Alternatively, women who use Tinder may experience intimate intrusions that align more with dating violence. As noted, however, dating violence research has primarily focused on adolescent relationships, while violence occurring in adult relationships has been largely understood from those in married or established de facto relationships, as evidenced by a ubiquitous body of domestic violence literature.
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There is substantial empirical evidence to suggest that women’s experiences of dating violence and sexual harassment are common, yet overlooked and normalised experiences. Researchers focused on the risks associated with dating app use have pointed out the potential for technological risks pertaining mostly to data leaks. Similarly, research sheds light on the interpersonal risks that location-aware dating apps may facilitate. At the same time, problems surrounding platform governance highlight how dating apps can facilitate and amplify intrusive behaviours. These areas of research point to a need to better understand women’s experiences in these new mobile dating contexts. Particularly given the popularity and unique characteristics of Tinder and similar dating apps, it is important to study women’s experiences in these emerging contexts.
It is here that the continuum of sexual violence can provide a useful lens through which to study women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder. The continuum helps to construct incidents in a non-hierarchical manner, whereby events shade into and out of one another. As noted earlier, various studies have combined incidents whereby women experienced multiple types of abuse. A focus on single events, however, may not help to illuminate common forms of harassment or abuse. Because of this, the current study contributes to knowledge and builds on the current research landscape by focusing on ‘ordinary’ intimate intrusions facilitated through Tinder.
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CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction The literature review highlights the need for further investigation of women’s experiences of intimate intrusions experienced in everyday settings, such as dating apps. The theoretical framework and extant research indicate that qualitative research is needed to investigate the context, meaning, and impact of women’s experiences. In this study, I progress the work that has been done in gender-based violence research by applying it to the dating app environment. To achieve this, this study empirically documents women's experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder.
This chapter outlines the research methodology I used to address the research aim and objectives. To provide some context around the thesis, I first discuss the epistemological foundation of the study, with reference to my motivations for investigating women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder. I then provide an overview of my data collection techniques, the walkthrough method for studying apps, and qualitative semi-structured interviews, that utilise scroll back interviewing techniques, and their suitability for the study. Third, I outline my sampling approach and describe the study sample. Fourth, I describe my use of thematic analysis and its benefit to the research. Fifth, I discuss the limitations of my research. In the remainder of this chapter, I outline the ethical considerations raised by this research and how they were addressed.
3.2 Epistemological Foundation
Since Tinder’s inception in 2012, I have heard and read about women’s experiences of intrusion on Tinder. Given that many of my friends have engaged with Tinder and other similar dating apps, I was fundamentally curious about the pervasiveness of digital dating contexts on dating culture more broadly. The death of Warriena Wright who fell from Gable Tostee’s high-rise apartment balcony after meeting via Tinder and a myriad of social media accounts dedicated to Tinder interactions enabled me to witness emerging dating practices on mobile apps that appeared different to interactions I had seen before. This led me to consider what dating through digital contexts means for women who engage in such practices.
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As I have already discussed throughout this thesis, popular media, researchers, and the public too often focus on what appear to be ‘serious’ experiences of abuse. While it is important to recognise these experiences, I fear that such a focus detracts from the more common experiences of intrusion. Indeed, prior to beginning this research, I frequently heard of women’s experiences on Tinder that—while not meeting legal definitions of criminal behaviour—appeared to be nonetheless intrusive. Despite the humorous way in which the behaviours have been positioned on social media platforms, such as the content published on the Tinder Nightmares Instagram page, I began to question how women actually experienced the incidents. This research was therefore borne out of my curiosity coupled with a need for more qualitative research on women’s everyday experiences of abuse.
3.3 The Walkthrough Method In phase one of data collection, I critically read Tinder’s technological interface through a ‘walkthrough’ of the app (Light et al. 2016). The walkthrough method is an empirical method and was specifically designed for the study of apps. It is informed by a combined framework of science and technology studies (STS) and cultural studies. Light et al. (2016, 884) developed the walkthrough method to ‘unite STS approaches of tracing technological systems with cultural studies techniques for recognising discursive and symbolic representations.’ The method enables the researcher to examine how an app is presented to users and how users might engage with it (Light 2016). More specifically, walking through an app enables the researcher to comprehensively explore its features and functions to better understand how the app is presented, engaged with, and how it shapes users’ everyday experiences (Light et al. 2016). Researchers using this method can investigate elements of an app’s environment of expected use. This means establishing the platform’s ‘vision, operating model and modes of governance’ (Light et al. 2016, 881). The method also guides the researcher in an analysis of users’ unexpected practices associated with the app. A researcher can determine this through an interrogation of an app's related materials, such as advice blogs (Light 2016). An app’s ancillary media, that is, material which accompanies the platform, such as Terms of Use, marketing videos, and popular media articles can also provide further information. Accompanying these processes is the technical walkthrough. The technical walkthrough affords researchers the opportunity to participate in the activities that registered users regularly engage in,
50 such as registration, everyday use and discontinuation of use. Participating in these processes means ‘working through screens, tapping buttons and exploring menus’ (Light et al. 2016, 891). This part of the walkthrough requires researchers to slow down the process of looking through the app’s interface to illuminate each action.
Digital media researchers have drawn on the walkthrough method to better understand a variety of apps, and how users engage with them. In their article ‘Queer women’s experiences of patchwork platform governance on Tinder, Instagram, and Vine’, Duguay et al. (2018) utilised the walkthrough method to investigate each of the three platforms they studied. For them, this method enabled a deep ‘understanding of how platforms’ formal policies intertwined with their moderation processes and architectural features’ (Duguay et al. 2018, 5). The authors first examined the platforms’-produced materials (for exmaple, blog posts), media coverage (for example, interviews with app CEOs), and ancilliary media (for example, app store descriptions). Second, the authors conducted a ‘technical walkthrough’ of the apps’ features, functions, and screens. Significantly, Duguay et al.’s (2018) walkthrough analyses of Tinder, Instagram, and Vine demonstrated the platforms’ uneven approaches to governance. In his article ‘The rise of speculative devices: Hooking up with the bots of Ashley Madison’ Light (2016) used the walkthrough method to critically read Ashley Madison, a service positioned as a hook-up app for people in relationships. His analysis shed important light on how the bots on the platform operate. The work of these scholars demonstrates the utility of paying close attention to the features of social media platforms.
3.3.1 Tinder Walkthrough I started the technical walkthrough of Tinder in August 2017. While Tinder now offers users a mobile app and desktop version of the platform, I looked at Tinder’s interface through the mobile app since it was the only version available at the time. I conducted the technical walkthrough of Tinder prior to beginning the interviews as it provided information about the app’s textual content, aesthetics, functions and features, which I discussed with the interview participants. The walkthrough informed the sections of my interview schedule related to user engagement with Tinder’s affordances. I was particularly concerned with Tinder’s self-protective measures, including functions such as ‘unmatching’ a user to limit further communication through the app.
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To conduct the walkthrough, I created two study-specific research accounts on Tinder. This allowed me to view the app’s interface from the perspective of two users who had matched on the app. Creating two accounts enabled me to see the private messaging screen that is available to all matches, as only Tinder users who have created a match can communicate with other users. To create a Tinder account, users must provide a Facebook page or mobile phone number. I accordingly created one account using a study-specific Facebook profile, and I used my personal mobile number to create the other.
When setting up and designing my study-specific accounts, I took special care to ensure ‘real’ users were aware of my accounts’ purpose, in order to minimise potential disturbance. On my mobile phone, I screen-captured the words ‘research account’ on a white background to use as the images that accompanied the profiles. After creating these accounts, one heterosexual male (David) seeking women, and one heterosexual female (Vanessa) seeking men, I swiped through Tinder users to create a match between the two accounts. To limit the number of ‘real’ profiles I needed to swipe past to find my research accounts, I limited my maximum distance to two kilometres and the narrowest possible age range my accounts were created within (25-29 years). While this process allowed me to conduct a step-by-step process to mimic Tinder’s intended everyday use, I did not swipe right on (indicate interest in) any ‘real’ users. Once I located my research accounts, however, I swiped right to create the match. I was then able to communicate between the accounts. Following Duguay (2016), I recorded each step of this process by saving screen-captures of Tinder’s interface and keeping notes.
To my knowledge, no studies have adopted the walkthrough method in combination with semi-structured interviews to better understand women’s experiences of intimate intrusions facilitated through Tinder. An app walkthrough offers a framework which guides the researcher in an investigation of an app; however, a researcher cannot understand user experiences on a platform using this method alone (Duguay 2016; Light 2016). Accordingly, to better understand women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder, I paired the walkthrough with semi-structured interviews. As Light et al. (2016, 19) explain: ‘[t]he walkthrough method’s limitations can be addressed by combining methods or data sources.’ Conducting a walkthrough in conjunction with interviews can offer additional insights into user practices (Light 2016). Indeed, the
52 walkthrough method provided an extra layer of analysis to better understand Tinder’s features and faciliated understanding of the interview responses. Adopting the two approaches presents a significant and original contribution to knowledge, as it enabled a better understanding of intimate intrusions facilitated through Tinder.
To supplement the walkthrough of the app’s interface, I reviewed popular media articles about Tinder (see for example, Silva 2016), social media pages (see for example, Tinder Nightmares 2019), Tinder’s blog (Tinder Inc. 2018e), Terms of Use (Tinder Inc. 2018d), marketing materials including information on the Apple App Store (Apple Inc. 2018), and promotional YouTube videos (Tinder Inc. 2018f). Taken together, these materials provided rich background information on Tinder’s affordances and representation in ancillary media.
It should be noted that while I conducted the walkthrough of Tinder prior to the interviews, the findings from this step are outlined in the second results chapter, Chapter Five. I present the findings in this way because I decided it was most appropriate to discuss women’s experiences of intimate intrusions first, followed by the ways in which they used the platform’s affordances, which the walkthrough of Tinder helped to demonstrate.
3.3.2 Walkthrough reflections The walkthrough of Tinder provided invaluable insight into the platform’s affordances and how these may shape user behaviour and culture, more broadly. After a preliminary investigation of the platform, it became clear how Tinder’s architectural design may shape users’ engagement with the platform and the features it offers. This step, for instance, demonstrated how Tinder’s then reporting mechanism could affect users’ experiences and feelings of safety on the service. Given that some of the women I interviewed had not used Tinder’s reporting mechanism—and in fact did not know it existed—the walkthrough of the platform meant that I did not need to rely on the interview participants’ knowledge to describe Tinder’s features. At the time that I conducted the walkthrough, the reporting mechanism was hidden behind a non- descript button. For this reason, exploring Tinder’s technological interface in this way enabled me to learn the safety features that the service provides, while also allowing me to better understand why the interviewees engaged with Tinder in the ways that they did.
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3.4 Qualitative Semi-Structured Interviews Contributing to the background of walkthrough data, I conducted 17 face-to-face semi- structured interviews. I decided face-to-face interviews were most appropriate as they allowed me to build maximum rapport with participants. Building rapport enables researchers to be more approachable, obtain more meaningful responses (Bryman 2001; Lichtman 2014), and promotes a respectful research relationship (Curtis and Curtis 2011; Qu and Dumay 2011). And given the possibility for participants to discuss a range of intrusive experiences, rapport was important for me to develop. Gender- based violence researchers frequently use semi-structured interviews to study women’s experiences of gendered violence (see for example, Ismail et al. 2007; Shute et al. 2007; Tolman et al. 2016) and everyday experiences of abuse (see for example, Kelly 1988; Vera-Gray 2014).
The semi-structured interview design was the most appropriate format for the current study as it allowed me to clarify participant responses, elaborate on information, and improvise some questions when unexpected leads arose (Arksey and Knight 1999; Bryman 2001; Glesne 2011; Lichtman 2014). As is common with a semi-structured format, some questions were not planned. Since the interviewees were able to discuss any experience which made them feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe in the context of their Tinder use, this meant that the interviews could take unexpected turns. Because of this, the semi-structured interview schedule allowed me to adapt each interview to the particular participant. The flexibility of my interview schedule (see Appendix A) gave participants a chance to recall and return to experiences which may not have immediately occurred to them. In the context of intrusive experiences, which women might consider ordinary, this provided the interviewees an important opportunity. In addition, participants may benefit from the semi-structured approach as they can choose the scope of their response, that is, how much they detail they would like to provide in response to questions (Arksey and Knight 1999; Bryman 2001; Qu and Dumay 2011). Although participants could choose to limit their responses to a range of open-ended questions, the semi-structured format was designed to elicit rich narratives about the women’s experiences. In this way, the interview structure maximised the interviewees’ ability to define and communicate their experiences without the constraints of a rigid interview protocol.
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While I used a semi-structured interview format, I referred to the interview schedule throughout the meetings to ensure I asked all pre-determined questions (Lichtman 2014). This enhanced the consistency of the interview data yet still allowed for a reflexive (Arthur and Nazroo 2003), less formal approach (Arksey and Knight 1999). Although a range of unexpected leads were explored, I primarily collected information relating to the following topics: the types of intimate intrusions participants experienced in the context of their Tinder use; how they made sense of, and responded to such intrusions; the impacts of these experiences; and the mitigation strategies participants adopted, including use of Tinder’s safety features adopted to avoid future intimate intrusions on Tinder.
3.4.1 The Social Media ‘Scroll Back’ To complement participants’ interview responses, I adopted the social media ‘scroll back’ (Robards 2012). Following Dubrofsky (2011), I encouraged participants to bring and refer to their mobile phones during the interviews so that they could retrieve older information. In their study of young people’s ‘growing up’ narratives on Facebook Timelines, Lincoln and Robards (2017, 521-522) found that scroll backs ‘layered with the reflections, insights, and analyses of participants produced rich, complex narratives that we as researchers would not have been able to decode from scrolling back through these Timelines ourselves.’ For the interview participants, scroll backs enabled them to look through their mobile phones to help recount details of their experiences on Tinder. I described this opportunity on the participant information and consent sheets, which I sent to participants and other women who expressed interest in the study. Incorporating scroll backs in the face-to-face interviews helped me to explore the scope of women’s intimate intrusions facilitated by Tinder. More specifically, incorporating scroll backs enabled the interviewees to provide more examples and details of their experiences.
Participant scroll backs were primarily used as a memory prompting tool. Given that, as I highlighted in my literature review, intimate intrusions are so frequent and normalised as part of men’s natural behaviour they have become ordinary, women’s memories of their experiences may be unclear, as Vera-Gray (2014) found. Memory is also unlikely to provide an accurate rendition of experiences (Kimmel 2002). Prior to her interview, research participant Josie had scrolled back through her mobile phone to find messages on Tinder and those which she had screen-captured and
55 saved to discuss with me. Doing so enabled her to read aloud a variety of messages she had received from Tinder users. It also prompted her memory to help her describe how she felt when she received these messages, along with other details from the incidents.
While Josie conducted this step prior to meeting with me, some participants scrolled back through their messages during the interviews, as Robards (2012) did in his work on Facebook. The women I interviewed self-managed their scrolling back through Tinder messages, meaning I did not ask to see their content. However, following Lincoln and Robards (2017) use of interview scroll backs, participants were invited to discuss their findings within the interviews. For instance, Rachael’s interview scroll back led her to discuss more than 50 intrusive messages she had received from one Tinder user. Significantly, before scrolling back through her mobile phone, she estimated she had received around 20 messages from the user. Rachael’s efforts to scroll back during the interview also gave me the opportunity to see her reaction when she remembered the messages the user had sent her. Another benefit of the scroll backs was that it helped the interviewees remember the steps they took to mitigate further intimate intrusions on Tinder. For these reasons, scroll backs proved invaluable for understanding participants’ experiences.
3.4.2 Interview Sampling and Recruitment This thesis adopted a convenience, self-selecting sampling method on the basis of three criteria. I used a convenience sample because the interview participants were required to meet the eligibility criteria of being a woman using Tinder, and who were prepared to answer the specific interview questions. Interview participants were required to be women living in Brisbane between 18 – 30 years of age who were past or present Tinder users and had experienced intimate intrusions via the app. All of the women in the sample were looking for male Tinder users. I limited the age of interviewees to 18 – 30 because women outside of this age bracket may experience different forms of intrusion. The potential for younger and older population differences in internet and social media behaviour and experiences justify research focused on these populations. For instance, there is a consensus among criminologists that senior citizens are ‘attractive targets for potential fraud offenders’ (Cross 2017, 77). This might suggest that younger and older women experience different forms of intrusion on Tinder. I conducted the interviews with participants residing in the Brisbane
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Metropolitan area to facilitate interviews accessible to me on a limited PhD student budget. To ensure the confidentiality and comfort of the research participants, I chose not to collect demographic information. Given that the study required interview participants to discuss sensitive personal experiences, I wanted to make them feel as comfortable as possible during the interviews. At the same time, since Brisbane is a relatively low populated city, I was cautious that demographic information, coupled with details of the women’s experiences, could more easily reveal the identities of the women.
I created a study-specific Facebook page to recruit participants. I asked friends to ‘share’ the online study flyer to their Facebook networks. I also ‘shared’ the flyer on various Brisbane group pages, such as university and Brisbane singles groups. Interested candidates were directed to contact me using the details provided in the advertisement. However, some women also directly private messaged the research study Facebook page. I responded to the interested candidates by sending the participant information and consent forms which outlined the study and what was required for participant’s involvement in the research. I arranged a day and time to interview interested volunteers, collecting the signed participant consent forms at the interviews. Given that I am a young woman living in Brisbane, I found sharing the study flyer with my friends enabled me to easily reach the target audience. I reached a saturation point, with women reporting similar experiences and risk mitigation strategies, after conducting 17 interviews. The interviews ranged from approximately 25 to 90 minutes. Lastly, to ensure rigorous analyses and accurate descriptions of the interviewees’ experiences, only women who consented to an audio-recorded interview could participate in the study.
3.4.3 Interview Reflections Conducting the semi-structured interviews, coupled with the social media ‘scroll backs’, made it clear that we need to hear more from women about their lived experiences of intrusion. The way the interviewees often described their experiences demonstrated that they did not talk about their experiences as if they were violent or abusive. Similar to what Kelly (1988) found in her research on women’s experiences of sexual violence, I began to notice the different ways that women refer to sexual violence. While the interviewees often avoided describing their experiences of intrusion as abusive, it became clear that the participants were more willing to discuss
57 experiences that, to them, were likely to be validated as intrusive. Sitting face-to-face with the interview participants, however, afforded me the ability to further prompt the participants to better understand the range of behaviours that they themselves experienced as intrusive.
Upon reflection, how the interviewees described their experiences and the cheerful nature of the interviews, I was surprised by the laborious and draining exercise of transcribing the audio-recordings. While, of course, this was a lengthy task, it was only after seeing the experiences in writing that I was able to see the extent of the women’s experiences. For these reasons, the semi-structured interview format allowed me to develop a better understanding of how women describe and understand their experiences, which might not be captured by other methods.
3.5 Data Analysis: Thematic Analysis Upon completion of the interviews, I transcribed the audio recordings. I used thematic analysis to code the interview transcripts. Braun and Clarke (2006, 79) explain that, ‘thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data.’ It is therefore the aim of the analytical approach to ‘identify, analyse and report the key themes from the data’ (Caulfield and Hill 2014, 183). I followed Braun and Clarke’s (2006) ‘phases of thematic analysis’ to analyse the data. This process comprised of transcribing the interviews verbatim to gain familiarisation and a deeper understanding of the data (Braun and Clarke 2006; Caulfield and Hill 2014). Next, I re-read the transcripts to enable myself greater immersion in the data. During this process, I wrote down ideas and began the initial coding of the data (Braun and Clarke 2006; Green et al. 2007).
Coding is the process of searching through the data, identifying interesting aspects, applying short descriptions (Braun and Clarke 2006; Thornberg and Charmaz 2011), and categorising in such a way that sorts content by concept. While coding the data, I took further notes to aid writing up the findings. I employed both open and axial coding techniques. Open coding is the identification and classifying of phenomena that have emerged through analysis of the data. In contrast to this, axial coding draws on concepts that researchers have previously identified (Gray 2014). The use of both techniques allowed for a comprehensive and flexible analysis of the data (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane 2006). To assist data management and coding, I used the
58 computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) NVivo (Caulfield and Hill 2014). CAQDAS enables researchers to ensure complete and systematic analysis of the data. NVivo can help researchers to work in a methodical manner and ensure the data are subjected to rigorous analysis (Bazeley 2007).
During the coding phase, I identified themes in the data set. Moving beyond the initial description of data patterns through codes, ‘a theme captures something important about the data in relation to the research question, and represents some level of patterned response or meaning within the data set’ (Braun and Clarke 2006, 82). As such, the thematic analysis allowed me to interpret the data and present it in a coherent and meaningful way, which illustrated the key themes identified in the women’s responses. Following Caulfield and Hill (2014), I continued to return to the data set throughout the analysis process to deepen understanding, encourage the development of ideas and refine the themes. While working through these steps, I returned to earlier stages intermittently to ensure research validity through comprehensive evaluation. Finally, the distinct and prominent elements of the data were illustrated in the last step, writing up the thesis (Braun and Clarke 2006).
3.6 Limitations Despite the merits of the current study, some limitations do require consideration. First, the sampling design may have limited the study. As the research population formed a convenience sample, the findings only reflect the experiences of the women who participated in the study. It is also a limitation that I chose not to collect demographic information from the interview participants. Since the women I interviewed were limited to women seeking men on Tinder, their experiences may be vastly different to those of same-sex attracted women, for instance. Investigating different intersections will help to shed further important light on the problem. It may also be the case that the self-select sample presented a bias compared with the general population as those with particularly interesting experiences may have selected to be interviewed. Recruiting participants through social networking sites may also result in an overrepresented sample of highly active digital media users (Utz and Beukeboom 2011). It should also be noted that as Tinder was the only dating app studied, the findings cannot be generalised to other dating apps. However, at all stages of the research I was aware of these limitations and recognised that the data are not intended
59 to be generalisable to the entire population, as is the nature of qualitative research (Whittemore et al. 2001).
The interviews may have also presented possible limitations for the study. For example, some participants may have been more articulate and perceptive than others. The presence of the researcher can also influence interviewee’s responses (Creswell 2014). Further, given women may consider intimate intrusions on Tinder common and ordinary, it is possible that the interviewees failed to remember all of their experiences. It might also have been the case that participants did not discuss experiences they considered unworthy of documentation. However, I was aware of this limitation and adopted various strategies to mitigate this risk. For example, following various gender-based violence researchers (Barter et al. 2009), I ensured the interview schedule did not include words which could be misinterpreted, such as ‘violence’ and ‘abuse.’ Asking participants to discuss the experiences which made them feel uncomfortable, uneasy, and unsafe served to help with this problem. As noted earlier, the social media scroll backs also helped to prompt interviewees’ memories. Finally, although my research provided rich insight into women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder, my findings cannot provide evidence of men’s motivations for engaging in the behaviour.
3.7 Ethical Considerations There were a number of ethical considerations I needed to consider for this thesis. Pursuant to the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research 2007, the research required ethical clearance prior to beginning the data collection. The QUT Human Research Ethics Committee approved the research (approval number 1700000358) in July 2017. This research received ethical clearance for collecting interview, scroll back, and walkthrough data. I adhered to the strict guidelines of the ethical clearance throughout the research process. The next two sections outline key ethical considerations related to the walkthrough of Tinder and the interviews.
3.7.1 Ethics Considerations for Walkthroughs It is important to acknowledge the ethical considerations related to the walkthrough of Tinder. Walking through Tinder meant that I could observe user names, photographs, and other biographical information. While it was not the intention of my research to view Tinder profiles, in order to find my study-specific profile and create a match, I
60 needed to swipe through user profiles. However, as noted above, I used Tinder’s affordances to limit the age range and maximum distance to reduce the amount of Tinder users I observed. While limiting the search criteria in this way helped me to quickly create a match between my research accounts, I did swipe through ‘real’ user profiles. However, I did not read or make any notes on these profiles, ‘to ensure that no "private" data [was] made unwittingly or unnecessarily […] "public"’ (Light et al. 2008, 304). Since it is not the purpose of the walkthrough to ‘analyse user content, activity, or attitudes’ (Light et al. 2016), I did not interact with user profiles. And since the aim of the research is to better understand women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder, I did not need to document ‘real’ user profiles in any way.
As I created two study-specific Tinder profiles, it is likely that Tinder users saw my profiles. Since Tinder requires a ‘double opt-in’, meaning that two people must swipe right on each other’s profiles to create a match, there was no risk of communicating with ‘real’ users on the platform. However, as Light et al. (2016, 895-896) point out: ‘[…] while the walkthrough avoids interaction with users, there is the possibility that it may disturb users anyway.’ Indeed, Tinder users could have engaged with my research accounts by viewing my profile and swiping right to indicate interest in it. Because of this, I took steps to minimise Tinder users’ engagement with my research accounts. Following Light's (2007) research on men’s gendered experiences of information systems, I ensured that my Tinder profiles clearly stated the accounts were for research purposes. As noted earlier, the profile images I uploaded to the accounts also included the words ‘research study’ on a white background. After creating the match between my research accounts, I then disabled the app’s ‘show me on Tinder’ mechanism on each of my profiles, to ensure that users could not continue to view my profiles.
3.7.2 Ethics Considerations for Interviews Participants discussed sensitive topics during the interviews. This is important to consider, given all forms of intrusion can have cumulative impacts on women and the harm can differ greatly (Fileborn 2018; Kelly 1988). But given the ordinariness of intimate intrusions on Tinder, there could be a critique that I put a greater focus on the interviewees’ experiences than they did, which could have created negative consequences for them. However, since the interviewees self-selected to participate in the research and provided necessary consent, the risk of this is considered to be
61 low. While this critique is important to consider, it is possible that letting women discuss the experiences that made them feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe in the context of their Tinder use serves to reaffirm their experiences. As noted earlier, women’s experiences of intrusion can be downplayed and invalidated. Nationally-representative research focused on violence against women often documents the ‘most serious’ instances of abuse, or incidents which meet definitions of criminal behaviour (Stanko 1985). Giving women an opportunity to discuss their everyday experiences of intrusion may, in fact, validate them (Currie and MaClean 1997), and could help reduce guilt and shame they might feel (Probyn 2005). Indeed, gender-based violence scholars have found that many women consider participating in violence research to be beneficial (Garcia-Moreno et al. 2001).
In light of the sensitive research population, I was aware of the potential for the interview participants to feel discomfort or distress during the interviews. As I am a young woman of a similar to age to the research participants, it is likely that this eased their discomfort. As Garcia-Moreno et al. (2001) explain in their ethical and safety recommendations for research on domestic violence against women, female interviewees feel most comfortable discussing their experiences of violence with other women. To help further mitigate the risk of participant discomfort or distress, I informed participants that they did not have to answer questions they did not feel comfortable answering. I also told them that they were permitted to withdraw from the interview process up until eight weeks following the interviews, without penalty. I collated counselling information from a range of Brisbane support services, which I gave to participants upon meeting. To begin the interviews, I asked the women ice breaker questions to help build rapport. Following Campbell’s (2002) suggestion in her research on the impact of researching rape, I asked the interviewees questions about their experiences of intrusion at the beginning of the interviews to ensure they were not holding anxiety about discussing their experiences for an extended period of time. As Ellsberg et al. (2001) recommend, I also let participants disclose their experiences at various stages of the interviews. I adopted this flexible approach to give them the opportunity to disclose experiences when they had built trust and felt more comfortable. Doing so also gave participants more time to discuss experiences, which may have helped enhance disclosure. To conclude the interviews, I ended on a
62 positive note to help relieve any discomfort the participants may have felt (Arthur and Nazroo 2003).
I assured the interviewees confidentiality of their identities. Protecting interviewee confidentiality in research related to VAW is of fundamental importance (Garcia- Moreno et al. 2001). While the interviews were audio-recorded as a requirement for participation, to maintain strict confidentiality, all participants were given the opportunity to pick a pseudonym. For interviewees who did not pick a pseudonym, I picked names for them. I recorded the interviews using my personal password-locked laptop and passcode-locked mobile phone. I saved the interview recordings and transcripts on a secure university-based research server. In case of technology failure, I printed hard copies of the transcripts, which have been stored in the research facility. These steps were taken to ensure the highest level of confidentiality for participants.
It was also important that I consider third-party privacy concerns. Although some participants read aloud the messages they had received, at the beginning of the interviews, I explained to participants that they were not permitted to share the names of Tinder users they interacted with. While they were not permitted to discuss personally identifiable information, the amount of information they provided about their experiences was up to them. It should also be noted that although some of the interviewees read their Tinder messages verbatim, these cannot be traced back to the senders. Given the messages were sent through Tinder and other social media platforms’ private messaging services and text messages, only the users who participated in the conversation could view them. This means that the data is not searchable on internet databases.
3.8 Conclusion The purpose of this chapter was to present the research methods I employed to fulfil the study’s aim. At this time, there is no research focusing on women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder. To better understand women’s experiences in this context, a qualitative approach proved the most appropriate to highlight the problem. This chapter presented my use of the walkthrough method for studying apps (Light et al. 2016), and semi-structured interviews that utilise scroll back interviewing techniques (Robards 2012). I then described the suitability and benefit that the combination of these methods afforded the study. This combination provided me the
63 best opportunity to understand Tinder’s affordances, while also providing a platform for women to describe their experiences in their own words.
Following this, I outlined the thematic analysis I conducted. This analytic technique provided the most appropriate way to analyse women’s experiences. I then outlined the study limitations and my strategies to help mitigate the impact of these. To conclude the chapter, I discussed the ethical considerations for the walkthrough of Tinder and semi-structured interviews for the current study. The following three chapters (Four, Five and Six) present the findings I obtained from using the research methods described in this chapter. More specifically, Chapter Four outlines the range of intimate intrusions the interviewees experienced in the context of their Tinder use.
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CHAPTER FOUR: INTIMATE INTRUSIONS ON TINDER
4.1 Introduction The next three chapters present findings from 17 semi-structured interviews about women's experiences of intimate intrusions facilitated via Tinder. My findings indicate that participants’ experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder are relatively common and take many different forms, providing empirical evidence that builds on and reinforces the extant literature on harassment and abuse as well as popular and social media reports. Chapter Four describes everyday experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder and their impact on women. This chapter answers research question one: what are women’s experiences of intimate intrusions in the context of Tinder use? Additionally, the Chapter begins to answer research questions two and three: how do women understand these intrusions?; how do women respond to intimate intrusions when they happen? And what measures, if any, do they use to mitigate future intrusions?
I encouraged participants to guide the discussion of intimate intrusions on Tinder, moving away from predetermined legal definitions or lists of behaviours, which might artificially circumscribe women’s experiences, to gain a more holistic understanding. It was important for the women I interviewed to describe the experiences they identified as making them feel uneasy, uncomfortable, or unsafe in the context of their Tinder use. Enabling participants to discuss the experiences they defined in this way was important, given that ‘the parameters of "typical" male behaviour have been constructed from a male perspective rather than from women's experience’ (Larkin 1991, 109). This means that the behaviours women consider to be intrusive may not be recognised by others in this way. The interviewees were able to discuss the experiences they wanted to discuss without the confines of preconceived definitions of abuse. Participants described incidents which occurred online while using Tinder and on other platforms that they used to communicate with their Tinder matches. Their experiences and discussions of men's intrusive behaviour also included physical meetings after matching through the app.
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To begin the chapter, I outline the intrusive messages participants received. These messages often comprised of immediate demands for sex, attacks on gendered and sexual identities, possessive and controlling messages, and unsolicited ‘dick pics’2. Other forms of intrusion included misrepresented identities and physical intrusions, which were experienced in offline settings. Following this, I provide some important context by highlighting how the interviewees negotiated contradictions in their conceptualisations of intimate intrusions. To conclude this chapter, I illustrate the strategies the interviewees employed to mitigate the potential for further intimate intrusions on Tinder. Intimate intrusions caused participants to circumscribe their online activity, such as by temporarily or permanently discontinuing Tinder use. They also led participants to changes their behaviour in physical settings. Finally, I document how intimate intrusions on Tinder altered the interviewees’ world views and perspectives.
The continuum of sexual violence provided a useful frame to render visible the variety of intimate intrusions that may not be recognised in legal definitions of crime and diverse settings, and the cultural factors that shape them. The key points of the continuum of sexual violence are: gendered forms of abuse and harassment are not rare crimes. They are experienced by the majority of women and are therefore ‘ordinary’, rather than ‘aberrant’; ‘ordinary’ experiences of abuse have cumulative effects that can be as important as physical violence and; the focus on forms of physical violence that are recognised as aberrant distracts us from addressing more common and everyday experiences of abuse (Kelly 1988). To better understand women’s experiences of intimate intrusions in the context of Tinder use, this chapter focuses on the first two points of the continuum: ordinariness and the cumulative impact of intimate intrusions.
The experiences discussed throughout this chapter are not an exhaustive list of all the experiences that the women who I interviewed indicated. Rather, they present a collection of some of the most common experiences they shared with me and the most common themes that emerged therein. Significantly, the interviewees demonstrated how their experiences of intrusion were connected. Often women do not know how to categorise intrusive behaviour, but it makes them feel threatened (Stanko 1985).
2 An unsolicited ‘dick pic’ includes any instance where ‘boys and men send girls and women unwanted and shocking images of their genitals’ (Salter 2016, 2730). 66
Given the complexities of these experiences, this means that I return to some of the themes discussed throughout this chapter later in the thesis. More specifically, I return to cross-platform convergence; male entitlement; intrusion mitigation strategies; the normalisation of abuse; and the minimisation and invalidation of women’s experiences more fully in Chapters Five and Six.
4.2 Online Intimate Intrusions When I asked the interviewees to recount their experiences, the majority described or read intrusive messages they had received during their Tinder use. These messages were received through Tinder and also when they moved their communication to other platforms. Many of the interviewees explained they had deleted intrusive messages they had received because they were troubling. In these instances, however, the interviewees recounted their most memorable interactions. Alternatively, some of the messages described throughout this section were read verbatim from participants’ mobile phones. As such, throughout this chapter and the two that follow, I quote the messages the interviewees received in their entirety. Following Jane (2014, 559) in her work on gendered cyberhate, I have included direct quotes in their ‘unexpurgated entirety because euphemisms and generic descriptors such as ‘offensive’ or ‘sexually explicit’ simply cannot convey the hostile and hyperbolic misogyny which gives gendered e-bile the distinctive semiotic flavour’ (Emphasis in original). Indeed, many interviewees recalled vitriolic outbursts from their Tinder matches, which are presented below.
The most common form of intimate intrusion the interviewees discussed were messages they received through Tinder’s instant messaging service. It should be noted that while the interviewees were using Tinder to interact with other users, they made a distinction between wanted and unwanted messages. To better understand their experiences of intimate intrusions, in this study, I asked the interviewees to describe intrusive messages as messages that made them feel uneasy, uncomfortable, or unsafe. The quoted and messages in this section, therefore, reflect this understanding.
4.2.1 Sexualised Messages Most of the intrusive messages participants received were overtly sexual in nature and often depicted a desire or expectation to engage in sexual activity. Tinder users
67 commonly sent these messages to participants immediately upon matching, which were generally unaccompanied by more extensive conversation. While some interviewees did not mind such sexual advances, they were troubled by particularly lewd language and continuous unsolicited requests. This finding is consistent with digital media and psychological research, which demonstrates that women feel uncomfortable when they receive unsolicited sexual advances (Baumgartner et al. 2010; Chan 2018; Matthews et al. 2018). As an example of intrusive sexualised messages, three interviewees received variations of ‘come over and sit on my face.’ Unfortunately, this sexualised imagery was far from unusual; other intrusive messages were often phrased as questions, including: ‘hey princess, wanna suck my cock?’; ‘do you do anal?’; ‘do you like it really rough in bed?’; ‘keen to fuck?’; and ‘sex?’ Josie recalled an experience when a man asked her about her body: ‘“do you have an innie or an outie?” She explained the Tinder user’s question: ‘regarding the vagina, the labia and the vulva and stuff.’ Sometimes these sexualised messages were sent as statements. Rachael, for instance, received a message stating: ‘I’ll give you $300 for a blow job.’ And Kimberly recounted a message which read: ‘I want to see where you bleed from.’
Recent gender-based violence and digital media research emphasises how women experience similar behaviours in a variety of contexts. In their study of technology- facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) victimisation, Powell and Henry (2016) found that of their 2,956 survey respondents, 29% reported receiving unwanted sexually explicit images, comments, emails, or text messages. Additionally, 21.3% of respondents reported receiving repeated and/or unwanted sexual requests online or via email or text message. The Australia Institute’s nationally-representative survey on women’s experiences of street harassment highlighted that 84% of women have experienced a form of non-physical street harassment, which includes repeated unwelcomed sexual advances and lewd and sexist comments (Johnson and Bennett 2015). From another perspective, Haywood’s (2018) research on men’s mobile dating practices can provide empirical support for men’s engagement in this behaviour. During his interviews, he observed that one interviewee claimed to use Tinder with his friends to determine, ‘who could be the most disgusting with women online’ (Haywood 2018, 143).
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Less commonly, but nonetheless intrusive, the interviewees received sexualised messages following a positive conversation. Sasha and Mia, for instance, described their experiences of this. Sasha explained:
The worst one I think that I had was I matched with a guy and we talked for a bit and that was really fun, we were having a general, normal conversation that wasn’t…it wasn’t overly flirtatious or of that nature and then he all of a sudden started to turn really into about what I would like to do in bed, what my experience, previous experiences were (Sasha). Similarly, Mia recalled an experience with a man she had given her mobile phone number to:
I had one guy that I was talking to and he just kind of switched and seemed a bit crazy. And was like, sexting, but saying, like, “I wanna choke you” and like, “make you cry” and really awful things and I was like, this is disgusting (Mia). As these accounts highlight, many of the messages indicate that the interviewees’ matches interpreted their presence on Tinder as implied consent to participate in immediate sexual activity. But since participants had not consented to the behaviours, the intrusions expose the men’s sense of sexual entitlement. Researchers such as Jordan (1987) and Tolman (1994) have highlighted how male sexual entitlement may be reinforced by a lack of attention placed on women’s desire in sex education. More recently, Thompson (2018, 69) argues that explicitly sexualised messages depict a ‘missing discourse of consent.’ Inspired by Fine’s (1988) ‘missing discourse of desire’ (the seldom acknowledgement of girls’ sexual desire in school-based sex education), Thompson’s (2018) analysis of sexist abuse and harassment on the Instagrams Bye Felipe and Tinder Nightmares shows how the published messages are illustrative of men’s demands for sex, aggressive sexual invitations, and threats of sexual violence. This ‘missing discourse of consent’ is ‘predicted on assumptions that men should have free market access to heterosex on dating apps and be situated in a dominant and more powerful position than (sexualised and objectified) feminine subjects’ (Thompson 2018, 84). Indeed, these findings accord with interviewees’ recounted messages, which espoused their implied consent to engage in immediate sexual activity, and ignored their motivations for using the app.
While the majority of the women I interviewed explained they were using Tinder to date, they conflated the app’s purpose with their matches’ desired user experience.
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Indeed, many of the interviewees defined Tinder as a hook-up app. As Carpenter and McEwan (2016) found in their study of dating app user motivations, men who use dating apps are often seeking sexual partners. Similarly, Sumter et al.’s (2017, 74) investigation of adults’ motivations for using Tinder found that male Tinder users were more likely to be using the app for casual sex than female Tinder users. Of course, empirical research is needed to better understand men’s motivations for sending intrusive messages on Tinder. However, it is interesting to note that the interviewees considered Tinder a hook-up app because of their experiences of intrusion. But despite the interviewees’ beliefs that many men use Tinder as a hook-up app, they believed some users were looking for serious relationships, and sought to determine this through an analysis of their photographs and written biographical information. As we will see below and in Chapter Five, participants employed a variety of measures to mitigate intimate intrusions, and encourage more authentic communication.
4.2.2 Sexual Double Standard At the same time that the interviewees were expected to engage in sexual activity, they were denounced for their perceived promiscuity. This finding raises important issues around what is deemed appropriate conduct for men and women in the context of mobile dating. As Citron and Franks (2014, 108) point out: ‘women would be seen as immoral sluts for engaging in sexual activity, whereas men’s sexual activity is generally a point of pride.’ Research participant Keira recalled an online conversation with a match: ‘“you look like you would get it.” And when I was like “what would I get?” They were like “the D, obviously”’ (Keira quoting a Tinder user). While the interviewees were denounced for their apparent promiscuity, different standards of sexual permissiveness were observed through their Tinder matches’ bragging about their sexual experiences. Paradoxically, the interviewees’ matches insulted them with accusations of promiscuity when they rejected their sexual advances. As Lara explained:
[…] if I don’t send pictures or if I refuse to meet up with someone, with the intention of having sex, and I say “no” it’s always like “you’re a bitch. You’re a slut. I can hook up with girls 10 times hotter than you” (Lara). After failing to quickly respond to one Tinder match, Rachael received in excess of 50 messages where the user described, in excruciating detail, how he would rape her. Among the barrage of abuse, the Tinder match explained: ‘[y]ou’re obviously a lesbian.
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Dumb slut. Your tits look too big. It’s like you are advertising to the world by the size of your tits that you’re a slut’ (Rachael quoting a Tinder user). This Tinder user’s vitriolic outburst highlights a number of important issues. First, it is interesting to note that he endeavours to ‘slut-shame’3 Rachael after describing how he would rape her. In doing so, he also demonstrates his attempts to deflect attention from his intrusive behaviour. His illogical messages and criticising of her photographs further illustrate how men and women are ‘subjected to different “rules” regarding sexual behavior’ (Crawford and Popp 2003, 13). During his burst of hyperbolic and sexualised vitriol (Jane 2014), he draws upon negative female stereotypes by calling her a slut and lesbian. The Tinder user’s behaviour can be explained by research which shows us that sexual assault perpetrators use negative female stereotypes to mask their abusive behaviour (Clark and Quadara 2010; McOrdmond-Plummer 2016).
The sexual double standard the interviewees recounted is similar to experiences reported in popular media. In 2015, then 23-year-old Australian woman Olivia Melville was subject to a tirade of abuse following Tinder user Chris Hall sharing her Tinder profile to his Facebook page. Melville’s profile quoted a lyric by male rapper Drake, which said: ‘The type of girl that will suck you dry and then eat some lunch with you’ (Lattouf 2016). One of Hall’s friends, Zane Alchin, made rape threats to Melville on Facebook, and was subsequently charged and convicted for his behaviour (Kembrey 2016). Alchin’s efforts to ‘slut-shame’ and police Melville were ironic, since he did so by making rape threats against her. In this way, his behaviour highlights the sexual double standard women are held to. At the same time, as some commenters of the Facebook post pointed out, Drake received international acclaim for performing the same lyrics (Jane 2017). This example is significant because it demonstrates how women can be held to different standards in the context of mobile dating on Tinder.
4.2.3 Angry When Turned Down The sexual double standards the interviewees experienced also sheds lights on their Tinder matches’ anger when they were turned down. As Rachael’s match who sent around 50 intrusive messages described above further explained:
3 Karaian (2014, 296) defines slut-shaming as, ‘the act of criticizing women or girls for their real or presumed sexuality or sexual activity, as well as for looking or behaving in ways that are believed to transgress sexual norms.’ 71
“Why can’t I have a beautiful girl to go out with for a change? Why do the ugly losers get you first? It’s not fucking fair. I’m a good person, at least I was a good person until I got rejected and humiliated too many times by girls like you. I should’ve just reported you from the start for being rude. Message me back” (Rachael quoting a Tinder user). It is unsurprising that Rachael reluctantly messaged the Tinder user, given his violent messages and attempts to gaslight4 her. In particular, interviewees explained how their Tinder matches became angry when they explicitly turned down their sexual advances. Josie, for instance, recalled the intrusive messages she received following a physical intrusion. Josie recounted the following experience when she asked a man to leave her home:
I had a guy come over to my house just for a drink. We weren’t doing anything and then he got really handsy. And I was like “okay, we’re not doing this anymore” and he left and just started spamming me up and just blew up my phone on Tinder calling me a whore, that I was all this and it was like “cock tease” cause I invited him over and it’s like, okay well, I’m not gonna deal with this (Josie). These responses support Stratmoen et al.’s (2018) research on romantic rejection where they found men sometimes respond aggressively to women who turn down— what men believe to be—romantic advances. One possible explanation for this behaviour, Woerner et al. (2018) argue is that men who respond aggressively to a woman’s sexual rejection do so to convince themselves that they are not to blame. As noted above, Rachael’s Tinder match explained: ‘you’re obviously a lesbian’ when she turned down his advances. As such, it may be the case that Tinder users’ insults based on the interviewees’ sexuality served to diffuse their blameworthiness. But at the same time, Josie’s experience highlights how digital media can exacerbate offline forms of intrusion, since the man used Tinder’s private messaging service to continue to send intrusive messages following the physical incident. As Powell and Henry (2016, 2-3) have sought to recognise in their research on TFSV victimisation:
[…] rather than existing in a distinct offline/online dualism, contemporary manifestations of sexual violence are increasingly and variously mediated, facilitated, or extended via the Internet and other digital communications and technologies, including the use of images and social media.
4 Gaslighting is a form of emotional manipulation employed by abusers to, ‘undermine an intended target person’s reality and mental stability’ (Hightower 2017, v; see also Gass and Nichols 1988). 72
As we will see throughout this chapter, the online/offline binary became especially blurred when the interviewees met in-person with Tinder users.
4.2.4 Critiques of Women’s Appearances Another common theme evident in the intrusive messages interviewees received was scathing critiques of their appearances. Jade and Lara, for instance, received cruel messages about their weight. Jade described her Tinder profile which included a line explaining that she likes burgers. She recalled one message from a Tinder user concerning this comment, which read: ‘oh yeah, you would like burgers, hey’ (Jade quoting a Tinder user). Similarly, Lara explained the messages she commonly received when she refused to send photographs on the photo-sharing social media platform Snapchat: ‘[…] there’s a lot of personal attacks about, you know, my weight and my tattoo, as well’ (Lara). Zoe used pictures of cartoon characters on her Tinder profile to mask her ‘true’ identity. Despite this strategy, one of her Tinder matches found a way to comment on her appearance, when he concluded: ‘you must be pretty gross if you don’t have a photo of yourself’ (Zoe quoting a Tinder user).
The messages participants received illustrate a number of recurring characteristics of intimate intrusions online. Similar to what Jane (2014, 560) found in her research on e-bile, the matches passed ‘scathing, appearance-related judgments’; they exhibited their perceived control over women’s bodies (through graphic and sexualised imagery); and they also policed women through gender stereotypes. Likewise, in her analysis of the #mencallmethings hashtag (a Twitter hashtag dedicated to reproducing women’s experiences of online harassment), Megarry (2014) observed that experiences ranged from name calling to threats of sexual violence. Her research highlighted how ‘many comments displayed a preoccupation with physical appearance and suggested that a woman's worth and value lies in her sexual appeal to men’ (Megarry 2014, 50). My findings can also provide further evidence for Thompson’s (2018) study on the Instagram accounts Bye Felipe and Tinder Nightmares, in which she observed how women’s denigrations could be grouped into the categories ‘fat’ and ‘not hot enough.’
4.2.5 Possessive and Controlling Messages While many of the messages the interviewees received were overtly intrusive, at times, the intrusions were less obvious. Despite the more covert nature of these interactions,
73 these experiences also made participants feel uncomfortable. As Larkins (1991, 112) points out:
Women’s experiences of sexual harassment must be understood in context, for in many instances ostensibly harmless (even friendly) comments (i.e., “Hi, how are you?”) are intrusions on women’s private space to which men assume they have a territorial right. There are similarities here between these street harassment findings and intimate intrusions on Tinder. For example, while Tinder users who engaged in this behaviour did not send overtly abusive messages, they exhibited attempts to control women’s behaviour through their relentless communication.
Many of the interviewees recalled experiences where men had sent seemingly friendly messages, which they experienced as intrusive. These interactions were generally interspersed with Tinder matches’ repetitive and controlling messages, and often highlighted their refusal to acknowledge or accept participants’ nonconsent. As Jade explained:
[…] another thing is actually how clingy some dudes are on the app when you kind of make it quite clear that you’re not interested. But they keep kind of messaging you and it might not actually be anything rude, but it might just be “how’s your day going?” But you’ve made it clear to them that you’re not interested in, that you don’t want to give them your number, they keep asking you for your number and you’re like “no, no, no, no, no.” You know, but they just don’t get it. I’ve definitely had many experiences where you’re like “I’m just not interested thank you”, and they just don’t leave you alone (Jade). Penelope described a frightening experience where a Tinder match incessantly text messaged and called her. After refusing his dinner invitation multiple times, the man began to make her feel bad by explaining how much effort he had put into cooking dinner. But prior to recognising the intrusive behaviour, Penelope considered the man to be ‘really caring’ and ‘really sweet.’ What these understandings show is that women consider a range of male behaviour as intrusive, and not just the behaviours recognised as abusive by legal framings (Kelly 1988).
The women’s understandings also reflect how behaviours that might be considered appropriate in some contexts, might be experienced as intrusive in others. After all, it is not the messages that lead women to question men’s behaviour. Their questioning is reflective of how male violence changes the meaning of more mundane experiences of intrusion (Vera-Gray 2018). This means that ‘seemingly ‘one-off’ incidents aren’t
74 experienced that way at all’ (Vera-Gray 2018, 74). Women’s experiences of intrusion shade into and out of one another, allowing women to make connections between men’s behaviour (Kelly 1988). This understanding helps to explain why the women I interviewed were affected so greatly by what appeared to be friendly messages.
Given that the Tinder matches who engaged in this behaviour had not necessarily said anything overtly offensive or abusive, the interviewees were confused about how to interpret these interactions. What Glover (2004) terms the ‘Nice Guy Syndrome’, these Tinder users often engaged in passive aggressive behaviour that violated boundaries of acceptable behaviour and ignored participants’ attempts to stop communication. Simply put, they masked their intrusive behaviour through an apparent caring nature. For instance, after Francesca turned down one of her Tinder matches, appearing to respect her decision, the man explained: ‘if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from my time on this earth, being polite and being nice is everything to everyone, so you deserve that’ (Francesca quoting a Tinder user). Although, despite the nice guy’s admission, he continued to send her lengthy possessive messages. Francesca read the messages she had saved on her mobile phone. One read:
“I know, I was just being polite, mate. I’m not going to try and steal you back. There’s no rule against being polite. I’ve just had a rough week and yes, timing was off, but you don’t just shut someone off like that. Just trying to be polite. I just think it’s selfish, that’s all. It’s all good. I’d prefer if you didn’t message me if you weren’t going to give the decency to interact. Just remember one word if you are in this situation: compassion. I know it doesn’t matter now, but I spent nine months in Afghanistan. During that time, I was blown up on three separate occasions and that’s what it means. I took a direct hit from an artillery round, was blown up in a vehicle, and blown up on a foot patrol by a roadside bomb. I’m lucky to be here. I also killed two civilians at close range, which has haunted me because I was lucky that the rules of engagement were blurred so much that I wasn’t trialled on war crimes and manslaughter. Also involved in numerous gun battles. Why am I writing this? Because on the outside I’m just another person. Treat everyone with compassion and don’t trivialise things by saying some rule that doesn’t exist that we can’t talk for five minutes. I hope you read this message and take positives from it. It’s not meant to be a mean message. The world needs to realise that there’s more to life than what’s in front of them. Don’t waste a day. Treat everyone as you would want to be treated in that situation. Remember I told you I buy things for poor kids that come into the shop? This is why, a little bit can mean the world to someone” (Francesca quoting a Tinder user).
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As the above account highlights, under the guise of ‘compassion’, Francesca’s match used various coercion techniques to make her feel bad for turning down his romantic advances. But in an attempt to mask his intrusive behaviour, he prefaces his repetitive and controlling messages as ‘just being polite.’ Implicit in the man’s messages is his assumed entitlement to interact, despite Francesca’s nonconsent. Worryingly for Francesca, this Tinder match also explained he was having some ‘down time’ in a park close to her house and tried to add her friends on Snapchat.
4.2.6 Flashing in the Digital Age: ‘Dick Pics’ The majority of the interview participants reported receiving unsolicited sexually- explicit images, referred to here as ‘dick pics.’ Popular media (see for example, Chen 2017) and academic scholarship has found women report receiving ‘dick pics’ through a range of digital mediums (March and Wagstaff 2017; Powell and Henry 2016; Salter 2016b; Thompson 2016). Nearly all of the interviewees recalled receiving at least one of these images from a Tinder user. While Tinder does not allow users to send personal photographs through the app, the interviewees’ matches found ways to circumvent this technological barrier. Most often, participants were sent ‘dick pics’ through the photo-sharing social media platform Snapchat. As Speed (2017) explains in her review of the literature on cyber grooming, predators can take advantage of Snapchat’s time-limit affordances, given those who receive images on the platform can only see them for a short period of time. Because of this, unless an image is screen captured, the receiver is unable to reload images. It is reasonable to suggest, then, that interviewees’ matches were using Snapchat’s affordances to their advantage. However, in addition to photo-sharing platforms, they were sent ‘dick pics’ directly to their mobile phones as text messages. But the interviewees received sexualised imagery in a variety of ways. For instance, Josie explained how she was sent links to graphics interchange formats, moving animated images known commonly through their acronym GIFs, on Tinder, which depicted a man receiving oral sex.
Convergence of social media platforms casts other platforms into an equally important role in women’s experiences of mobile dating on Tinder. Tinder operated as the initial discovery space for the interviewees and the users they spoke to; however, these relationships often moved into other spaces. Indeed, interviewees’ experiences of receiving ‘dick pics’ through a variety of digital mediums importantly highlight how digital spaces can overlap. Such multi-platform experiences of intrusion demonstrate
76 how Tinder does not exist on its own. Instead, Tinder is only one part of a broader social media system that facilitates the goals of those who use them. As Hanna et al. (2011, 265) point out, platforms are ‘part of an integrated system.’
It was common for the women I interviewed to shift between different media where Tinder does not have control. While participants initiated communication through Tinder’s messaging service, once they felt comfortable, they described sharing their various social media accounts with Tinder users. It was common for the interviewees to communicate with Tinder users on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and mobile device text messaging services. Some participants explained moving to other spaces because of Tinder’s messaging limitations, such as the inability to send photographs, and the ease of communication afforded by other digital spaces. Becky, for instance, described Tinder’s technical flaws as prompting her to move communication from the platform: ‘[…] it doesn’t work properly and stuff like that’ (Becky). Similarly, Francesca considered text messaging Tinder users to be more manageable.
Haythornthwaite’s (2005) concept of ‘media multiplexity’ can also help to explain the interviewees’ shifts between platforms. ‘Media multiplexity’ shows us how ‘indicators of a stronger tie – greater communication, maintenance of more relations (relational multiplexity), and of relations that include emotional and social support – are found hand in hand with the use of more means of communication’ (Haythornthwaite 2005, 130 emphasis in original). Put simply, the concept demonstrates how as relationships evolve and as people become closer, group members may add more mediums to communicate (Haythornthwaite 2005). This concept correlates with participants’ reports, since they commonly explained allowing access to their various social media spaces after spending considerable time communicating with Tinder users. In particular, the inability to send photographs through Tinder meant that as the women’s relationships with Tinder users evolved, they provided access to other digital spaces, such as Snapchat. But because participants often gave access to these spaces when they felt more comfortable and had enjoyed positive interactions, they described their shock when Tinder users sent ‘dick pics.’ Given Tinder does not allow users to share photographs, it seems probable that some users wanted to shift the communication to other services where they could share ‘dick pics.’
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However, although interviewees did not expect to receive ‘dick pics’, of those who did, they described the regularity of these intrusions:
When I did have Snapchat it was just, they’d ask me for it and I’d just be like whatever, yeah, okay. It was just dick pic after dick pic after dick pic and it’s like…I didn’t ask for that, dude, stop it (Josie). Like many of the women I interviewed, Jade explained the unpredictable nature of receiving ‘dick pics’:
Once you get off, they just like…even if they were nice people on the app, it can be within 24 hours, you know, you might be snapping originally like, you know, you normally do silly things and then bam it’s like right there and you’re like where did that come from? (Jade). My findings are consonant with Essig’s (2019, 68) research on dating practices and consumerism whereby her interview participants described receiving ‘dick pics’ soon after matching with Tinder users. Due to the seemingly erratic experience of receiving ‘dick pics’, interviewees’ accounts are reminiscent of witnessing flashing in public space. This relatedness is the reason why Thompson (2016) refers to ‘dick pics’ as cyber-flashing. A notable difference, though, is that while flashing in a public space is commonly a criminalised behaviour, at this time, cyber-flashing is not (Powell and Henry 2017). While reminiscent of flashing in public space, this form of intrusion highlights the potential of social and digital media more broadly to create new avenues for new and traditional forms of abuse.
The women I interviewed described and interpreted ‘dick pics’ in competing ways. Rachael was amused when she received them, but she also considered the behaviour a form of sexual harassment. Scholars who have investigated women’s experiences of flashing in public space have found how women’s reactions can also vary greatly (Kelly 1988; McNeill 1987). In her study of the effects of flashing on women, McNeill (1987) found that some women think the behaviour is amusing, while others fear for their lives. Although some participants in the current study expressed their amusement or ambivalence toward ‘dick pics’, it was clear these experiences intruded on their lives. Mia described how she unexpectedly received a Snapchat video of a Tinder user masturbating:
[…] it would just be middle of the day, 2pm and I would be at uni and he was a tradie and I would just open up my Snapchat and it would be of a video of him just going to the bathroom touching himself. And I don’t know why he got the impression that that’s something I would
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wanna see. Yeah, so that’s definitely something and I guess other guys, if they ever got my number, they added me on Snapchat, like, kind of similar thing, they’d just send a dick pic (Mia). Similar to flashing in public space, Mia’s insight highlights how ‘dick pics’ could interrupt interviewees’ routine activities. Mia’s questioning of the man’s behaviour and her admission: ‘I don’t know why he got the impression that that’s something I would wanna see’ supports Essig’s (2019, 68) argument that men send women ‘dick pics’ ‘for reasons that probably have little to do with trying to get a woman to go out on a date and far more to do with displays of male privilege and entitlement.’ Mia was particularly disturbed by this man and explained how this was the same user who had sent her messages describing how he wanted to choke her and make her cry, as described above. It is interesting to note that she connected the man’s behaviour to other forms of intrusion:
I would actually be terrified to meet him in public. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s spiked someone’s drink or taken advantage of a girl when she’s passed out drunk […] his behaviour, for me, just seemed like he’s ready to do damage. So he was definitely, kind of, freaked me out a bit and he had, yeah, just some of the things he said were quite disgusting (Mia). Mia’s interpretation highlights the connection she made between ‘typical’ and ‘aberrant’ forms of intrusion. For Mia, his willingness to send intrusive messages suggests he is capable of engaging in different forms of intrusion. This finding is reminiscent of Kelly’s (1988) research whereby she found that women may link flashing in public space to other forms of intrusion.
4.2.7 Ordinary Intrusions: ‘More Than I can Count’ Significantly, the interviewees’ experiences of intimate intrusions were common. As Josie noted when I asked her about the frequency of intrusive messages, she explained receiving: ‘[m]ore than I can count’ (Josie). Participants often provided estimates of their frequency. Georgia and Jade estimated that around one in ten of their Tinder interactions made them feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe. Of the interviewees, Mia’s estimation was the highest. She defined more than 70% of her experiences in this way. While these are estimations, which cannot be quantified without further empirical investigation, these findings demonstrate that the interviewees’ experiences of intrusion were commonplace. Although gender-based violence scholars have long recognised the commonness of women’s experiences of
79 intrusion and abuse (Kelly 1988; MacKinnon 1993; Stanko 1985), my findings show that the ability to stay connected via digital media regardless of distance means that physical boundaries are not barriers to abusive behaviour. Due to the immediacy of online communication and the ability to engage with a lot of people, participants’ experiences also demonstrate how Tinder can facilitate intrusive behaviour between people who likely would not have interacted without the technology.
The frequency with which interviewees received intrusive messages was further illustrated by participants’ inability to recall individual experiences. This finding demonstrates that online intimate intrusions can be ordinary experiences, rather than aberrations. Rachael, for instance, decided to participate in an interview because she wanted to share an experience that troubled her the most. After describing this experience during our interview, she found it difficult to recall other specific interactions, despite her admission that she commonly experienced intrusion in the context of her Tinder use. Similarly, while Sasha remembered reporting a user who became aggressive toward her, she explained: ‘I don’t remember what the conversation had been, but I vividly remember reporting him for bad behaviour’ (Sasha). The interview participants’ overlooking their experiences of intrusion as ordinary reflects the everydayness of these behaviours, as Kelly (1988) argued. It also shows how ordinary intrusive behaviours are hidden, and perhaps even to those who experience them (Lundgren et al. 2001). Indeed, as Jane (2017, 116) argued in her research on gendered cyberhate, ‘the frequency with which it occurs can render it normalised and banal.’
Given that women may view their experiences of intrusion through a lens of normality (Stanko 1985), I had pre-empted the interview participants’ difficulty in remembering their experiences. As noted in Chapter Three, social media scroll backs (Robards 2012) prompted participants’ memories and enabled them to search for messages they had received through the app, or those they had saved on their phone. For instance, when Rachael scrolled back through her mobile phone, she found various messages that she described towards the end of the interview, which she had not thought of prior to scrolling back.
4.3 Physical Intimate Intrusions
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Some of the interviewees discussed experiences of physical intrusion in ways that made clear they understood these as ‘aberrant’ rather than 'typical.’ At the same time, some of the experiences participants described demonstrated their understanding of them being simultaneously ‘typical’ and ‘aberrant.’ My interview questions were designed to elicit responses related to women’s ‘everyday’ intimate intrusions on Tinder. While I collected many accounts that echoed dynamics well-documented in popular and social media, I was surprised to hear about experiences that are widely- recognised as abusive. As women’s accounts are often met with distrust (Kelly 1988), and physical abuse is more easily recognised as a form of VAW than non-physical forms (Harris et al. 2015), it is not surprising that the interview participants recalled experiences that were likely to be validated as abusive.
The continuum of sexual violence was a helpful framework as it allowed interviewees to discuss a range of experiences. The continuum gave participants an avenue to explain the experiences they wanted to discuss, without limiting discussions to criminal behaviour or focusing on a single incident or type of experience. As the review of the literature highlighted, VAW studies commonly ask for particular experiences that meet circumscribed definitions of abuse. Similarly, these findings are commonly aggregated to highlight the seemingly ‘most serious’ form of abuse (see for example, ABS 1996; ABS 2005, 2012, 2016). My findings also demonstrate that women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder can extend into physical settings. This is an important finding because it contradicts claims that online abuse is no big deal because it is not ‘real’, with no ‘real’ harm.
Of the interviewees who experienced physical forms of intrusion, they were quick to identify the behaviour as unacceptable. Throughout the interviews, it became clear that they remembered, and as a result retold, these experiences more easily than those which occurred in an online context. Francesca, for instance, began to describe intrusive messages she received from a man after I had finished recording the interview. With her permission, however, I turned the recording back on. During this time, she described her experience with the ‘nice guy’ who had obsessively contacted her, sending lengthy intrusive messages, as discussed above. This finding suggests that women’s experiences of physical and sexual violence in physical settings might be more impactful. It might also suggest that experiences that do not occur in such contexts are normalised.
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Importantly, the interviewees who experienced intimate intrusions in physical settings feared for their safety. Two of the interviewees described incidents that meet the legal definition of rape, while others described their experiences of physical violence. Lara, for instance, recounted an incident where a man had invited her to go out for ice cream. She explained:
[…] he drove us into Wacol and if you go kind of out past the prison at Wacol there’s a big open field and nobody goes out that way at night. So he took me into that area and he did what he did (Lara). For Georgia, the experience that made her feel most uncomfortable was when she met with a Tinder match at his home. After the man invited her to go for a walk with him, she was unprepared when he invited her to view his house he had recently purchased. Feeling pressured, she obliged. While Georgia felt uneasy about the man’s invitation, she became very frightened when he locked the door behind her as they entered his house. He immediately began kissing and groping her despite her best efforts to go for the walk the man initially suggested. Georgia explained her concerns for her safety: ‘and I legitimately was like what do I do? Like in the sense that…you feel so unsafe that you almost feel like you can’t say no because if they get angry like you don’t have a way out’ (Georgia). This is an important finding because it demonstrates how abusers can use dating and relationship contexts to gain opportunities for abuse.
Similarly, Penelope was frightened by one of her Tinder dates who was using Tinder to hook-up:
[…] we started making out and then halfway through he was like “Penelope, do you know that this is just a hook-up?” Yeah, I felt really uncomfortable because it was night and this was, like, new place. I’ve never been there. I trusted him because he’s from university. And then he says that and I’m in a new place, a little drunk as well. And I just felt really uncomfortable and it was like he chose just the right time to say it as well. It’s like I can’t, there was no one around, and it was just me and him and I was just really, I felt like I was in danger, to be honest (Penelope). As Markowitz and Hancock (2018, 550) explain, online daters may lie about their intentions for dating, ‘to reach the ultimate goal of meeting the person face-to-face.’ This finding can help to explain why the interviewees were frightened by these experiences. Given that they believed their Tinder matches were seemingly looking to date, they were frightened when their motivations were realised. It is interesting to note
82 here that while Penelope was under the impression that she was on a date, the man she was with considered their time together as ‘just a hook-up.’ Differences in how the women I interviewed and the men they interacted with on Tinder engaged with the service shed important light on the differences in users’ presumptions of the app’s purpose. Penelope’s frightening interaction also illustrates Tinder’s connection to casual sex, which carries with it the gendered expectations of its users (Duguay 2018). In this way, Tinder might serve to reproduce expectations of women in heterosexual encounters.
It is likely that the interviewees’ fears for their safety stemmed from the potential for rape or other physical violence. As Vera-Gray (2017, 63) points out: ‘…women read routine forms of men’s intrusion through the possibility of escalation to other practices of men’s violence, most often to rape.’ Indeed, during Francesca’s Tinder date where the man forcefully kissed and pulled her hair, she explained thinking: ‘[…] my mind straight away went to, alright shit’s going south quick, I’m in a bad situation here’ (Francesca). Francesca’s account highlights her understanding that the experience could have led to further physical violence.
4.4 Disguised Identities: Misrepresentation on Tinder One of the unexpected things I learned from the interviews was the extent to which interviewees experienced user misrepresentation through Tinder. This finding is one of the forms of intrusion that is actually made possible by dating apps and the internet. Keira observed a statement in various men’s profiles, which explained: ‘if you don’t look like your profile when I turn up, you’re buying me drinks until you do’ (Keira quoting Tinder users). Although the statement is presumably supposed to be understood as humorous, it illustrates how individuals may use self-enhancement techniques in online dating contexts. As scholars have found, people may enhance their appearance and interests to appear more attractive to users (Hancock and Toma 2009; Toma et al. 2008; Ranzini and Lutz 2016). Indeed, Markowitz and Hancock (2018, 548) explain how ‘[e]mbellishing a dating profile, overstating interests, and adjusting photos are broadly considered impression management strategies for the online dater.’
Of participants who met their Tinder matches in physical settings, over half explained that the men appeared different to their Tinder profiles. Given Tinder users match with people based on their photographs, limited biographical information, and location, the
83 interviewees considered profile images to be an important biographical feature. Becky’s account describes this:
[…] that’s why you have the pictures there, right? I mean, and you’re like, okay, I know what to look for when I go there, for whom, for what face I have to search, and then a person is approaching you and you’re like, okay, who are you right now? So that’s a bit weird (Becky). Despite the importance of profile images, some of the interviewees recalled when their Tinder matches had used other people’s photographs. Lara met with a Tinder user who had used his friend’s photographs to depict himself. She referred to his behaviour as ‘catfishing’5 and described her reaction when she met with the man in-person:
I met this guy on Tinder and I went on a date with him and I was waiting to meet up with him and he’d been using someone else’s pictures and, so yeah, when I met up with this particular person, I said, you know, “you don’t really look anything like you do in your pictures” and he said “yeah, I’ve been using my friend’s pictures, you know, so women think I’m more attractive.” And I’m like “well, that’s a little stupid, why would you do that?” Cause, you know, it’s, it’s catfishing basically (Lara). In some instances, Tinder users altered more than their photographs. Worryingly for Mia, she explained how she had been ‘catfished’ by a teenage boy who had claimed to be an older man. During their time communicating on Tinder, the boy asked her to send sexually-explicit photographs and was sending sexually-explicit messages. At the same time, he had been sending ‘selfies’ of a man who he claimed to be him. Duguay et al.’s (2018) research on queer women’s experiences of patchwork platform governance on the platforms Tinder, Instagram, and Vine demonstrated similar findings. Several of their participants reported being ‘catfished’ by men who had pretended to be women on Tinder. Similarly, in their study on heterosexual women’s experiences on Tinder, Farvid and Aisher’s (2016) found that their participants commonly described the risk of men being deceptive about their appearance on the platform.
Although some of the interviewees described Tinder users’ overt deception, often their profile misrepresentations were more discreet. For some of the interviewees, these experiences left them feeling deceived. For example, Becky described how she felt ‘tricked.’ Francesca noted that her Tinder date’s deception left the relationship feeling
5 Catfishing includes ‘creating and portraying complex fictional identities through online profiles’ (Nolan 2015, 53). 84
‘poisoned.’ Likewise, the male Tinder users Haywood (2018) interviewed in his study on mobile dating romance felt negative emotions when they met with users who had misrepresented their appearance on the app. His interviewees felt deceived by female Tinder users who were presenting themselves in a more ‘complimentary manner’ by seemingly modifying their profile photographs or using close-up photographs of their faces, which the men thought women were using to obscure their weight. Because of this, Haywood’s (2018) participants expressed concern for emotional vulnerability and the potential humiliation that could ensue from deceptive Tinder dates’ ‘trickery.’
The interviewees described different ways in which user misrepresentation affected them. Similar to Haywood’s (2018) findings, some of the interviewees felt distrust toward their Tinder dates who had altered their biographical information and photographs. Penelope described the extensive impact of this behaviour, as she explained how it had affected her trust in people more broadly:
I would definitely say I trust people less. Especially on social media. Like, because people I’ve met on Tinder and when I meet them in real life, they definitely seem different to who they appeared to be online (Penelope). Penelope’s response illustrates the potential cumulative effects of intimate intrusions facilitated via Tinder. She further described these experiences as ‘really creepy and scary at the same time’ (Penelope). Penelope’s description highlights the safety concerns misrepresentation in Tinder profiles can raise for women. In particular, Penelope felt scared because since a deceptive Tinder user had picked her up for a date, the man knew where she lived. At the same time, implicit in her concern is the idea that if users lie on their Tinder profiles, they may be deceptive about other things. Indeed, the impact of ordinary experiences of intrusion ‘hinges on women’s perception of what might happen next’ (Kelly 1988, 97). Haywood’s (2018) interviewees did not mention concerns for their physical safety. Rather, the male participants considered women’s apparent deceit to be a form of false advertising. For Haywood (2018, 159), ‘[t]he notion of false advertising […] reinforces how women’s bodies have become objectified.’ These findings might suggest differences in how women and men interpret, and are affected by, profile modification on Tinder.
Regardless of how these experiences affected the interviewees, social norms of politeness appeared to shape their responses to the behaviour. Although Lara called
85 out her Tinder date on his behaviour, she ‘[…] decided to give him the benefit of the doubt anyway, cause, you know, we had some good conversations over the phone and everything’ (Lara). Similarly, some participants did not want to appear ‘superficial’ or ‘shallow.’ The evident link between interviewees’ politeness and dating is not surprising, given women’s perceived responsibility to navigate and mitigate sexual violence (Vera-Gray 2018; Worthington 2008). As Chung (2007) identified in her study of young women’s experiences and understandings of dating violence, a common harassment and unwanted attention management strategy her interviewees employed was to be polite and not offend the men who engaged in the behaviour. Similar to my findings, the women I spoke to were cautious not to offend their Tinder dates, despite their own discomfort.
Because Tinder is linked to a Facebook profile and therefore presumably the identity embedded in one’s ‘real-life’ social network, and the app’s ‘success lies in allaying concerns about the authenticity of potential suitors who can be met through the app’ (Duguay 2016, 352), I was surprised to hear that Tinder users commonly altered their appearance on the app. It should be noted that, until recently, Tinder relied on Facebook to establish user authenticity. To create a Tinder profile, a user signed up by linking their Facebook account. Without a Facebook account, prospective users were unable to use the app. While users can still do this, a user can now also choose to sign up with their mobile phone number. Using Facebook as an authenticity check was ‘Tinder’s safeguard against the uncertainty’ (Duguay 2016, 356), given the probability that a user would attach their ‘real’ Facebook profile, which would populate the app with their accompanying photographs and friends list. More still, Facebook’s ‘real name’ policy has worked to ensure people use their ‘authentic identities’ (Haimson and Hoffman 2016). However, there have been substantial issues concerning user privacy in response to this (DeNardis and Hackl 2015; van der Nagel and Frifth 2015).
But Tinder’s reliance on Facebook to establish user authenticity can have unintended consequences. For instance, Duguay et al. (2018, 12) found that ‘[i]n some instances, Tinder’s connection with Facebook was complicit in users’ deceptive and aggressive behavior, since it replaced more stringent identity verification.’ As Mia’s experience of being ‘catfished’ highlights, the boy persistently asked her to add his ‘fake profile’ as a friend on Facebook, which included the photographs of the man he had been
86 claiming to be. However, after some clever investigation, Mia found the boy’s ‘authentic’ Facebook profile and learned about his dishonesty. Mia’s experience demonstrates how Tinder users can use Facebook’s ‘authenticity’ check to deceive others. Because of this, Tinder’s use of Facebook to establish user authenticity may, in fact, exacerbate concerns related to privacy and deceit.
4.5 Negotiating Contradictions One key characteristic of participants’ recollections of intimate intrusions on Tinder is that they are often understood in competing ways. Several participants were confused about how to describe or interpret their experiences. One of the clearest examples of this was provided by Francesca. She illustrated how experiences of intimate intrusion can be both humorous and simultaneously alarming: ‘[s]o, this one was probably, when I think back on it, it was probably the silliest of experiences and maybe, maybe the scariest’ (Francesca). This finding shows the tension between clear binary definitions of abuse within legal constructs and interviewees’ experiential reality of feeling uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe. Such tension may also characterise how women may not understand experiences in binary terms—for instance, abusive or non-abusive (Kelly 1988). In this way, Tinder might expose users more directly to forms of intrusions that cannot be neatly categorised in such ways.
How the interviewees negotiated contradictions came to light in various ways. Most commonly, participants described the behaviour as Francesca did as simultaneously humorous and abusive. Rachael, for instance, demonstrated the interplay of these understandings when reflecting on the ‘dick pics’ she had received:
I actually do find it a bit funny, cause I’m like “why do you feel the need to send that?” I haven’t- I wouldn’t ask anyway, 'cause I don’t find them whatsoever attractive. But it’s like, to me, I actually find it a form of sexual harassment. It’s unsolicited, I didn’t ask for it. Especially when they do it multiple times when I’ve even said I’m not, like, no, or I haven’t replied. I do see that as a form of sexual harassment (Rachael). Similar to Rachael’s account, Penelope described the competing ways in which she conceptualised intrusive behaviour:
[…] some people do send really weird pick-up lines. It does make you feel uncomfortable, but some of them are funny, but some of them are really out of line. Then you’re just like, should I block them? Because then you feel like, okay I have swiped them because I like them and
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then someone that I’ve liked has sent messages like that. You do end up thinking, you know, what’s wrong with me to like that kind of person as well (Penelope). Penelope’s account raises two important issues. First, the confusion surrounding how intimate intrusions are to be understood. Second, Penelope describes self-doubt and self-blame, given she liked ‘that kind of person.’ Penelope’s account is reminiscent of what Fileborn (2016) found in her exploration of young adults’ experiences and perceptions of unwanted sexual attention in licensed venues. For her interview participants, they experienced unwanted behaviours in competing ways, which ‘was related to the sexual nature of some venues, where seeking out or engaging in sexual interaction could be a desired part of a night out’ (Fileborn 2016, 49). Similarly, Tinder is marketed as a platform to create romantic relationships. As such, it is likely that Penelope’s motivation to find a boyfriend obscured her interpretation of intrusive incidents. This is especially possible considering men can construe everyday intimate intrusions as non-threatening and flirtatious, which may reinforce the idea that the behaviour is flattering (Stanko 1985). Scarduzio et al.’s (2018) study of victims of face- to-face and social networking sites’ sexual harassment found how participants responded to sexual harassment through making jokes or laughing about the behaviour. It may be the case that the interviewees used to humour to cope with the behaviour. While these competing descriptions are difficult to neatly categorise, the interviewees’ accounts highlight the importance of documenting their naturalistic experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder.
Although the women I interviewed more-easily described physical intimate intrusions as violating the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, they also described the confusion they felt surrounding these experiences. For instance, although Josie described an incident involving sexual assault, she illustrated her confusion around the experience: ‘I had one guy who, I don’t know if this counts as assault or something, but he got quite violent with me when I slept with him. Very rough, didn’t listen to me’ (Josie). She unpacked the complexity surrounding this incident in some more detail throughout the interview:
[…] the guy who got too rough during sex, that was awful but, like, it made me really, it did make me uncomfortable. It made me quite upset, I was really scared, I was sitting there, like, did I just get, like, abused? Did I just get assaulted? What happened? But I consented, but he was a little bit rough and it made me very confused (Josie).
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Josie’s response indicates that even legally-defined acts of abuse continue to be normalised in dating contexts despite awareness raising campaigns (Kelly 2012). As Aghtaie et al. (2018) note, even criminal acts and physical violence can be normalised. For instance, ‘date rape’ has historically been dismissed as not ‘real rape’ (Burt 1998; Estrich 1987). While there is a common belief that these attitudes are changing, the Young Australians’ Attitudes to violence against women (Harris et al. 2015, 31) survey found that despite 58% of young people scoring moderate to high in the ‘understanding of violence against women scale’, 86% also scored moderate to high on the ‘violence- supportive attitudes construct’, in other words, having a high level of attitudinal support for VAW (Harris et al. 2015, 49). Josie’s account also points to an unintended outcome of the emphasis on consent which she has internalised as her responsibility to grant or refuse. In other words, as Josie had consented to sex, her response indicates that no ‘real rape’ (Estrich 1987; Stanko 1985) was committed. This confusion aligns with Kelly’s (1988) findings that women avoid interpreting and labelling non-consensual sex as rape. Josie’s confusion of the incident shows the continued importance of the continuum, which allows women to describe their experiences without circumscribed boundaries of abusive behaviour.
Because participants described intrusions in competing ways, a common thread that weaved its way throughout their accounts was the ambiguity that surrounds misrepresentation on Tinder. Like the less-overtly offensive, but still boundary- violating messages the interviewees reported, experiences of meeting with users who had used deceptive photographs on their profiles were understood as ambiguous. In particular, when participants’ Tinder dates had used outdated photographs, the interviewees exhibited difficulty in interpreting the behaviour. For example, upon meeting for dinner, one of Francesca’s matches explained he had fabricated some biographical details. During the date, he revealed he was 38 years of age, not 30 like his profile claimed, and he had also used a different name. This misrepresentation was obvious for Francesca: ‘[…] he was attractive in his photos; he was still fairly attractive in his person; he was just a lot older’ (Francesca).
The interviewees’ Tinder dates’ justifications for misrepresenting themselves online added to this ambiguity. Francesca’s Tinder date, for example, claimed to have fabricated his biographical information because he was mindful of his online privacy. Francesca accepted his explanation that the reason he fabricated his biographical
89 information was to protect his online privacy. While his behaviour made her suspicious, his explanation seemed plausible, given he worked in information technology. Indeed, it may be the case that Tinder users want to protect their online privacy. Several of the women I spoke to adopted similar strategies to protect their online privacy. Samantha, for instance, used her middle name on her Facebook profile, which subsequently populated her Tinder profile, to obscure her online identity. As noted above, Zoe used cartoon pictures on her Tinder and Facebook profiles to ensure she did not reveal her ‘true’ identity to unknown people. However, she did not meet with any of her matches, nor did she ever intend to. Arguably, Zoe’s cartoon profile picture is not deceptive, given it is clear that she is not a cartoon character. These examples demonstrate how the interview participants adopted similar privacy strategies to their matches; however, they interpreted it as intrusive when their matches behaved in these ways. While digital media researchers have noted the positive uses of anonymity online to protect privacy (van der Nagel and Frith 2015) and allow access for marginalised groups (York 2011), participants in my study were troubled by this behaviour. It is possible that when taken together with other forms of intrusion, deceptive Tinder profiles were more troubling for the women.
Another way in which interviewees highlighted the ambiguity surrounding intimate intrusions was through the minimisation of their own experiences, accompanied by concern for other women. For example, participants were more emphatic when describing the potential impact of intrusive behaviours when discussing their concern for other women who may have similar experiences to their own. For example, when Josie recalled her Tinder experiences in general, she explained: ‘It’s a wild ride. It’s hilarious, just the things that men will do to convince me to sleep with them is hilarious’ (Josie). Throughout the interview, though, Josie problematised the intrusive behaviour:
[…] there’s a whole generation of young women who have grown up on mobile phones, who have grown up in the Internet culture and they’re starting to use it and they don’t understand how these men work and they think that that is a normal male response, and that bothers me (Josie). The inconsistency in Josie’s accounts highlights the complexity of how intimate intrusions can be understood. For Josie, while intimate intrusions could be ‘hilarious’,
90 she was also troubled by the normalcy of the behaviour and the potential effects that could ensue. Similarly, Jade said:
But in terms of me, no it didn’t, it doesn’t affect me whatsoever, but that – it does – I did always used to think, you know, if this went to someone else that was a little bit more, you know, softer and maybe not so much confidence, like that could be extremely detrimental (Jade). Regardless of whether or not the interviewees were troubled by the behaviour, it seems plausible that they were highlighting the potential impact of intimate intrusions through their concern for other women. The tension between the interviewees’ concern for other women and concurrent minimisation is an important finding and highlights the continued importance of the continuum of sexual violence in understanding women’s experiences of intrusion. The competing views illustrate how intrusions are common and minimised as to be ordinary, yet are still harmful and upsetting. At the same time, this finding shows how women may not understand intimate intrusions in binary terms, for example, as ‘abusive’ or ‘normal’ behaviour. Indeed, despite legal categories of abuse, which neatly define abuse in mutually exclusive categories, women’s experiences of intrusion shade into and out of one another in complex ways (Kelly 1988; Kelly 2012).
4.6 The Cumulative Impact of Intimate Intrusions on Tinder Importantly, the women I interviewed were impacted by their experiences of intrusion on Tinder. To demonstrate this impact, this section of the chapter discusses the behavioural changes and strategies, what Kelly (cited in Vera-Gray 2017) refers to as routine safety work, the interviewees employed to mitigate future intrusions. Some of the interviewees explicitly described the impact intimate intrusions have had on them. Ariel provided examples of this:
And then the person I met up with, just makes you feel a bit devalued, like, when someone just assumes that you, I don’t know, that you’re just there willing to do whatever they wish (Ariel). She continued: […] sometimes it can, like, I don’t know, maybe I’m a bit sensitive, but it can damage your self-esteem when someone’s kind of objectifying you or things like that. Yeah, I guess, overall it’s pretty negative when people engage in those sort of, almost like, aggressive interactions (Ariel).
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However, the majority of participants were generally not so explicit. But as Stanko (1985, 9) points out, ‘[o]ur everyday behaviour reflects our precautions, the measures we take to protect ourselves.’ Indeed, more commonly, participants illustrated the impact of intimate intrusions through discussions of their behavioural changes in online and offline settings. Interestingly, while the interviewees described their experiences as ranging from ‘typical’ to ‘aberrant’, they recalled common ways in which they managed and sought to mitigate intrusions. This finding highlights how experiences do not have to be physically violent or criminal to circumscribe women’s freedom to participate on and offline. Interview participants’ mitigation strategies suggest that they carry the threat of men’s intrusive behaviour throughout their lives in a range of contexts. In this way, participants described intimate intrusions as ongoing and connected lived experiences, rather than single incidents of intrusion. This finding correlates with Fileborn and Vera-Gray’s (2017) research on street harassment where their survey participants often presented the nature of harm ‘as cumulative, synergistic, and unable to be attributed solely to the actions of any one individual’ (Fileborn and Vera-Gray 2017, 214).
4.6.1 Pushing Women off Tinder: “That’s how I Minimise it; I Just Don’t Use it” The majority of the interview participants explained they had temporarily or permanently discontinued their Tinder use. From the discussions I had with the interviewees, it was evident that the driving factor for this decision was the intimate intrusions they experienced while using the app. After receiving overtly intrusive messages, some interviewees uninstalled Tinder from their phones and even deleted their accounts. Taking this step was deemed necessary to mitigate intimate intrusions in a context where they were likely. As gender-based violence researchers highlight (see for example, Berman et al. 2000), women are socialised to expect sexual harassment and threats of violence, which means that when they are unable to avoid intrusion, they may blame themselves for their experiences. It is little wonder, then, that Keira explained, ‘I don’t use it anymore, so that’s how I minimise it, I just don’t use it.’ She continued, ‘I’m just like no, this is not a nice safe space’ (Keira). Keira’s admission exposes her feelings of unsafety on Tinder, which led her to discontinue using the app. As we will see below, intimate intrusions on Tinder had even wider- reaching effects, leading Keira to question her safety around men. This finding
92 supports Vitak et al.’s (2017) research which found women retreat from online spaces to mitigate ongoing harm. Similarly, several of the female dating app users Chan (2018) interviewed for his study on dating apps’ disruption and reproduction of gender dynamics in Urban China discontinued their dating app use when other users requested hook-ups. Significantly, as Jane (2017, 5) puts it: ‘[…] while women who withdraw from the internet to avoid threats and harassment are making a rational choice, it is not a free choice because they are coerced into making these changes.’ Indeed, although women may consider circumscribing their Tinder use a reasonable strategy to protect themselves, this limits their freedom to participate in online spaces.
Less blatant but still boundary-violating interactions also initiated the interviewees’ responses to leave the app. Some of the interviewees described their exhaustion after feeling expected to engage with their matches on their terms. For instance, Sasha was fatigued by a man who was upset when she failed to immediately respond to his messages:
I think I definitely felt, like, it turned me off the app for a while. I wouldn’t use it for a few days then, cause I was like oh, it’s too much effort and it’s a bit emotionally draining, I guess, to go through that and have to deal with someone else putting that on you and being like “I need this from you”, well I haven’t even met you before, so why am I having to pander to that? (Sasha). Sasha’s account emphasises the emotional toll her Tinder match’s behaviour had on her. But a range of intimate intrusions triggered the interviewees’ response to leave Tinder. For Josie, experiences in physical settings prompted her to limit her Tinder use. She recalled how she felt after engaging in casual sex with men she had met on the service:
But for me, it made me feel like a piece of meat. It made me feel like I wasn’t…I wasn’t worth anything else, I was just…a sex toy basically. I was a masturbatory sleeve, almost. They didn’t care about my pleasure, it was just like, I’m a toy for them to play with for half an hour and then just dump and leave and it was awful and I hated that feeling. So I stopped using Tinder because I realised they’re not here for any sort of decent conversation or anything (Josie). Samantha was also deterred from using the app after a frightening in-person incident: ‘after the Spanish one I was really cautious. I didn’t use Tinder for a long time’ (Samantha). These insights demonstrate the range of intimate intrusions that influenced the interviewees’ decision to leave Tinder.
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4.6.2 Changes in Offline Behaviour Many participants employed increased protective strategies to mitigate intimate intrusions offline following negative experiences on the app. As Jane (2017, 61) notes, ‘[o]n some days the messages may seem paint-dryingly tedious or even funny. Yet their cumulative impact can be debilitating.’ The changes discussed in this section primarily describe the strategies the interviewees employed when meeting with their Tinder matches; however, some of the strategies extended beyond Tinder use into other areas of their everyday lives. The range of strategies the interviewees described correlates with previous research on women's experiences of abuse, which shows that women ‘are likely to limit their movements in public or isolate themselves in private to avoid danger’ (Stanko 1993, 123). While some interviewees explained they only met men in public places when meeting for the first time, others explained they started doing this following an experience of intrusion. As Georgia noted following her experience of physical intrusion: ‘[…] there is no way I am ever going like not in public first meeting someone’ (Georgia). Similarly, Carpenter and McEwan (2016) found that dating app users consider meeting another user in a public place to be the safest option.
Offline intimate intrusions especially sensitised participants to the potential for further physical violence. Lara discussed the changes she made to her behaviour as a result of physical intrusions facilitated by Tinder:
I don’t really like going out by myself anymore now. I always like to have an extra set of eyes with me. If I’m on a date, or something, and I don’t feel safe I’ll call a friend and I’ll ask them “hey, can you just come to this place and keep an eye on what happens?” I always have to have someone there. And I say to my friends “if I look uncomfortable at any time, get me straight out of there” (Lara). Lara evidences her increased sensitisation to intrusive behaviour through her concern for her safety in public spaces. Importantly, her admission ‘I don’t really like going out by myself anymore’ provides insight on how she carries the threat of male violence throughout her life, and not just in dating contexts. This highlights how women can feel the threat of violence in relation to individual men on dates, while also a more generalised fear in public space (Kelly 1988).
For some participants, their offline mitigation strategies were not always so obvious, in part because they were often extensions of the routine safety work they were
94 already employing. In these cases, the interviewees discussed how intimate intrusions reinforced the steps they felt they should take to protect themselves. For instance, following Georgia’s experience with the man who assaulted her at his home, she explained:
I think it made me re-evaluate the way that I use the app. So yeah like I’d never go somewhere where we were alone like even if it was like…if someone was gonna say “hey let’s go for a walk on the beach.” I’d probably be like “let’s go to a café.” We can sit down and yeah…go from there. Even like people like walking me back to my car. Like after if we were to go out on a date I’d be very much like “no it’s okay, like that’s fine I’ll get myself back you really don’t have to worry.” So I remember a couple of times people were a bit pushy like “oh I’ll walk you back to your car.” I’m like no, I’m not gonna be put in a situation like where you’re alone with someone (Georgia). The discussions I had exposed participants' wariness surrounding Tinder use. But their mitigation strategies were not always understood that way by participants. Indeed, when I specifically asked the women what they did to mitigate intimate intrusions on Tinder, they often struggled to answer the question. As Vera-Gray (2018, 80) explains, ‘safety work in any form is still rarely acknowledged, even by ourselves.’ However, tactics and techniques were offered throughout different points of the interviews. One conclusion that can be drawn from this finding is women take safety work for granted, that is, they do not see it as safety, rather, just ‘the way it is’ (Vera- Gray 2018).
4.6.3 Changes in Offline World View and Perspectives: “I Feel Like I Can’t Trust Anyone Now” The cumulative impact of intimate intrusions on Tinder was further illustrated by changes in participants' offline world views and perspectives. In particular, some of the interviewees expressed their suspicion toward men more generally as a result of intimate intrusions in the context of Tinder use. As participants illustrated, ‘[e]xperiencing sexually harassing behaviour, “typical” male behaviour, leads many women to suspect all men’s typical behaviour’ (Stanko 1985, 68). This means that women may question all of men’s behaviour, regardless of the motivations behind it. This was especially true for Penelope who was frightened by Tinder matches who asked personal questions about her living arrangements. Given that she had recently moved from overseas to study in Australia, she believed the questions were an attempt to determine whether or not she was isolated. She explained: ‘[…] if I end up telling
95 someone I’m an international student and the first thing they ask is, like, “oh, are you here with anyone? Who do you live with?” Things like that’ (Penelope). Regardless of whether or not her Tinder matches were seeking to determine this, Penelope explained how her experiences affected her perception of men in general: ‘I definitely haven’t met anyone in a long time because I feel like I can’t trust anyone now’ (Penelope). Penelope’s questioning of men’s behaviour in this way is reflective of the ways she connects experiences of intrusion. For her, she does not experience the behaviours as one-off incidents. She instead carries with her the threat of male violence she felt when a man who made her feel uncomfortable asked similar questions. Because of how women’s experiences of intrusion can shade into and out of each other (Kelly 1988), what might be Tinder users’ attempts to be friendly and get to know women, are actually experienced as intrusive.
Alterations to participants' offline world views and perspectives extended to making connections between intimate intrusions on Tinder and the broader problem of VAW. As Keira explained:
[…] those messages have made me uneasy, because it makes me think, knowing rates of violence against women and stuff, that if these guys who look like normal guys, the guys that sent me a message that just said “you look like you would get it”, and when I was like “get what?” and he was like “the D”, he had in his bio that he was a lawyer in Brisbane. And I’m just like okay, so this guy’s willing to say this to me on the internet, I could meet this guy out and go on a date with him. To me it exposes just general attitudes and I’m like, it makes me feel unsafe around men even more. It reinforces that, like, oh my God, you could meet this guy out and think he’s a really nice guy (Keira). The above account, and the one that follows, are examples of the ways in which women connect ‘typical’ to ‘aberrant’ intrusions. What we can also see from these women’s experiences is that there is a blurring of ordinary and aberrant experiences of abuse. Keira and Penelope’s analysis shows us how they connect physical violence to more common experiences of intrusion. In this way, a common character underlies a range of intimate intrusions (Kelly 1988). Keira described the underlying attitudes which contribute to VAW more broadly:
[…] I generally am wary when, like, meeting new guys about- could they be a guy that sends girls messages like this on Tinder? Could they be a guy who is violent, you know, when they drink? So, I do think that I carry that kind of wariness with me that’s reflected about how I feel on Tinder into the outside world. So yeah, I guess it just
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reinforces attitudes that I have about how unsafe or safe women are around men. But especially ones that they don’t know (Keira). Similar to Penelope’s understanding above, the wariness Keira carries with her shows how her experiences of intrusion shade into and out of one another. She experiences men’s intrusive behaviour on a continuum, not as independent incidents. As a result of the connections Keira has made between men’s ordinary and aberrant male behaviour, she carries the threat of intimate intrusions throughout her life.
Another important finding is that Keira’s understanding of intrusions on Tinder emphasises how seemingly innocuous online exchanges can have wide-reaching effects. As Vera-Gray (2017, 67) puts it:
[…] though profane or explicit messages from a male stranger could be argued to have a benign or humorous intent on an individual level, our attention is turned to the structural context in which and through which these messages have meaning. In this way, an exploration of the particular impacts of men’s online intrusion is connected to wider work on men’s violence against women. This is important to consider, given experiences of abuse are often understood as not ‘real’ online. Those who deny the harm of online threats do so under the pretence that online threats are not ‘real’, since the senders do not intend to carry them out (Jane 2017). Taken together, the cumulative impact of intimate intrusions on Tinder demonstrates the importance of situating intimate intrusions on Kelly’s (1988) continuum. The interviewees mitigation strategies also support Kelly’s (1988) contention that we need to talk about everyday behaviours that fall below the threshold of deviant or criminal acts.
4.7 Conclusion This chapter illustrated the range of behaviours the interviewees identified as making them feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe in the context of mobile dating on Tinder. It is apparent from the interactions discussed in this chapter that intimate intrusions in the context of Tinder were a common experience for the women I interviewed. While this chapter does not represent an exhaustive list of my 17 interviewees’ experiences, it is a good starting point to better understand women’s experiences in this context. The range of behaviours the women discussed shows their differing interpretations of the questions I asked. While I have endeavoured to give voice to all of the interviewees
97 throughout the chapter, the repetition of many of them shows that the same women often experience a range of intrusive behaviours.
Importantly, the experiences discussed throughout this chapter show how applicable the continuum of sexual violence is today. The women's accounts provided empirical evidence that the two core claims, women’s experiences of intimate intrusions are ordinary, and ordinary experiences of abuse have cumulative effects, also apply today in the context of dating on Tinder. This is important because it demonstrates how experiences facilitated via online mediums can be impactful, like those which occur in physical settings. Significantly, these women's accounts demonstrate the cumulative impact of intimate intrusions in their lives. Following exposure to intimate intrusions on Tinder, many women changed their behaviour to mitigate the potential for further intrusions. Other women presented evidence of changes to their world views and perspectives that carried over offline. Through further analysis of the interview data supplemented by the walkthrough of Tinder, Chapter Five describes the online techniques the interviewee participants employed to mitigate further intimate intrusions on Tinder.
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CHAPTER FIVE: WOMEN’S AGENCY AND PLATFORM RESPONSES
5.1 Introduction This chapter presents findings from the technical walkthrough of Tinder and investigates how the interview participants used Tinder’s safety features to mitigate experiences of intrusion. Building on Chapter Four, this chapter highlights the strategies my 17 interviewees employed to mitigate intimate intrusions on Tinder. More specifically, this chapter presents the protective strategies participants used to protect themselves from online intimate intrusions. This chapter further answers research question three: How do women respond to intimate intrusions when they happen? And what measures, if any, do they use to mitigate future intimate intrusions?
To begin the chapter, I outline Tinder’s safety framework, design and service features, and initiatives to promote a safe Tinder experience. To supplement the findings from my walkthrough of Tinder, I then demonstrate how the interview participants experienced safety on the app. This includes a discussion of participants’ engagement with Tinder’s mechanisms for responding to user violations of the Terms of Use, and their satisfaction with Tinder’s responses to such violations. Following this, I outline the online strategies participants employed to mitigate intimate intrusions on Tinder. By focusing on the mitigation strategies the women I interviewed used, this chapter makes visible the ‘hidden labour’ of routine safety work (Vera-Gray 2018). My analysis uncovered three broad themes in the women's mitigation strategies: using Tinder’s safety mechanisms; cross-platform authentication; and profile analysis. Since the interviewees’ mitigation strategies are shaped by the attitudes that underpin intimate intrusions, I return to some of the themes more fully throughout my thesis. More specifically, in Chapter Six I return to the minimisation and invalidation of the interviewees’ experiences of intrusion, how GPS technology was used to facilitate intrusions, and the pressure they felt to engage with Tinder users.
From the discussion of the interviewees’ mitigation strategies, my findings shed important light on how the interconnectedness of social media platforms can facilitate and amplify experiences of intrusion. At the same time, this chapter demonstrates how participants’ experiences of intrusion can be compounded by GPS technology afforded
99 by Tinder and other social media platforms. Significantly, these findings emphasise how Tinder’s unique dynamics can facilitate new forms of intrusion and amplify more conventional experiences of abuse.
5.2 Tinder’s Safety Framework The following sections outline Tinder’s rules, safety design, and service features to promote user safety. The information presented here is from various pages on Tinder’s official website (www.gotinder.com). It should be noted here that only a select few of Tinder’s staff members are likely to be responsible for deciding on the platform’s rules. Certainly, Tinder is a large company with staff who undoubtedly hold differing views on what rules should be made, including what behaviour should not be tolerated on the service. However, without more information on Tinder’s staff and those who are responsible for decisions, this thesis refers to the teams that would likely be responsible for particular decisions.
5.2.1 Terms of Use Like most social media platforms, Tinder disclaims responsibility for its users’ behaviour. As noted earlier, the United States Communications Decency Act (“CDA”) insulates internet intermediaries from the liability of user behaviour. Indeed, Tinder specifically states in its Terms of Use that ‘[…] it is not responsible for the conduct of any user on or off of the Service’ (Tinder Inc. 2018d). As Figure 5.1 below illustrates, Tinder holds users themselves solely responsible for interactions occurring either on or off the service as a result of Tinder use. In doing this, Tinder’s Terms present the platform as a neutral party, rather than an active participant, in the publishing process. This is important context to consider when evaluating Tinder’s responses to intimate intrusions facilitated through the platform.
While Tinder holds users solely responsible for their behaviour, the app’s Terms do encourage users to engage in respectful behaviour with each other. Tinder’s Terms of Use also provide that users agree to exercise caution when communicating with other users on other platforms, or in physical settings. The Terms of Use state that users must read and follow Tinder’s Safety Tips prior to using the app. I outline this advice in more detail below. As Figure 5.1 below also highlights, while Tinder does not make inquiries into user backgrounds, the service operators reserve the right to screen users with available public records. Tinder’s Terms of Use further provide that users must
100 submit accurate and truthful information, including that which is populated from a user’s Facebook profile.
Figure 5.1: Tinder’s Terms of Use
Tinder’s Terms of Use provides Community Rules, which stipulates the behaviour users agree not to engage in. In summary, the list states that users agree to not use Tinder for illegal or harmful purposes, or purposes which violate the Terms of Use and Community Guidelines. In addition, the Rules state that users will not impersonate any person or entity, spam, solicit money from or defraud users. The Community Rules further provide that users must not post content that infringes or violates anyone’s rights. Following this, the app’s Community Rules state that users will not post any content that is hate speech, racism, sexually explicit or pornographic, gratuitous violence, or incites violence. The full list of Tinder’s Community Rules is presented in Figure 5.2 below.
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Figure 5.2: Tinder’s Community Rules
Pursuant to the platform’s Terms of Use, Tinder reserves the right to investigate a user’s account and ‘may terminate your account at any time without notice if it believes that you have violated this Agreement’ (Tinder Inc. 2018d). Significantly, the Terms of Use explain that Tinder can investigate or terminate an account if a user has ‘violated this Agreement, misused the Service or behaved in a way that Tinder regards as inappropriate or unlawful, including actions or communications that occur on or off the Service’ (Tinder Inc. 2018d). This section of the Terms highlights that engagement in inappropriate or unlawful behaviour does not have to be confined to Tinder for the platform to suspend or terminate a user’s account.
5.2.2 Community Guidelines The app’s Community Guidelines further outline their limits on abuse. A user can find Tinder’s Community Guidelines by clicking on the hyperlinked words in the platform’s Community Rules list (as figure 5.2 above shows). The Community Guidelines provide that users will be welcome on the app if they engage in honest, kind and respectful interactions. For those who fail to behave in this way, the Guidelines state: ‘[s]eriously, don’t make us Swipe Left on you – because there will be no do-overs once we do’ (Tinder Inc. 2018b). Below this message, the Community Guidelines present a ‘how to get banned from Tinder’ list (Tinder Inc. 2018b). This list is separated into the types of photographs and messages that Tinder explicitly prohibits. Similar to the Community Rules described above, Tinder prohibits photographs which contain nudity or sexual content, violent or graphic content, unattended children, content that infringes copyright, and phone numbers or other forms of private information. The Community Guidelines further prohibit messages that include inappropriateness, hate, harassment, scamming and spamming. And under this list, Tinder encourages users to ‘REPORT ALL BAD BEHAVIOR’ (Tinder Inc. 2018b emphasis in original).
5.3 Safety Design and Service Features Tinder’s website also includes information on using the app to promote privacy and safety by using the app’s affordances. Broadly, this information is separated into three overarching categories: a guide to using Tinder; technical help; and safety, online security and privacy on the platform. As Figure 5.3 below highlights, users can also
102 search for specific help. I outline the most important aspects of this information for the current study below.
Figure 5.3: Tinder’s help screen
5.3.1 A Guide to Tinder Tinder’s guide provides a list of questions and answers concerning the app’s affordances and general use. The guide includes general information on Tinder’s features, user requirements, using the app, and Tinder’s affiliated in-app subscriptions. Under the ‘my profile and settings’ tab, Tinder presents information on using the app’s in-built tools to edit or remove user profiles, manage preferences and notifications, request personal data, and enable cross-platform linking.
5.3.1.1 Signing Up and Getting Started Tinder’s guide provides information on how to sign up to the platform. These sections outline how a user can either create an account by registering their mobile phone number or Facebook page. Tinder’s log in screen is depicted in Figure 5.4 below.
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Figure 5.4: Tinder’s log in screen
Tinder’s Guide explains that for users who create an account by registering their Facebook, the platform imports their user information from the service. This means that a user’s interests and friends are imported from Facebook and displayed on their Tinder profiles, which a user cannot remove. More specifically, the Guide explains that Tinder users can view shared interests that the user has ‘liked’ on Facebook and mutual friends or friends of friends, which the platform refers to as ‘Common Connections’6 (See Figure 5.5).
6 It is unclear at the time of writing whether this feature is still available as the Tinder Guide still refers to it, but public internet forums discuss its discontinuation (u/_thefatone_7 2018) and it is not readily visible on the platform from my own investigations. Nevertheless, I have included this feature in the discussion, as I am focusing at present on material in the official Guide. A screen capture from Tinder’s official blog (See Figure 5.5) highlights the feature. 104
Figure 5.5: Tinder’s Common Connections affordance
This section of Tinder’s Guide also describes how users can temporarily hide their profiles from the app’s Discovery section. This means that users who enable this mechanism cannot be seen by swiping users; however, prior matches can still contact users who have disabled Discovery. Tinder’s Guide also lists some information on altering search preferences. Here the Guide explains how to adjust search preferences, such as gender, age range, and location. While Tinder does not position altering a user’s search distance radius as a safety feature, users can select ‘maximum distance’ to extend the distance between those who they can match with.
5.3.1.2 Cross-Platform Linking Tinder’s Guide offers additional information on using the app’s affordances to help users authenticate themselves by connecting other personal social networks. Tinder users can link to their profiles on the photo-sharing social media platform Instagram and the music-streaming platform Spotify. For users who connect their Instagram accounts that are set to private, the Guide explains that Tinder users are only able to view their most recent uploads. The amount of posts Tinder describes as ‘most recent’ is not defined here. In another section of the Guide, Tinder explains that individuals can use cross-platform linking to confirm their authenticity to other users.
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5.3.2 Safety, Security and Legal Information Tinder’s help resources provide further guidance on problems related to user safety, privacy and security. Most notably, under the ‘Report a Safety Concern or Incident’ tab, the page answers questions relating to reporting online and offline incidents. Following a ‘serious incident that took place off the app involving another Tinder user’ (Tinder Inc. 2018a), Tinder encourages users to write to the platform and include the details of the incident and a specific description of the user who was involved. The page includes a link to an online form, which provides users the opportunity to report an incident. Tinder presents further information on reporting behaviour that occurred online. Here the information encourages users to report impersonation or fake profiles through the same online form. Users can report online behaviour using the app’s safety features, which I discuss in more detail below. Tinder’s Safety, Security and Legal information also encourages users to contact local law enforcement if they are concerned for another user’s immediate safety. The information lists the United States based suicide prevention hotline National Prevention Lifeline. For users who are not based in the United States, Tinder recommends users visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention’s website to find local support services. It is interesting to note here that the only support services listed are suicide prevention services, rather than sexual violence helplines or relationship support.
In light of the recent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) developments for user data protection regulation, Tinder provides information relating to the platform’s use of automated decision-making under the Privacy tab. The page explains that automated decision-making and profiling is a part of Tinder’s ‘[…] commitment to transparency in the way we process your information.’ Tinder claims to use this technology to offer meaningful user connections and promote user-appropriate in-app advertisements. Most significantly to the current study, as Figure 5.6 below highlights, Tinder uses automated decision-making to promote user safety and security. This means that Tinder uses computers and algorithms to remove bots, and prevent and respond to illegal activity on the platform, for example.
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Figure 5.6: Automated decision-making on Tinder
5.4 Mechanisms for Responding to Violations of Terms of Use 5.4.1 Unmatching The affordances outlined in this section are Tinder’s mechanisms for protecting user privacy and safety. The most obvious safety mechanism is unmatching users. Although Tinder does not specifically recommend unmatching as a safety practice, it is one of the functions that a user can employ on Tinder that does have the effect of stopping communication between users who have matched. However, as noted above, Tinder does encourage users to ‘block’ those behaving suspiciously. Given that Tinder does not offer users a specific blocking function, it may be the case that Tinder is referring to unmatching. The screen capture of Tinder’s mobile interface depicted in Figure 5.7 shows how after clicking on the three red dots in the screen’s corner, a user can engage with the ‘unmatch’ mechanism. As a part of Tinder’s ‘Menprovement Initiative’, which I describe below, the app has also enabled another way to unmatch users. This change means that users can now simply swipe left on user profiles to unmatch them.
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Figure 5.7: Tinder’s unmatch screen
5.4.2 Reporting Another mechanism for protecting user safety is Tinder’s reporting mechanism. Following the creation of a match, a user can anonymously report another user. Similar to the app’s unmatch mechanism, when a user clicks on the three red dots depicted in the Figure 5.8 screen capture of Tinder’s interface, a user can make a report. As Figure 5.8 also shows, this mechanism can be used to report inappropriate messages and photographs, bad offline behavior, spam, and other content. After submitting a report, Tinder prompts the reporting user with a message, which acknowledges its receipt. A screen capture of this message is presented below in Figure 5.9.
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Figure 5.8: Tinder’s ‘reported’ screen
Figure 5.9: Tinder’s ‘report user’ screen
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5.4.3 Banning Users Reporting a user can lead to a user ban. As outlined in Tinder’s Terms of Use and above, Tinder reserves the right to investigate and terminate a user’s account, should they believe the user has violated the Agreement (Tinder Inc. 2018d). However, as Gillespie (2018a, 36) points out: ‘[…] social media platforms can claim “the right but not the responsibility” to remove users and delete content.’ Tinder does not provide a lot of information on how its trust and safety analysts moderate users and the content they post. But Tinder’s ancillary media can provide some insight on this. While it is inevitable that Tinder’s human actors and algorithms and doing much more, here I discuss the public information that Tinder provides on their decision-making processes. In particular, Tinder’s blog can provide some insight into the steps the platform has taken to curb ‘disrespect.’ As Figures 5.10 and 5.11 illustrate, Tinder’s executive team have begun to show resistance to racism, sexism, and trolling via the app.
One recent incident demonstrates Tinder’s efforts to prevent abuse on the platform. In the United States, Tinder user Nick Vedovi sent harassing messages to various women via the app. A Facebook user who knew both Vedovi and one of the victims posted the exchange between the pair online, and it subsequently went viral. Of these messages, those that received public attention included: ‘[u]gh you chinks are all the sameee such a waste of time next time don’t give out your number dumb cunt.’ He continued, ‘Ps you look like you’d melt in the heat. Wear less make up’ (cited in Editorial Staff 2017). In response to Vedovi’s messages, Tinder’s Vice President of Communications and Brand Pambakian (2017) announced on the app’s blog that the platform had banned him for life. Pambakian (2017) light-heartedly described this as: ‘[w]e’re swiping you off the island’ because of Tinder’s ‘zero-tolerance policy on disrespect.’ Pambakian (2017) continued, ‘So let me say this loud and clear: you and your kind are not welcome in our world.’ Before closing the announcement with, ‘And we have the power to keep you out of it.’ Pambakian’s explanation highlights social media platforms’ right but not the responsibility to moderate users and their content (Gillespie 2018a). Her blog post also demonstrates that when Tinder’s trust and safety analysts do make content moderation decisions, they are orchestrated as public relations stunts. After all, the platform’s Vice President of Communications and Brand announced the decision in a light-hearted blog post. This sheds light on how safety on
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Tinder might be used as a public relations opportunity, rather than a serious announcement to deter users from behaving in similar ways to Vedovi.
Figure 5.10: Tinder’s blog post
Figure 5.11: Tinder’s blog post
5.5 Dating Safety Page To promote user safety, Tinder offers Dating Safety advice, which users can access through the mobile app version’s Settings button (Tinder Inc. 2018c). Clicking on the Safety Tips button takes a user off the app and onto the website (www.gotinder.com). It is here that Tinder outlines its online and offline safety tips to encourage a safe Tinder experience.
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5.5.1 Online Behaviour Under online behaviour, the page lists four main headings: Protect Your Finances and Never Send Money or Financial Information; Protect Your Personal Information; Be Web Wise; and Report All Suspicious Behavior. In summary, the page encourages users to avoid sharing financial and personal information. This includes not giving out home addresses and banking information. For more information on this, Tinder provides a link to the United States Federal Trade Commission’s consumer information to avoid online dating scams. Under the Be Web Wise section, the advice states that bad actors will attempt to move the communication off the platform to other digital mediums, and as such, encourages users to remain on the app. Of course, due to Tinder’s limitations, the majority of the interview participants communicated with Tinder users through a variety of social media platforms and instant messaging services. Despite the app not having an explicit ‘blocking’ mechanism, as previously mentioned, Tinder’s Dating Safely page explains that users should ‘[b]lock and report suspicious users.’ Lastly, for online behaviour, the Dating Safety page includes a summarised list of the prohibited behaviour outlined in the Community Guidelines and Terms of Use, and encourages users to report those who violate the Agreement outlined above (Tinder Inc. 2018c).
5.5.2 Offline Behaviour The Dating Safety page (Tinder Inc. 2018c) also gives recommendations to promote safe offline interactions. The eleven headings listed in this section are: Get to Know the Other Person; Always Meet and Stay in Public; Tell Your Friends and Family Members of Your Plans; Transport Yourself to and from the Meeting; and Stay Sober; Health; Protect Yourself; Be Open and Honest; Vaccinate; Know Your Status; and Further Help, Support or Advice. The page emphasises the importance of getting to know users prior to meeting in offline settings. For users who decide to meet with their matches, Tinder encourages them to meet in a populated public place, and to avoid meeting at a private residence. The advice also recommends users tell their friends and family where they are going, carry a charged mobile phone, and it endorses independent transportation to and from meetings. It also encourages users to remain sober when meeting other Tinder users.
The Dating Safety page (Tinder Inc. 2018c) also provides information about health, including STIs and vaccinations, and encourages users speak to a health professional
112 to learn more. Lastly, Tinder’s Dating Safety page lists resources for further help, support or advice. In the case of an emergency, such as, threats or acts of sexual or physical violence, the page directs users to immediately call the United States based emergency phone number 911. Tinder also provides additional resources for further help. The resources listed on this page include three large United States based resource hotlines and websites: Rape, Abuse and Incest National Hotline, Planned Parenthood, and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Given that Tinder operates in over 190 countries (Tinder, Inc. 2019), there is a good argument that this national focus is inadequate. Figure 5.12 presents some more information on these resources below.
Figure 5.12: Tinder’s Safety Tips
5.6 Menprovement Initiative Tinder’s campaign materials provide further insight into the app’s responses to user behaviour. On October 4, 2017, Tinder launched its ‘Menprovment Initiative’, which is aimed at curbing user ‘douchery’ on the platform. The accompanying blog post explains Tinder’s new ‘messaging standards to all users to set the tone and promote best practices for a better Tinder experience’ (Tinder Inc. 2018f). The blog post further explains Tinder’s commitment to promote a positive community. In the app’s effort to
113 achieve this, the post discusses their newly-designed Community Guidelines, as outlined above, and easier reporting and unmatching mechanisms. Tinder’s blog and accompanying campaign materials provide some more information on the Initiative, which is outlined below.
5.6.1 Reactions The most publicised feature of Tinder’s Menprovement Initiative was called ‘Reactions.’ Tinder rolled out the feature on October 4, 2017; however, the feature was removed from the service shortly after following public condemnation (see for example, Farokhmanesh 2017). The affordance enabled users to share a range of animated responses with their matches when communicating through the app’s private messaging service, in an effort to curb men’s ‘douchey’ behaviour (Tinder Inc. 2017). Reactions provided users the opportunity to send the animations in response to various behaviours as a form of either ‘positive’ or ‘constructive’ instant feedback to the conversation. The animations included ‘real life’ reactions people might use offline, imported into Tinder’s messaging service. Of particular interest to my research were the Reactions that were only available to women on the platform, which allowed a user to demonstrate their dislike during the conversation. These included an animation that resembles throwing a martini in someone’s face (as depicted in figure 5.13 below) and an eye roll animation.
Figure 5.13: Tinder’s Reactions feature
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At the time of release, one of Tinder’s blog posts explained the purpose of Reactions:
In our fast-paced world, what woman has time to respond to every act of douchery she encounters? With Reactions, you can call it out with a single tap. It’s simple. It’s sassy. It’s satisfying (Tinder Inc. 2017). An accompanying social media campaign also promoted the new affordance. Tinder introduced Reactions using humorous YouTube videos. It is notable, however, that these videos have since been removed from their YouTube account and accompanying blog post. Explaining the idea behind Reactions, a woman in one of the promotional videos claims: ‘[s]o we all agree that calling out douchebags should be easy and fun.’ As the campaign materials highlight, Tinder’s staff who wrote the post describe men’s inappropriate behaviour on the app as ‘douchey.’ They further explain in their blog post:
In a perfect world, everyone would always treat each other with respect—whether it's from behind a phone screen or IRL. Unfortunately, it’s not a perfect world and most women have encountered douchey behavior at some point (Tinder Inc. 2017). Figures 5.14 and 5.15 depict screen captures of one of Tinder’s YouTube promotional videos below. These screen captures show a man who has sent sexually suggestive messages to a female user. As displayed on the Tinder interface created for the purposes of the video, the man is shown with an eggplant emoji, which is used to represent a penis (Rogers 2015). One of the women in the video explains: ‘[s]o this one uses eggplant emojis as his opener and “dinner’s on me baby. Come hungry” as his closer.’ In response to this, Figure 5.15 shows a woman using the martini reaction to respond to the man’s messages.
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Figure 5.14: Tinder’s ‘Menprovement Initiative’ promotional YouTube video
Figure 5.15: Tinder’s ‘Menprovement Initiative’ promotional YouTube video
5.7 Testing Tinder Reporting During my walkthrough of Tinder, I used Emma Jane’s ‘random rape threat generator’ to create hyperbolic misogynist discourse, what Jane refers to as ‘Rapeglish’ (Jane 2017). Jane (2017, 1) helped build a ‘random rape threat generator’, which she explains is a ‘computer program that splices, shuffles around, and re-stitches in novel combinations of fragments of real-life Rapeglish to illustrate the formulaic, machine- like, and impersonal nature of misogynistic discourse online.’ After generating 10 different Rapeglish messages, I sent the messages between my research accounts to gain a preliminary understanding of the app’s reporting processes. After I sent each
116 message, I reported them from the receiving study specific account. Although there are limitations to this exploration process, it shed some light on Tinder’s responses to user reports. While it would be reasonable to expect some sort of response to this behaviour by Tinder, I do not know what (if any) response was made to the reports. My research accounts’ ongoing access to the app suggests that Tinder took little action.7
5.8 How Users Experience Safety on Tinder To supplement the walkthrough of Tinder, I now turn to how the women I interviewed experienced safety on the app. The following sections outline Tinder’s safety and privacy features participants used and their experiences with the effectiveness of these in limiting intimate intrusions through the app. While none of the interviewees directly spoke about Tinder’s Terms of Use, Community Guidelines, and other privacy and safety website materials, they did discuss using the platform’s design features to protect themselves and respond to violations of Tinder’s Terms of Use.
5.8.1 Limitations on Cross-Platform Linking Although none of the interviewees described linking their Spotify accounts to their Tinder profiles, some participants had linked their Instagram accounts. The bringing together of multiple networks generates what boyd (2002) termed ‘collapsed contexts’, which is now commonly referred to by digital media scholars as ‘context collapse’ (boyd and Heer 2006). More recently, however, Davis and Jurgenson (2014) have refined this concept through their work on the conditions under which context collapse occurs. For them, context collusion and context collision represent the intentional and unintentional bringing together of various contexts. Context collusion enables social media users to ‘actively and intentionally invite various contexts … to witness status updates, photos, public exchanges, and so on.’ Cross-platform linking, then, demonstrates how Tinder users can use platforms’ ‘porous boundaries’ (Davis and Jurgenson 2014) to bring together various groups of people.
Despite the ability for Tinder users to link various platforms to help authenticate profiles, the interviewees described their wariness concerning this feature, since they often wanted to remain as anonymous as possible on the platform. For instance, while
7 It is possible that Tinder could see both accounts were somehow created by the same person or IP address. 117
Lara had been linking her Instagram account and listing her Facebook URL in her profile, she discussed her reasons for removing these links:
I wanted to have as much, kind of, anonymity as possible. I wanted to get to know people before I let them, you know, add me on Facebook or follow me on Instagram. So I kind of wanted a little bit of privacy. […] It’s kind of decreased the amount of message requests I get on Instagram. So I feel a lot safer on Instagram now (Lara). As Lara’s explanation also highlights, of the interviewees who used Tinder’s cross- platform linking, some described their discontinuation of these practices as functioning to help mitigate intimate intrusions. In particular, participants limited their use of this affordance following experiences of cross-platform convergence.
5.8.2 Cross-Platform Convergence While the women I interviewed limited their use of Tinder’s cross-platform linking affordance, the majority of them communicated with Tinder users on platforms other than Tinder. At times, participants gave Tinder users access to other digital mediums, such as Snapchat, Instagram, or instant messaging services. But sometimes Tinder users connected with participants on other platforms without the women’s permission. The interviewees also described using the affordances of various social media platforms to search for and view Tinder users’ profiles in other digital spaces, despite these users not having linked these accounts to their Tinder profiles or given them permission to do so. Davis and Jurgenson (2014) refer to a user’s unintentional blurring of context boundaries as context collisions. More specifically, the authors explain that a collision occurs ‘[w]hen information seeps beyond what the user believes to be the contextual boundaries’ (Davis and Jurgenson 2014, 481). Whether the blurring of context boundaries was intentional or not, the accounts described by participants demonstrate a process of what I refer to here as cross-platform convergence.
Several of the interviewees used cross-platform convergence to determine whether or not Tinder users were ‘real’ or at least representing themselves in authentic way. In an effort to determine user authenticity, the interviewees used various ‘uncertainty reduction strategies’ (Fox and Anderegg 2014; Gibbs et al. 2011), or what Farvid and Aisher (2016) refer to as ‘detective work’, in the context of their Tinder use. Indeed, Keira explained how she used cross-platform linking to view and authenticate user
118 profiles. For her, if a user was photographed with friends on their Instagram account, this depicted authenticity. She recounted her technique:
[…] do they have friends and stuff in their photos, or what kind of stuff do they share? There was one guy actually that posted basically a men’s rights activist thing on his Instagram and I just unmatched straight away (Keira). Keira’s analysis demonstrates how she used Instagram to determine her matches’ characters. But Keira’s strategy also emphasises how Instagram could be used to allay authenticity concerns, given friends were a signifier of a ‘real’ person. This finding is consonant with Norcie et al.’s (2013) research on social verification of online dating profiles. The interviewees who participated in Norcie et al.’s (2013) study listed ‘number of friends’ as their preferred method to investigate whether or not a Facebook user’s profile was fake.
While Tinder users cannot officially link their Facebook accounts to their Tinder profiles for other users to access, searching for and viewing a user’s Facebook profile was a common strategy the interviewees employed to allay authenticity concerns. In their chapter on user experiences on Tinder and other location-aware apps, Condie et al. (2018) found that to build trust in other users, women employ more strategies to— what one of their interviewees referred to as— ‘stalk’ and stay safe. While stalking has traditionally been used to describe abusive behaviour (see for example, Stark 2012), this terminology has been adopted as an internet colloquialism. More specifically, ‘Facebook stalking’ has been used to describe ‘the increasingly common practice of digging through digital information on the social network site Facebook to reveal information about others’ (Marwick 2012, 380). Penelope, for instance, explained how she would ask for her Tinder matches’ Facebook profiles to determine ‘what they’re actually like in real life’ (Penelope). As Penelope’s understanding suggests, the interviewees often considered Facebook profiles to afford authentic interpretations of their matches’ identities. The reason for this is unclear; however, one might assume that Facebook users are likely to be reasonably authentic when engaging with people known to them. Indeed, individuals may consider online profiles more authentic when they are tethered to their personal networks (Baym 2015). Facebook’s ‘real name’ policy might also contribute to this understanding, given the platform’s ability to suspend users who do not use the name that friends call them in ‘everyday life’ (Facebook 2019).
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Digital media scholars have found that men engage in similar cross-platform convergence strategies (Cassidy 2013; Haywood 2018). For Cassidy’s (2013) interview participants in his study of gay men’s negotiation of identity management of Gaydar and Facebook, the possibility of obtaining additional information about a Gaydar user was a strong motivator to gain information that could be used to search users on Facebook. Similarly, in his study on mobile dating romance, Haywood (2018, 160) found that his heterosexual male interview participants also adopted similar strategies in their efforts to determine the identity of Tinder users. But as the interview participant Mia’s ‘catfishing’ experience with an underage boy highlighted, Tinder users can misrepresent themselves on Facebook. Mia’s scepticism, however, was reaffirmed when she found the underage boy’s ‘real’ profile.
While the interviewees searched for and viewed Tinder users’ various other social media pages, they were uncomfortable when their matches engaged in similar forms of cross-platform convergence and sought them out in other online spaces. The tendency to judge strangers’ actions different to our own, even when experiencing the same situation, however, is not uncommon (see Davison 1983). Indeed, Cassidy’s (2013, 185) interviewees also reported their feeling surrounding crosschecking practices associated with Facebook and Gaydar use. He found that there was:
[…] a palpable sense of discomfort about its prevalence. This arose from the fact that the balance between the benefits of being able to crosscheck information about others, and the risks associated with the ability of others to do the same in return, was an uneasy one. Participants, however, were also frightened when Tinder users adopted similar crosschecking strategies. One interpretation of this finding may be that cross-platform convergence is more disturbing to women in the context of their common experiences of intrusion on Tinder. Indeed, Stanko (1985, 11) argues that, ‘[w]omen’s fear reflects a recognition of their vulnerability as women to men’s behavior and thus to the possibility of male violence.’ As discussed in Chapter Four, my findings demonstrate how intimate intrusions on Tinder can have a cumulative impact. The general distrust in men as described by some of the interviewees may have contributed to their discomfort when they experienced men’s cross-platform convergence. These considerations might explain in some ways how women do find it acceptable to use cross-platform convergence to assess Tinder users, but do not appreciate the same
120 tactics being used on them. And as we will see below, the women I interviewed experienced such interactions as intrusive.
A point of difference should also be noted between the women I interviewed and other Tinder users’ cross-platform convergence strategies. While participants viewed Tinder users’ various social media profiles to allay their authenticity concerns, they generally did so passively, not attempting to communicate with men through these channels. The men who (knowingly to participants) used cross-platform convergence strategies, however, often attempted to communicate directly with participants through these services. This finding highlights how the same behaviours can be healthy or intrusive, depending on the context in which they are adopted.
Keira, for instance, recalled an experience with a man she had not matched with on Tinder but who was able to contact her since she had linked her Instagram account to her Tinder profile. Keira explained that the man sent her topless photos of himself through Instagram’s instant messaging service. She recalled:
I’ve gotten heaps of messages on Instagram […] These are people that have just found my Instagram and I haven’t given them- I haven’t swiped right, which means they haven’t been able to contact me through the Tinder app, but they’ve tried to like, they’ve not taken that as a clue and then they’ve messaged me on Instagram. Including, like, there was one guy, and he’s done it again recently, actually, he just sends me, like, topless photos of himself at the gym. And he’s just like “hey Keira, I saw you on Tinder” (Keira). Throughout the interview, Keira similarly described how another Tinder user who had viewed her Instagram through Tinder’s cross-platform linking affordance was then able to locate her profile on Facebook. Keira’s experiences highlight how Tinder users can use the platform’s cross-platform linking affordance to find and engage with people on a range of services. Of course, Keira and I do not know the intention behind the men’s behaviour; however, given their inability to communicate with Keira through Tinder, it is likely that they used cross-platform convergence strategies to facilitate communication. Despite several of the interviewees describing their efforts to initially link their Instagram profiles, all participants who did this explained removing these links following similar intrusive experiences.
However, not all of the interviewees who experienced this behaviour had linked, or given access, to their various social media profiles. Indeed, some participants
121 described their efforts to ensure their privacy on social media. Given the interviewees belief that Facebook could reveal their authentic self, they often restricted access to this platform. Georgia, for instance, described her discomfort when a Tinder user contacted her through Facebook’s instant messaging service. Because of this incident, and to mitigate the risk of disclosing personal information to Tinder users, Georgia maintained a strictly private Facebook profile. Sasha’s most upsetting experience led her to be more cautious about the personal information she communicated to Tinder matches. She recalled the experience which necessitated this strategy:
The worst one I think that I had was I matched with a guy and we talked for a bit and that was really fun, we were having a general, normal conversation that wasn’t…it wasn’t overly flirtatious or of that nature and then he all of a sudden started to turn really into about what I would like to do in bed, what my previous experiences were. […] What I found terrifying, though, was I had another dating profile on another website, it was Plenty of Fish, and he had found me on that dating profile and so a few weeks later I then got messages from him on this other dating profile, which was, I guess, unsettling that he could find me and recognise me and decided that he would continue that conversation as well (Sasha). Cassidy (2013) found that all of his male interview participants were concerned with protecting personal information from strangers not in one’s individual Facebook network. Despite the men’s efforts, Cassidy’s (2013) participants nonetheless experienced safety and privacy concerns because of their Facebook use. The most common experiences his participants reported were being outed as gay to being stalked. Participants’ experiences of cross-platform convergence demonstrate how Tinder users can similarly gain access to other users social circles beyond the app. Despite Georgia and Sasha not having used Tinder’s cross-platform linking affordance, for instance, users were still able to find them on other social media platforms by, presumably, searching their names and other personal information they had gained.
Tinder users’ efforts to search users on other social media platforms is compounded by Facebook’s ‘real name’ policy. My walkthrough of Tinder established that users can create an account with a mobile phone number; however, originally users could only register an account through their Facebook page (Makhoul 2018). It is unclear what information participants used to log in to their Tinder accounts; however, our discussions suggested they had predominantly registered using their Facebook
122 accounts. As Francesca said: ‘Because that’s the only way you can link, well it was the only way that you could actually link, link up your profile.’ Since Tinder imports user data from Facebook for users who sign up using their Facebook accounts, Tinder users’ ‘real’ (albeit only first) names are likely to be attached to their profiles. Indeed, Facebook’s ToS provide that users agree to use their ‘real’ name when creating an account. The Terms state: ‘Facebook is a community where everyone uses the name they go by in everyday life’ (Facebook 2019). Users who create an account using a ‘fake’ name risk Facebook suspending access or disabling their account.
First names along with other identifiable information can make users more easily searchable (Patsakis et al. 2015). As Georgia pointed out: ‘[…] they [Tinder users] obviously see a name and if you have any information, like a uni, they can filter their searches’ (Georgia). To maintain anonymity, Samantha used her middle name on her Facebook profile to obscure her ‘real’ name, which meant that her middle name was simultaneously displayed on her Tinder profile. Of course, Tinder users could still search and find Samantha’s Facebook profile under her pseudonym. But given Facebook users primarily use the service to connect with friends and family, it is likely that participants wanted to use their ‘real’ names in this context. As Georgia explained, her Facebook profile is her ‘personal domain’ (Georgia). Tinder’s data import from Facebook also means that user photographs are likely to be the same on both platforms. As Georgia put it: ‘[…] typically your pictures are the same on Facebook as they are on Tinder’ (Georgia). It is unclear if Tinder’s ‘Common Connections’ feature is still active, given the limited information on this I observed during the walkthrough of the app; however, one participant described this affordance. More specifically, Miranda pointed out her concern surrounding Tinder’s importation of Facebook users’ ‘liked’ interests and mutual friends:
It’s not hard if you know someone’s name, where they live, it’s showing you mutual friends and their interests. It wouldn’t be hard to then Google, Facebook search them and them find you. […] but then what other stuff have I got on there that people could find me through? And people that I didn’t want to find me, could find me through (Miranda). Georgia and Miranda emphasise how Tinder’s connection to Facebook can disrupt user privacy and facilitate intimate intrusions. Since several participants described being messaged by Tinder users on Facebook, it is possible that they used this feature
123 to locate their profiles. The increasing searchability of users and connections to other apps, then, means that Tinder users can locate other Tinder users on a range of social media platforms. And importantly, this finding demonstrates how the unique affordances of Tinder, and in particular, its inbuilt links with Facebook, can facilitate and amplify intimate intrusions.
My findings also demonstrate how cross-platform convergence strategies can facilitate the sharing of social media users’ locations through GPS technology. Mia, for instance, described how cross-platform linking to Instagram could enable Tinder users to view other users’ locations:
[…] I know a lot of people put their, even in their bio they put their Snapchat and their Instagram profile just in the description. I don’t, there’s one thing I don’t think a lot of people realise, but in Instagram, if you share your location when you’re sharing your photos, you can go to the actual house number, you can see where, and I, like, if you go onto someone and they’ve shared their location you could, even if it’s someone you’re not following, if they do that you can see exactly where they, like, if they’re sharing, if there’s, usually most people upload photos from home, so if they’ve got like 50 photos from the one location, there’s a good indication that’s probably someone’s house (Mia). Similarly, Francesca discussed her experience surrounding Snapchat’s affordance ‘Snap Map’, which enables live location-sharing between Snapchat users. She was reminded of the platform’s location-sharing ability when a Tinder user claimed to be in a park near her home. Francesca explained this affordance:
[…] if you’re connected on Snapchat, you can actually see where people are. So unless you turn off those locations, so when that guy had said that he was down the road from my house, so when he was down the road from my house, because we were connected on Snapchat, you could actually see exactly where I was. So, I was thinking to myself, shit, I better turn off my location on Snapchat, because he would be able to see exactly where I was. If I wasn’t at my house then, you know, it was just, yeah obviously weird that he had ended up down the road from my house in a park and yeah. If you have all of your location services turned on on your phone, whether it be on Snapchat or Facebook, you know, Google maps, there’s a lot of information that other people can tap into if they’re connected with you on social media (Francesca). My findings are consonant with research by digital media and computer science researchers who have also documented the risks of location-sharing technology (Li and Chen 2010; Mason and Magnet 2012; Tsai et al. 2010). Francesca’s experience
124 also resonates with concerns raised by Powell and Henry (2017, 41) regarding geo- locative data in the context of domestic violence:
As women’s refuges and domestic violence support workers report, many women do not know that their devices have been compromised, leading to abusive men discovering the locations of refuges or simply ‘turning up’ as women go about their day. Significantly, participants’ experiences emphasise how Tinder and other location- aware apps more broadly can amplify experiences of intrusion. The GPS affordances of social media apps offer unique dynamics that are specific to these technologies. Indeed, while Francesca’s experience highlights how users can determine user locations with location-aware apps, her experience also demonstrates how this technology can heighten women’s experiences of intrusion. For Francesca, her concerns were compounded because she knew the Tinder user had taken advantage of the availability of her location data to stalk her, and she also knew the man was in her vicinity. Adding to her concern, since Francesca was connected with this man on Snapchat and Instagram, she then needed to consider altering the affordances of a variety of platforms. In this way, Francesca’s experience highlights how Tinder can facilitate new forms of intrusion, and also heighten experiences of existing forms of intrusion in different ways. The affordances of Tinder and location-aware dating apps more broadly offer unique dynamics that are specific to these technologies.
5.8.3 Unmatching The majority of the women I interviewed described engaging with Tinder’s safety affordances. Most often, participants discussed using the unmatch mechanism to limit further contact with their matches through the app. While Tinder does not have a specific ‘blocking’ mechanism, some participants reported blocking matches. Although it is unclear what mechanism they were referring to, it is likely they were describing Tinder’s unmatch mechanism, given its ability to prevent communication between users. The majority of the interviewees explained how they would unmatch users following an intrusive incident. As Samantha pointed out: ‘that’s immediately getting rid of them’ (Samantha). Similarly, Hannah discussed the effectiveness of this affordance in restricting further contact on the app: ‘[i]t’s usually fine […] I’ve not had anything that’s continued on or been contacted after I blocked them’ (Hannah). For Lara, the ability to unmatch users was important when dealing with intrusive messages:
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I consider that more on the minor end, it’s still sexual abuse, but at least if it’s just someone saying that stuff over a message you can report them and unmatch them and then it’s all over (Lara). Significantly, Lara highlights the importance of using Tinder’s unmatch mechanism to limit ‘minor’ forms of intrusion. Of course, unmatching a user is not a barrier to intimate intrusions between matches who have been communicating through other digital mediums or have met in a physical setting. However, the interviewees’ understanding reflects the effectiveness of unmatching users to limit contact between those communicating through the app.
5.8.4 Reporting Although most of participants unmatched users who engaged in intrusive behaviour, fewer reported intrusive behaviour to the app or authorities. Of the participants who used this mechanism, they commonly explained using it only for matches who engaged in behaviour they considered particularly intrusive or offensive. As Becky explained: ‘[…] I think one was really, really offensive and I think I reported his inappropriate messaging, but yeah, apart from that I just unmatched them…’ (Becky). Similarly, Jade said: ‘it was about my weight I’d report them depending on how explicit a sexual comment might be I’d report them’ (Jade). Most of the interviewees, however, did not use Tinder’s reporting mechanism.
The interviewees’ limited reporting of intimate intrusions aligns with the fact that most harassment and sexual violence is not reported to the authorities (Australian Human Rights Commission 2017; Fileborn 2018; Powell and Henry 2016). Participants provided multiple reasons for not reporting. One common theme was that they were unaware of Tinder’s reporting affordances. As Ariel explained: ‘[s]o, I’ve blocked guys, but I’ve never reported it. I didn’t know you could report it to Tinder. I don’t know how you do that on the app’ (Ariel). Likewise, Georgia could not remember Tinder’s reporting affordance: ‘I don’t know if I reported it to Tinder. I’m trying to remember what the report function was.’ She continued: ‘Yeah and I mean I would’ve assumed that if I could’ve reported it, I would. But I don’t remember if I…if I actively did’ (Georgia). At the time that the women I interviewed were using Tinder, the report button was hidden by three red dots in the corner of the screen. It is therefore unsurprising that participants had not engaged with such a nondescript button, as Duguay et al. (2018) also found. It is also unsurprising that the interviewees were unaware of the reporting
126 affordances available to them, given the majority of them had not seen Tinder’s Dating Safety page where this information is outlined.
But some interviewees who were aware of Tinder’s reporting mechanism did not report intimate intrusions either. Kimberly said:
Yeah and you know what? I didn’t even think to report it. Like, it’s just, it’s not that uncommon for, sort of, similar things to happen. Like, if he had have said, “I’m gonna fucking kill you” or something more serious, like, in inverted commas, maybe I would have, but I should have, but I don’t know, it just didn’t cross my mind at the time (Kimberly). Kimberly’s admission that reporting the behaviour ‘just didn’t cross’ her mind highlights the everyday occurrence of intrusion. This was a common response for the other women I interviewed. Based on their surveys with undergraduate and graduate student women in the United States on their online harassment experiences, Vitak et al. (2017) argue that due to the ubiquity of misogyny, women have become tolerant of this behaviour, since it is part and parcel of their online interactions. Similarly, Kimberly’s view that the behaviour is normal is resonant of women’s understanding of sexual harassment in physical settings. As the Change the course: National report on sexual assault and sexual harassment at Australian universities (Australian Human Rights Commission 2017) found, women often consider sexual harassment an everyday and unavoidable experience. As my findings highlight, women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder are unpleasant but ordinary. It is therefore likely that the normality of these experiences shapes reporting decisions.
Even when the women I interviewed understood their experiences as aberrant, most of them did not report to Tinder. Penelope, for instance, did not want to overreact to her experience of intrusion with a man in an isolated park at night. As noted earlier, Penelope was frightened when she found herself in an isolated location with a Tinder date who asked her: “do you know that this is just a hook-up?” (Penelope’s Tinder date). After describing the experience, she explained to me:
I didn’t want to, like, it wasn’t like a huge deal, like that guy who I went on a date with, I didn’t really report him to Tinder or anything like that, because I was safe, but maybe I should’ve because I don’t know if he does that to other people as well (Penelope). Research on the invalidation of women’s experiences of sexual violence has found that women do not want to be seen making a ‘fuss about nothing’ (Kelly and Radford
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1990, 46). As Penelope explains, she ‘was safe’, despite the experience frightening her and informing her future Tinder experiences. Duguay et al.’s (2018, 8) research on queer women’s experiences of patchwork platform governance on the platforms Tinder, Instagram, and Vine found that Tinder’s obscure report button contributed ‘to the sense that reporting others was a rare act.’ But some of the interviewees who experienced intrusive behaviour which fit the legal definition of sexual assault said they did not report. Following physical abuse, Francesca explained: ‘I didn’t raise it with Tinder, I actually didn’t even think to. Do you know what I mean? Like, I just- that wouldn’t have, that never even crossed my mind’ (Francesca). This lack of reporting could be explained by participants’ minimisation of their experiences. As Gordon and Collins (2013) point out in their study of South African female residence students’ experiences of gender-based violence, social invalidation of gender-based violence can create a cycle of underreporting.
But the fact that it did not occur to the interviewees to report is interesting because Tinder explicitly encourages users to report incidents that occur in offline as well as online settings. Sexual harassment research suggests possible reasons for non- reporting, such as: self-blame; the belief the incident is too minor to report; or that nothing will be done in response. Indeed, Stanko (1985, 13) emphasised these concerns when she argued that ‘[a]ny attempt to label men’s behaviour as threatening or sexually harassing raises ... myths surrounding women’s sexuality as the cause for men’s actions.’ Fileborn’s (2012) research on women’s perceptions and experiences of unwanted sexual attention in licensed venues in Melbourne also found women blamed themselves for the unwanted sexual attention they experienced. Victim blaming is also prevalent online, where women are expected to correctly interpret men's motives and avoid provoking them (Jane 2017). Similar dynamics may explain why the women in my sample were reluctant to report incidents they understood as unacceptable.
Another explanation for the interviewees’ lack of reporting might lie within Tinder’s perceived inability or indifference to address user reports. Indeed, many participants said Service Term violations were inadequately acted upon on Tinder, even when they reported users. Participants gave examples of the app showing their previously unmatched and reported users in Tinder’s Discovery section. Rachael, for instance, explained: ‘I’ve reported people before and not many, but a fair bit and I’ve seen them
128 on the app still. So, I don’t know how they, how seriously they take that’ (Rachael). While she wonders about Tinder’s response to user reports, Rachael also demonstrates how the app’s limited action may serve to enable and reproduce intrusive behaviour.
Participants’ experiences further demonstrate how Tinder’s algorithms, which allow users to see and engage with those they have reported, may reinforce and amplify a toxic technoculture. As noted earlier, Massanari’s (2017) study of news and community website Reddit demonstrated how sociotechnical networks can enable and propagate toxic technocultures through their algorithms and governance. For Massanari, Reddit’s toxic technoculture emerged as supported anti-feminist and misogynistic activism on the platform. While Tinder operates in a different way to Reddit, there is a real risk that its affordances and governance enable and reinforce a toxic technoculture that might emerge as intrusive user behaviour. specifically, the ability to engage with reported or unmatched users might send a message that intrusive behaviour is acceptable, and that user reports are unwarranted. For these reasons, it could be said that Tinder’s response to user reports normalises abuse and enables a toxic technoculture.
Tinder’s inaction in the face of Service Terms violations may serve to propagate and amplify a toxic technoculture. Massanari’s (2017) understanding highlights how Tinder’s absent or inadequate responses to intrusive behaviour, for example, could reproduce it due to user impunity for service Term violations. Further contributing to the problem, the interviewees’ dissatisfaction and questioning of Tinder’s response to complaints meant that they were less-likely to report intrusive behaviour. As Duguay et al. (2018, 4) explain: ‘[a] toxic technoculture can shape how others behave on a platform.’ For the interviewees, then, dissatisfaction with Tinder’s responses reinforced their decisions not to report users. And because of this, the interviewees’ limited use of Tinder’s report mechanism may further serve to (albeit inadvertently) reinforce a toxic technoculture.
5.8.5 Banning Users Tinder’s decision-making processes are opaque. The platform does not tell users whether their report has been reviewed or acted on. Tinder’s blog, however, can provide some insight into their actions for violation of the app’s Terms of Use. While
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Tinder’s blog post as Figure 5.10 above suggests the platform is taking steps to curb disrespectful behaviour on the app, for instance, through the life-time ban of abusive Tinder user Nick Vedovi, for the most part, the interviewees’ accounts of reporting users who were still visible on the app did not reflect this. As Rachael pointed out: ‘I haven’t heard of anyone getting banned permanently for their behaviour…’ (Rachael). Of course, Tinder’s blog post about banning Vedovi was written in response to a story that garnered international attention (see for example, Khoo 2017), and a significant media focus followed this incident. It is likely that Tinder reacted to the story because of the negative attention it was receiving. As ARTICLE 19’s (2018, 15) human rights impact assessments report on the internet infrastructure industry found, ‘corporations tend to react quickly and decisively to public scandals and negative attention in the media.’ ARTICLE 19’s (2018) research demonstrates there is a strong correlation between negative press and the publication of a scandal regarding human rights violations and companies’ adoption of human rights standards. These findings might suggest that Tinder responded to the incident to avoid further negative publicity.
While the women I interviewed did not discuss user bans as a result of their reports, conversely, one participant suspected she had in fact been reported for failing to meet her matches' expectations. Rachael's account was banned on multiple occasions for a duration of approximately 24 hours. Despite not meeting the grounds for a report, she believed some of her Tinder matches reported her when she had failed to respond to them in the timeframe they deemed appropriate, and following an incident where she challenged one of her matches. As discussed in Chapter Four, one of Rachael’s matches demanded her attention immediately after matching. He said: ‘I should’ve just reported you from the start for being rude. Message me back’ (Rachael quoting a Tinder user). Since Rachael had not engaged in behaviour that warranted a legitimate report, her suspension highlights the potential for misuse of platform affordances. Indeed, abusers can use a platform’s flagging mechanism, a mechanism which is supposed to protect users, against their targets (Gillespie 2018a). In their United States based nationally representative survey, Lenhart et al. (2016) found that 17% of participants had experienced denial of access to essential digital tools or platforms. Denial of access included technical attacks to overwhelm a device and render it unusable, and misusing reporting mechanisms to limit access to a platform. These
130 findings demonstrate how, similar to other social media platforms, Tinder users can use a platform’s affordances for unintended purposes to further control their targets.
Although Rachael’s profile was reinstated presumably following Tinder’s investigation, she did not know what led to her initial suspension and the eventual restoration of her account. Given that she had only received a message from Tinder, which she believed said something to the effect of: ‘”your account is under review.” […] You’ve been reported too many times’ (Rachael), she was confused by this opaque moderation process. Her initial account suspension was unlikely to be a result of a human moderation decision, rather, a process of automation was likely the cause of this. As Gillespie (2018a, 83) explains, ‘[…] many [social media platforms] are exploring computational techniques that promise automatic detection of specific kinds of problematic content like pornography, harassment, and hate speech.’ The use of automated content moderation, and the limited opportunity for human interaction that accompanies it, however, may serve to increase social media user frustration (West 2018). Rachael’s experience and understanding supports Suzor et al.’s (forthcoming) study of meaningful transparency in commercial content moderation of digital platforms. Using 380 survey responses submitted to advocacy project website OnlineCensorship.org, the authors found that over a quarter of respondents were confused about what action triggered a moderation action or account suspension. While I do not know why Rachael’s account was reported and temporarily banned, her recollection of receiving limited information about the process suggests this may happen to other users.
Tinder’s lack of transparency or ‘black box’ decision-making processes contributed to participants’ dissatisfaction with reporting processes. The limited information Tinder provided to participants following reports made them question whether Tinder was censuring intrusive users. For instance, Georgia described her confusion about Tinder’s processes:
[…] I guess unmatching and reporting is good, but whether they follow through with the reporting or how that works, like do they get one report and they get taken off or like what constitutes the threshold where they say to somebody “you can’t use this app anymore”? She further questioned: […] if people continuously report someone for saying something explicit versus someone who was like “I’ve met up with this person 131
and they’ve sexually assaulted me”, do they just do one, how many messages does it take for somebody at head office to go “oh yeah okay, we’re gonna delete this person”? Like yeah, what’s involved? The police? What do they actually do with those reports? (Georgia). Georgia and Rachael’s accounts indicate the way Tinder's lack of transparency about the processes for responding to reports elicits doubts about the enforcement of Terms of Use. Participants’ questioning and doubt surrounding Tinder’s responses to user reports supports researchers and civil society organisations’ calls to provide users with more information about content moderation processes (Bankston and Woolery 2018; Gillespie 2018b; Leetaru 2018; Matias et al. 2015; Suzor et al. forthcoming).
Significantly, there is a real risk that limited meaningful transparency further serves to enable and reinforce Tinder and similar dating apps’ toxic technocultures. While I do not know what information Tinder gave to the interviewees’ reported users, it is likely that this was limited, given Rachael’s experiences described above. A platform’s failure to provide clear justifications for moderated content makes it difficult for users to learn the rules (Suzor et al. forthcoming). At the same time, when a social media platform automatically bans a user, they fail to offer opportunities for users to learn from the platform (West 2018). As West (2018, 4380) argues: ‘[…] current content moderation systems do not give [social media users] much opportunity to participate or grow as citizens of these spaces.’ These findings are consistent with a broader body of research which shows us that people are more likely to follow the rules when they are clearly articulated to them (Cialdini et al. 1991; Matias 2017). As Suzor et al. (forthcoming) and West (2018) argue in their research on meaningful transparency in commercial content moderation, social media users are more likely to comply with a platform’s rules if they are clearly articulated to them. This research highlights how a lack of transparent decision-making on Tinder may contribute to users’ ongoing engagement in behaviour that violates the Terms of Use. For these reasons, without meaningful ways for users to learn the platform’s rules, Tinder may reinforce a toxic technoculture that enables and does little to prevent men’s ongoing intrusive behaviour.
5.9 Dating Safety Page
Of the women I interviewed, only Miranda and Josie had seen Tinder’s Dating Safety page. It is notable, however, that Miranda had seen this information, given she had
132 written a university assignment which required an analysis of Tinder’s interface. Apart from these interviewees, no other participants had seen or engaged with the page. Samantha noted: ‘[y]eah, I had no idea any of that existed and that’s such a stupid place to put it’ (Samantha). She considered the safety advice to be an afterthought that was only published due to Tinder’s legal obligations. Penelope also commented on the location of the advice: ‘I guess they should make it a little more accessible, probably. Cause it’s not really visible. I’ve never seen that’ (Penelope). As the walkthrough of Tinder evidenced, the safety advice is nondescriptly located on the app’s Settings page.
Despite most of the interviewees not previously engaging with Tinder’s Dating Safety page, many of them said they thought it could benefit Tinder users. After Zoe briefly looked at Tinder’s safety tips during the interview, she noted:
I think it would be helpful. If people are going to meet, if people do plan to meet up, I think it’d be definitely worth reading, because it does seem like common sense to meet up in a public place, but maybe some people, when they’re trying to meet up, they might not be aware of that, then they read that they’re like “oh yeah, it’s better to be in a public place” (Zoe). But the importance the interviewees placed on Tinder’s safety advice varied. Some considered the advice to be an extension of the safety work they were already employing. As Miranda explained:
I feel like most, and specifically females, would probably know that already. You’re always being told that. But I think sometimes, I think it’s good because sometimes you can get caught up, cause Tinder does feel a little bit like a game sometimes and you forget that these are actual people that could probably find you if they wanted to (Miranda). Miranda’s reflection highlights the routine safety work women learn and pre-emptively employ from a young age to avoid male violence. For Miranda, this work becomes habitual and is absorbed by girls and women as a kind of hidden labour (Vera-Gray 2016b). Indeed, ‘[w]e [girls and women] accumulate this knowledge about danger, and carry it into our adult life’ (Stanko 1996, 58). Miranda’s recognition that Tinder users could potentially locate other users sheds light on how women’s safety work limits their freedom to use the platform and engage with users in ways they would prefer. While she explains that she might ‘get caught up’ when using Tinder, she places importance on overcoming this and employing safety work.
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Kimberly also noted how Tinder’s safety advice was an extension of the routine safety work women are told to employ. She explained:
I just feel like that’s all obvious stuff that we’ve been told our whole lives. Especially with women, I think what would be helpful on there and something that’s never ever, sort of, mentioned is about men and how they should, sort of, act. But I just feel like that would never happen, so (Kimberly). Arguably, Tinder’s Dating Safety advice reflects the codification of the routine safety work women employ, adapted to an online context. As Kimberly and Miranda explained, Tinder’s safety advice reflects the learnt strategies they, and other women, use to protect themselves. While this might suggest the advice is useful in helping users to navigate intrusive behaviours, safety information, such as that provided by Tinder, fails to acknowledge the range of protective strategies women already use to protect themselves (Stanko 1993; Vera-Gray 2018). Tinder’s encouragement that users ‘always meet and stay in public’ and ‘tell your friends and family members of your plans’, for instance, renders safety work invisible. Indeed, when I asked the interviewees to describe the ways in which they protected themselves on Tinder, they were often unable to describe the extent of their strategies. Upon further questioning and prompting, however, they described the extent of the protective strategies they employed.
Kimberly’s analysis above also shows the safety advice’s victim-centred focus. Keira also noted this when she explained: ‘Yeah, okay, right, so like, women have to regulate their behaviour, right’ (Keira). While Tinder prohibits inappropriate, hateful, and harassing messages and behaviour, as outlined in the Community Guidelines (Tinder inc. 2018b), the dating safety advice highlights how the platform largely holds women responsible for protecting themselves on the service. Regardless of the usefulness of the advice, there is a real risk of reinforcing the idea women are responsible for navigating and preventing male violence. Indeed, Keira and Kimberly’s responses echo Jane’s (2017) argument that the responsibility to respond to and prevent gendered cyberhate should not lie within those who experience it. Arguably, safety advice, such as that provided by Tinder, diminishes ‘the accountability not only of perpetrators, but of society and the state’ (Vera-Gray 2018, 48). But it is no coincidence that Tinder’s safety advice frames users as responsible for protecting themselves. By holding users responsible in this way, social media platforms distance
134 themselves from being held responsible for facilitating and perhaps propagating intrusive behaviour between users (Gillespie 2018a).
Despite participants’ differing assessments of Tinder’s Dating Safety page, they suggested ways to improve the visibility of the information. Some interviewees said it would be better placed on the app’s enrolment interface. Sasha explained:
Cause I know when you go to log in or set up, it says “choose your photos” and it runs you through a step by step tutorial, so it’s like, well it’s probably a good spot to put it, at the start before people go through that (Sasha). Miranda made a similar suggestion: So it would be good if they had it when you start, like when you open it, when you sign up. If they had a walkthrough of that you can’t skip. A walkthrough of just like “here’s just some handy hints of how to be safe online, on Tinder”, that kind of stuff (Miranda). While it is unclear whether repositioning the advice could help to curb intimate intrusions on Tinder, participants’ insight suggests that more safety information could enable women to better respond to intimate intrusions using the platform’s mechanisms. Since most interviewees had not seen Tinder’s safety information, repositioning the advice could make users feel more welcome on Tinder. Better- positioned safety advice could also help to alleviate user discomfort. As Josie explained: ‘[…] it’s not just about safety, it’s also about making the women feel comfortable and they clearly don’t care about that bit’ (Josie).
5.9.1 Online Behaviour Although the women I interviewed had not engaged with Tinder’s Dating Safety page prior to the interviews, some participants explained the online strategies they employed to mitigate intimate intrusions, which were similar to those listed in Tinder’s advice. For example, the majority of the interviewees described their wariness concerning providing access to their personal information, including mobile phone numbers and home addresses. When reflecting on what she would do if she experienced more intimate intrusions in the context of her Tinder use, Becky, for instance, said: ‘[…] I’d be more cautious not to give out my number’ (Becky). Similarly, Georgia explained that her ‘phone number was probably one of the last things’ she would give Tinder users. She continued: ‘I’d probably only give them my phone
135 number if like I had met up with them and we were like continuing to see each other for a bit’ (Georgia).
However, as noted earlier, Becky, Georgia, and the majority of the interviewees described moving communication from Tinder to other services, despite the platform’s safety advice discouraging this behaviour. Becky recalled communicating with Tinder users on messaging app WhatsApp Messenger:
[…] I have an Australian number now, but I’m originally from Germany and my WhatsApp account is still on a German number, so I would give them the German number because I know I can block them on WhatsApp (Becky). Similarly, Georgia described communicating with Tinder users on Facebook: ‘I think if anything it would be like “hey here’s my Facebook” because at least you can delete them off Facebook and sort of stop that’ (Georgia). Becky and Georgia’s reliance on the safety affordances of WhatsApp Messenger and social networking platform Facebook emphasises the role that other platforms can play in mitigating intrusive behaviour. Given Becky and Georgia’s awareness of the effectiveness of WhatsApp and Facebook’s safety mechanisms, they used this form of platform convergence to promote their safety online.
5.9.2 Offline Behaviour As noted earlier, Tinder’s Dating Safety page provides user advice to promote offline safety. When meeting in offline settings with Tinder users, the platform recommends users tell their friends and family where they are going and who with. During the interview with Becky, she read Tinder’s Dating Safety page and described how she conducted routine safety work when engaging with the platform’s users:
Whenever I went somewhere I gave a colleague or a friend, I said like “hey, I just have his name on Tinder, that’s it. He’s (their age)” if I knew the job, like, I told them everything I know, and we’re meeting at this time, there. So that, if there might be something happening they’d at least know where I was supposed to be at the very last time point (Becky). But similarly to the online behaviour outlined above, the interviewees adopted Tinder’s safety advice, despite not having engaged with the safety information. Indeed, while Francesca had not read Tinder’s safety advice, she explained using her mobile phone's ‘pin drop’ function, which enables location-sharing to other mobile users.
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Francesca said she would use this function to send her friends her location while on a Tinder date. Similarly, Keira explained how she would send her Tinder matches’ phone numbers and date location to a friend prior to meeting with dates. Similar to what gender-based violence researchers have found (DeKeseredy et al. 2017), participants’ strategies highlight how social media affordances, and new technologies more broadly, can be used for protection.
Despite the interviewees’ routine safety work, however, they often felt obligated to interact in ways that conflicted with the offline mitigation strategies they had developed. For instance, Francesca felt uncomfortable allowing her Tinder date to pick her up, but she felt pressured to oblige to his request. She said:
I just thought it was weird. I even questioned to my friend and I was like “that’s weird, he wants to pick me up.” I was like, it’s nice, but really? For a first date? Why would you want to pick someone up? Okay, alright, whatever, I’ll roll with it. Cause I’d met him out, you know, in a bar, as well, it was, I guess you, there’s that level of trust again that you immediately put in someone that it’s okay, you know, even though you might think it’s a bit weird or feel a little bit uncomfortable about it, you kind of just roll with it, right? So, when he said that and then he, you know, pulled the “alright, so chivalry’s not dead”, you know, “let me just pick you up.” I was like “okay” (Francesca). Francesca’s discomfort was validated when the man forcefully kissed her and pulled her hair during the date. For some interviewees, their mitigation strategies were reaffirmed after they experienced an intrusion in an offline setting. Like Francesca, Georgia felt uncomfortable about a Tinder user’s requests to meet at his home. She explained her experience:
And then I’m like “okay so like where do you want to meet?” And he was like “Oh do you just want to pop by my place first?” And I was like “okay…” It was the strangest thing because I just got this weird feeling and I was just like “by the way, I got my period”. I know it’s too much information. I didn’t, but I just felt like saying it to him (Georgia). It is interesting to note here that the way in which Georgia refused the man’s sexual advances is consonant with the indirect strategies Kitzinger and Frith (1999) also found. Following this experience, Georgia explained she would only meet Tinder dates in public places. She said:
So yeah, after that I was like there is no way I am ever going, like, not in public first meeting someone. Yeah which was stupid...I think I was
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a little bit younger at the time, so I wasn’t thinking things through (Georgia). These accounts demonstrate participants’ difficulty in behaving in ways that ensured their physical safety. While participants highlighted the mitigation strategies they employed, ultimately they were sometimes pressured into situations that made them feel uncomfortable. The interviewees’ recollections demonstrate that while Tinder’s safety advice might depict helpful ways to stay safe when meeting with Tinder users, they also emphasise how users might feel obligated to interact in ways that contradicts this advice.
Significantly, one participant discussed a shortcoming of the app’s safety advice, given its United States based focus. As the walkthrough of Tinder demonstrated, the further help, support, or advice offered to users is directed at those in the United States. The page encourages users to call 911 in the event of an emergency, and offers United States based users avenues to contact support services. Samantha explained her understanding of this:
Yeah, so even though they expand to other countries, they only really care about, because Americans are sue happy, the rest of the world is kind of like, eh. Because they can’t do much. I mean, they can raise it up in the US, but they would have to go to US or… Yeah, it’s clearly meant to be just as a “let’s just put down our own risk that you’re gonna get in trouble, but hey, who cares actually?” (Samantha). As Samantha highlights, since the support service listings are United States based, the platform does not offer international users avenues for support. Accordingly, Samantha’s analysis highlights the inadequacy of these resources in helping all of Tinder’s user base.
5.10 Menprovement Initiative As the walkthrough of Tinder demonstrated, the platform commenced their Menprovement Initiative on October 4, 2017. Of the women I interviewed who I was able to talk to about the Reactions feature, none had engaged with the feature. While I was not able to discuss Reactions with all of the interviewees, due to the timing of their interview sessions prior to the Menprovement Initiative, those who commented on it had varied responses. Sasha, for instance, considered Reactions to be a simple way to respond to intrusive behaviour on the app:
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[…] if there’s an easy way to just react to a message like that […] Without having to put thought into it, which is a lot of the reason why it’s so frustrating and exhausting when you do get those messages, cause then you have to make the decision, you have to take the action to unmatch them or respond, which is often gonna just get more negative messages, you know? (Sasha). But some of the women described their discomfort with using the feature. For example, Ariel emphasised her concern around using humour to respond to intimate intrusions:
That kind of seems like a humorous approach to that whole thing, because I find those, what are they called? Like, GIF things really funny. So, to me, that would just be, that’s not really like a serious, if I did that to a guy, if I was just like right, I’ll send you someone throwing a drink in your face, they’re probably gonna think it’s funny and all a part of the interaction. So, I mean, it’s not really something I would use unless I was actually joking around, if I was actually pissed off I wouldn’t send them that, cause I think it would actually escalate things. (Ariel). Ariel’s insight illustrates the potential for users to increase the level of abuse in retaliation to the Reaction. Ariel’s concerns highlight her doubt in the feature’s capacity to curb men’s intrusive behaviour, and the potential for it to cause further harm. Significantly, the potential impact of this was described by Jade when she said: ‘[…] women don’t know what’s gonna put a man over the edge of doing something really, you know, harmful’ (Jade). The women’s concern highlights their understanding that more ordinary and everyday experiences of intrusion can quickly escalate to more recognised experiences of abuse. This perception of the threat of male violence can put women on edge, expecting an escalation of male violence (Kelly 1988). In this way, the interviewees’ accounts denote their connection of intimate intrusions on Tinder to other forms of intrusion.
Participants’ accounts also demonstrate how Reactions and other similar features might facilitate and reinforce a toxic technoculture. Indeed, Francesca exposed her belief that men might behave intrusively when sent a Reaction: ‘you’re almost fuelling the fire for them to then react to you’ (Francesca). Of course, it is unlikely that all users who were sent Reactions retaliated in an intrusive way. For Francesca, though, her account shows how the feature might have reinforced male users’ decisions to respond in such a way—and importantly, in a way that they may not have without the feature. For this reason, Reactions could have shaped how users engaged with the platform and other users.
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But reactions was a problematic feature for various reasons. First, Tinder’s blog post (Pambakian 2017) about the Menprovement Initiative labelled men’s intrusive behaviour on the app as ‘douchey.’ Arguably, ‘douchey’ labels the behaviour as unimportant and trivialises the real impact intrusive behaviour can have on women who experience it. Second, Reactions also suggested that men’s ‘douchey’ behaviour is something that can be responded to and perhaps even corrected with an animated image. Third, after sending a negative Reaction, the users were still free to communicate through the app. This sends a message to users that the behaviour does not warrant a report to Tinder or unmatch on the user’s part. As Duguay et al. (2018, 13) highlight:
While appearing to provide another recourse against harassment, ‘Reactions’ do not impose any tangible consequences. Sending a GIF does not block or report the user. The introduction of such an inconsequential feature normalizes harassment and abuse as standard experiences for women using the platform and even encourages them to continue chatting after receiving ‘douchey’ remarks. Lastly, Reactions placed the responsibility to respond to and correct intrusive behaviour with women. Tinder’s positioning is reminiscent of what gender-based violence researchers have found in offline contexts whereby women are held responsible for mitigating and navigating men’s behaviour (Vera-Gray 2018; Worthington 2008). And similarly, since social media platforms disclaim responsibility for their users’ behaviour (Tushnet 2008), users are given the task of regulating content. As Crawford and Gillespie (2014) point out in their work on social media reporting tools, large-scale social media platforms ‘place the weight and, to some degree, the responsibility of content decisions entirely on flagging by users.’ As noted above, however, Reactions was an inconsequential feature, which did not result in moderation by the platform. Reactions, then, demonstrates how Tinder further negates responsibility for their users’ behaviour through platform initiatives and affordances.
5.11 User Innovations to Mitigate Intimate Intrusions While the interviewees used Tinder’s safety affordances as a part of their routine safety work, they also adopted other strategies that Tinder does not recommend. The mitigation strategies participants adopted prior and post matching with Tinder users are outlined in the following sections.
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5.11.1 Analysing User Profiles and Motivations As a part of participants’ ongoing routine safety work, some took more time to analyse their prospective matches’ Tinder profiles. As noted above, the interviewees sought to determine the authenticity of their matches using cross-platform convergence strategies. But their analyses were twofold; they were also trying to establish Tinder users’ motivations for using the app. Ariel, for instance, explained: ‘I definitely look at their profile to try and ascertain what are their purposes for being on there?’ (Ariel). Participants sought to determine this through analysis of their written biographical information, or lack thereof. Penelope, for instance, became wary of men who appeared ‘sweet’ in their profiles. She explained: ‘[…] if they seem really sweet and nice and kind, they’re definitely not what they seem, is what I’ve figured’ (Penelope). Reminiscent of the ‘nice guy syndrome’ (Glover 2004), Penelope’s understanding reflects her belief that men may obscure their motivations through an apparent caring nature.
The women I interviewed also analysed Tinder users’ photographs. Like many of the women I spoke to, Becky made a connection between user photographs and motivations for using Tinder. She described the type of profiles she would avoid matching with to mitigate intimate intrusions:
[…] the last few months I was using it, last few weeks, there were lots of profiles coming up where the guys are standing completely naked with their bum to the camera in any situation you could think of. And it was like, okay, I don’t know if that’s a new trend, or whatever, but from those kind of pictures you can already kind of guess that they might be a bit more fun orientated, maybe, maybe that’s not true, but that would be a connection I’d make, you know? (Becky). As Becky’s account indicates, many participants thought men were using Tinder for casual hook-ups. At the same time, Becky’s insight illustrates the conflation of intimate intrusions with casual hook-ups. One interpretation of this finding might be that underpinning these concerns is the idea that casual hook-ups may be conducive to an intrusive experience. It might also suggest that those who are seeking casual hook- ups are perceived to be more likely to engage in intrusive behaviour on Tinder. More specifically, it can provide support for the idea that sexual solicitations on Tinder can make women feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe. Chan’s (2018) research on the use of dating apps among women in Urban China further exemplifies the impact of this behaviour. Indeed, of his 19 interviewees, several experienced sexual solicitations a
141 form of sexual harassment. As we will see below, the interviewees sought to further mitigate the risk of attracting users who were interested in casual hook-ups by making alterations to their own Tinder profiles.
Even after matching with Tinder users, participants employed a range of strategies to mitigate intimate intrusions before and after they had occurred. Similar to the profile analysis the interviewees employed, participants adopted further strategies to determine user motivations and character after they had created a match. To gain a better understanding of her matches’ political ideologies, Keira asked whether or not they would have voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election. Ultimately, participants’ analyses of their matches’ motivations and character impeded on their ability to date. While the majority of the interviewees explained they were using Tinder to date and find a boyfriend, their analyses led them to be wary of men using the platform. Participants’ understanding that men may conceal their true motivations for using Tinder created a paradoxical situation for them. While they were looking for caring men, their assumptions led them to dismiss men who presented in this way.
5.11.2 Presenting the Self The women I interviewed also communicated their pre-match intimate intrusion mitigation strategies through changes made to their Tinder profiles. What Silfverberg et al. (2011) term ‘profile work’, the interviewees strategically managed their self- presentation using Tinder’s affordances. For Uski and Lampinen (2016, 450), ‘[p]rofile work is a continuous, strategic process that is guided by interpretations an individual makes of her or his behavior and that of others.’ In his seminal work, The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life, Goffman (1959) argues that individuals conduct performances to project their desired image. Adapting this concept, the women I interviewed demonstrated such performances to limit who they interacted with on Tinder. As a way of sifting through users who may be using the app for casual hook- ups, Josie wrote her Tinder biography in Cyrillic. When translated to English, one sentence read: ‘I’m not gonna have sex with you’ (Josie). Samantha explained how her male friend helped her change her Tinder profile to a form of computer science filler text and removed the photographs which he believed could be considered sexually suggestive. Samantha considered this strategy an effective technique to avoid matching with men who behaved intrusively. This finding correlates with online
142 dating profile interpretations Ellison et al. (2006) found in their research on self- presentation processes in the online dating environment, whereby online daters constructed their profiles by explicitly considering how others may perceive them.
5.12 Conclusion The interviewees’ accounts supplemented with the findings from the walkthrough of Tinder can provide some insight into the effectiveness of Tinder’s safety mechanisms and the platform’s responses to intimate intrusions on the service. The technical walkthrough of Tinder demonstrated Tinder’s policies and mechanisms for responding to user violations of the Terms of Use. While Tinder’s trust and safety analysts are not transparent about how they moderate users and the content they post, the platform’s related materials provided a clearer picture of their efforts to prevent user behaviour. Tinder’s blog, for instance, demonstrated the short-lived Menprovement Initiative, which was introduced to curb men’s ‘douchey’ behaviour.
This chapter demonstrated that the interview participants used Tinder’s safety mechanisms and other learnt strategies to protect themselves on the app. Although the majority of the women I interviewed had not seen or engaged with Tinder’s safety tips before the interviews, they described similar online and offline safety strategies as those presented in Tinder’s safety advice. The majority of participants described unmatching intrusive users; however, they recalled limited uses of Tinder’s reporting function. Interviewees’ limited knowledge of the app’s report mechanism and dissatisfaction with the platform’s responses to user reports shed some light on the effectiveness of these mechanisms. It is also notable that the interviewees described a range of mitigation strategies, such as analysing the profiles of matches and cross- platform convergence, which are not endorsed by the platform. Importantly, this chapter demonstrated how, at times, participants felt obligated to interact in ways that conflicted with the mitigation strategies they had developed. This finding demonstrated that while Tinder’s safety advice might depict helpful ways to stay safe on the platform, users may feel obligated to interact in ways that impedes on their safety.
This chapter emphasised how Tinder can both operate as a context in which established abusive practices can be enacted, while simultaneously providing a digital space where new forms of abuse may be developed. More specifically, my findings demonstrate that Tinder’s affordances combined with the features of other social
143 media platforms can serve to enable intrusive behaviours. One way that this finding came to light was through cross-platform linking. It is notable that although participants described using cross-platform convergence to determine user authentication, they were disturbed by users who behaved in similar ways. Indeed, several of the interviewees described limiting their use of Tinder’s cross-platform linking feature after it jeopardised their privacy and facilitated experiences of intrusion on other platforms. Participants’ privacy concerns, for instance, were compounded when Tinder users obtained access to their Facebook profiles. Given the interviewees considered Facebook profiles to afford authentic representations of users, they were mindful of the personal information the platform could leak. Similarly, several participants described how the GPS technology afforded by various social media platforms could enable and heighten women’s experiences of intimate intrusions.
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CHAPTER SIX: THE NORMALISATION OF ABUSE ON TINDER
6.1 Introduction Chapters Four and Five contributed to knowledge and understanding of women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder. At this stage of the thesis, my findings indicate that participants’ experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder are relatively common and take many different forms, providing empirical evidence that builds on and reinforces the extant literature on harassment and abuse as well as popular and social media reports. My interview data has also shed light on the interviewees’ responses to intimate intrusions on Tinder, and the cumulative impact of these experiences. The third point of the continuum shows us that the focus on forms of physical violence that are recognised as ‘aberrant’ distracts us from addressing the more common and everyday experiences of abuse. Although physical violence is important to study, focusing on physical violence can distract us from cultural norms that produce abusive behaviour (Kelly 1988; Stanko 1985). Indeed, the problem of intimate intrusions on Tinder occurs within a broader context of sexual violence and abuse.
This chapter demonstrates the mainstream cultural values that normalise abuse, informing men's intrusive behaviour and women's minimisation of their own experiences. In doing so, this chapter further investigates how Tinder’s affordances and culture more broadly may reinforce users’ propensity to behave intrusively. Certainly, Tinder’s culture is likely to be created and propagated through a combination of both user behaviour and platform affordances. Without data on how men use the platform, however, this chapter draws on the interview and walkthrough findings to demonstrate how Tinder might propagate a culture that reinforces and normalises intimate intrusions. To better understand this process, I first discuss participants’ feelings of pressure and obligation to interact with Tinder users, and in ways that the men preferred. I also highlight participants’ experiences of digital omnipresence whereby Tinder users exhibited relentless communication. Following this, I then show how intimate intrusions are invalidated and minimised on Tinder. Participants’ Tinder matches and other known persons highlighted this theme through their downplaying
145 and justifying of intrusive behaviour. Lastly, this chapter illustrates how the women often downplayed and minimised their own experiences. This chapter further answers research questions one, two, and three: what are women’s experiences of intimate intrusions in the context of Tinder use? how do women understand these intrusions?; How do women respond to intimate intrusions when they happen? And what measures, if any, do they use to mitigate future intimate intrusions?
6.2 Obligatory Interactions Some of the interviewees felt obligated to engage with their Tinder matches, and in ways that their matches preferred. This finding was demonstrated in various ways; however, of the participants who experienced this, they often felt an obligation to communicate through Tinder’s private messaging function after they had matched. Jade felt this obligation even when she was in a relationship:
[…] since I’ve been seeing my boyfriend, I’ve still been matching people, like I know that so I went in and I messaged them all and was like “I’m not being rude, I’m just seeing someone.” Just so they aren’t coming back at me with, you know, “you bitch” all that sort of stuff because they do, they do. They think that they have a right to your conversation with them, but you can easily send them a message and they don’t reply, but that’s okay. But that is okay, of course it’s okay if they don’t, they don’t need to talk to me for any reason just because they’ve matched with me doesn’t mean I deserve a conversation (Jade). Jade’s insight is reminiscent of Kelly’s (1988) study of women’s lifetime experience of sexual violence. Her research illustrated men’s sexual harassment perpetration on the street through the refrain ‘cheer up love.’ She explained the meaning behind this phrase:
[…] the fact that through it men deny women the choice of which individuals to interact and communicate with and the intrusiveness of the encounter are what defines this, for women, as harassment. The expectation that women should be paying attention to and gratifying men, rather than preoccupied with their own thoughts and concerns, underlies this kind of intrusiveness (Kelly 1988, 106). Kelly’s analysis demonstrates some men’s sense of entitlement to women’s attention. The women I interviewed felt a similar expectation to engage with their matches. Indeed, the interviewees’ experiences strongly resonated with the research literature on male entitlement. Major (1987, 131) defined entitlement as ‘synonymous with … deservingness; the person who feels entitled to a particular outcome or level of
146 outcomes feels that he or she should receive that outcome.’ More specifically, Hill and Fischer (2001, 40) argue that entitlement is ‘men feeling entitled to have their needs met by women.’ Bouffard (2010, 871) also argues that ‘[…] entitlement within a patriarchal society extends to views of male superiority and dominance over women.’ It is these attitudes that have led researchers to explore how male entitlement may underpin different forms of violence against women (Bouffard 2010; Cairns 1993; Jordan 1987; McOrmond-Plummer 2016). It is important to note here that while I cannot know what attitudes underpin men’s perpetration of intimate intrusions on Tinder, the sense of pressure or obligation the interviewees felt from Tinder users might suggest this underlying factor. This importantly demonstrates how such norms can feed into intrusive behaviour on the platform.
Jade’s technique also demonstrates her efforts to mitigate intrusive behaviour. She describes the pressure she felt to appease Tinder users by responding to those she had matched with. As Jade points out, if she did not reply to her Tinder matches, they often sent her intrusive messages. She explains: ‘I think, women, at the end of the day, do what they can to protect themselves on the app, which is messaging them as politely as possible and doing things like that’ (Jade). Similar to interviewees’ responses to user misrepresentation of their physical identities, and earlier research conducted by Chung (2005), Jade’s behaviour demonstrates how she carefully navigated her interactions with users to avoiding hurting or offending them. But regardless of the motivations for Jade’s behaviour, her strategy inadvertently normalises Tinder users’ intrusive behaviour by positioning her unresponsiveness as the reason for provoking it. This strategy also operates on the belief that women can take precautions to avoid intimate intrusions. As Gordon and Collins (2013, 99) point out in their study of South African female residence students’ experiences of gender- based violence, ‘[t]his discourse provides a false sense of security because it allows women to believe that if they just follow the required rules, they can avoid gender- based violence.’ Indeed, despite Jade’s efforts to appease Tinder users, she still experienced various forms of intrusion while using the app.
Several participants also highlighted the pressure they felt to engage in ways the men preferred when meeting in physical settings. For instance, participants felt obligated to remain on Tinder dates even when they wanted to leave. Of the women who went
147 on dates with their matches, they particularly felt this obligation when their alcoholic drinks were bought for them. As Ariel explained:
[…] there’s a lot of almost etiquette that goes on when you first meet someone, which you sort of feel obliged to do. So, it’s quite tricky, like, if I’m, cause usually I would meet them for a drink and if they said “would you like another drink?” and I don’t really like the situation, I still kind of, almost, feel obliged to say yes because I don’t want to be like “oh okay, see ya, thanks for buying my drinks, see you later” (Ariel). For Ariel, she felt obligated to stay on Tinder dates because she did not want to appear impolite. Ariel’s understanding reflects how women have typically been expected to be accommodating to men’s desires (Connell 1987; Jordan 1987). It also shows us the difficult binds women navigate to avoid appearing as though they are taking advantage of men’s generosity, while simultaneously not leading them on. These contradictions highlight the ways that women have typically been expected to behave (Crawford and Popp 2003).
6.2.1 Pressurised Sex At times, the pressure to remain on a Tinder date was coupled with the obligation participants felt to engage in sexual activity. Ariel described a specific experience with a Tinder date she had met with at a bar. She explained that despite his rude behaviour toward her, he still expected her to leave the bar with him:
And then when we went outside, his car was there and he’s like “oh”, like, you know, “I can drive, you, we can go back to mine.” And I was like “oh, no thank you. I’m fine. I’m just gonna catch an Uber.” But I was more just like “no thanks.” And then I actually remember now, when I got home, he sent me a message and he’s like “I’m so surprised you didn’t come home with me.” Yeah, so I feel like he either completely misread the conversation or didn’t have regard for what I, how I felt. Or me as a person, what I was feeling (Ariel). Of course, Ariel and I cannot understand why the man acted in this way; however, his message explaining he was ‘so surprised’ that she chose not to go home with him suggests his underlying sense of sexual entitlement. Ariel’s recollection also highlights her confusion, since she was unsure of whether or not the man had misunderstood her feelings. The man’s cruel treatment of Ariel further suggests his sense of sexual entitlement. This is evidenced through his apparent assumption that she would still go home with him despite his rude behaviour toward her. Ariel expressed surprise that the man assumed she would be sexually available to him despite his rude behaviour. 148
Ariel’s Tinder date’s response might also reflect an understanding that he is owed payment. As Fileborn (2016, 170) notes, ‘[t]he recipient of the drink may feel a sense of obligation to consume it and to engage in sexual interaction, as much as the initiator feels a sense of entitlement to sex.’
Participants’ felt an expectation to engage in sexual activity in various situations. Given Samantha’s status as an international student, when she moved to Brisbane, she used Tinder to meet new friends. After men had shown her around the city, she explained the pressure she felt to engage in sexual activity: ‘[…] it’s a trade that in exchange they will show you around, but you have to do your part to them that is often seen as a sexual favour’ (Samantha). In her analysis of representations of gender and gender politics in the ‘manosphere’ (an online antifeminist community), Lilly (2016, 125) found men use economic metaphors in their descriptions of relationships with women, which:
[…] creates a circumstance by which men feel that they are owed, or entitled to, sex or attention from women. In our economic lives, we expect that if we labour, we are paid—that if we invest in something, we own it, and enjoy the returns. Josie used a similar economic metaphor by likening men’s perception of women on Tinder to vending machine goods. For her, male Tinder users ‘don’t think of the women as people, they think of them as sort of objects because they’re there, they can pick them out in a kind of vending machine sort of way’ (Josie). Josie’s account is reminiscent of Haywood’s (2018) findings from his study with heterosexual male Tinder users. He considers browsing user profiles on Tinder similar to browsing a shopping catalogue. Because of this, Haywood (2018) argues that women are treated as products.
Keira’s comments pointed to her awareness of pressure or obligation to engage in sexual activity right away in the context of her Tinder use. Keira explained this:
I also think back when I was using Tinder when I was a lot younger, I did feel pressure when going on dates with these guys to have sex with them. Cause I was like well, I met him on Tinder, this is what they expect. So…and I think there have probably been situations where that was their expectation as well, so it was kind of a like a mutually, yeah, I don’t know how mutual it was, but there was- I definitely felt, like, that pressure (Keira). She further described the commonness of these experiences:
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[…] a really bad Tinder experience to me would be meeting up with someone and then them making it very obvious that they expect you to have sex with them and I think that’s very common. And I’ve definitely experienced that on a very mild scale. But I’ve also kind of been complicit with that because I’ve also been like well, that’s why I’m here, that’s why we’re all here (Keira). Keira’s account raises various important issues. First, it is interesting to note her explanation for engaging in sexual activity with Tinder users: ‘I met him on Tinder, this is what they expect’ as it highlights Tinder’s culture surrounding casual sex. This insight demonstrates her opinion that Tinder is a hook-up app. As she explained earlier in the interview, ‘I think when it first came out I looked at it as a hook-up app’ (Keira). While it is unclear why Keira initially considered Tinder a hook-up app, her explanation highlights the impacts of what could be described as Tinder’s toxic technoculture (Massanari 2017). For Keira, Tinder’s culture contributed to her belief that she was expected to have sex with Tinder users, because she met them on the platform. This demonstrates how Tinder’s deep-seated connection to casual sex carries expectations of its users (Duguay 2018). And this finding, then, highlights how Tinder and other similar dating apps’ unique cultures can contribute to and amplify women’s experiences of intrusion.
Of course, in the explanations above, Keira also describes the pressure she felt to consent to sex. Kelly (1988, 81-82) uses the terminology pressurised sex ‘to take account of the fact that women do not simplistically define heterosexual sex as either consenting or rape, between these two is a range of pressure and coercion.’ Keira’s description supports Kelly’s (1988) definition, given that although she considers herself complicit (read as, consenting), she also recalls the pressure she felt to oblige. Keira also highlights what she understood as her Tinder dates' feelings of sexual entitlement. This is similar to what Thompson (2018) found in her study on the Instagram account Tinder Nightmares. For example, one of the Tinder Nightmares posts Thompson (2018, 81) cited reads: “Hey Devon – glad we matched! Any interest in grabbing some drinks and having some obligatory sex? If you’re not into drinks, I totally understand.” Presumably, the messenger was trying to be humorous; however, this message overtly depicts the obligation women feel and perhaps what men expect when dating on Tinder.
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Keira’s words also reflect her minimisation of her experiences of intrusion. She minimises her experiences by emphasising the complicity she felt by engaging in the behaviour. Keira’s understanding of these experiences reflects her confusion about her role in creating pressure to have sex with her matches. Her confusion echoes Cairns’ (1993, 205) research on female and males’ experiences of sexual coercion, where she found:
These "uncertain" women's descriptions of their actions in response to unwanted sexual attention seemed to suggest a sort of paralysis of the will derived from feelings of obligation, service provision, fear of negative repercussions for refusal, and guilt over having possibly given conflicting messages to the partner, all of which combined to make them unable to say no, though they clearly wished to do so. At the same time, while Keira considers an expectation to engage in sexual activity as ‘major’, she minimises her own experiences by explaining how she has felt this on a ‘mild scale.’ She also minimises the experiences through her recognition that Tinder is a hook-up app. But although Keira suggested her experiences were minor, it is important to recognise that she still discussed these experiences when I asked her about experiences that made her uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe on Tinder. Interviewees’ minimisation of intimate intrusions is an important finding, which I return to throughout the chapter.
It may be the case that the interview participants presumed that Tinder users expected them to have sex. As Ariel explained: ‘I think, maybe some males, again to generalise, but cause I’ve only had interactions with males, they are, they really are just looking for sex’ (Ariel). Traditional constructions of men’s sexuality in the public sphere, which position men as assertive, fearless, powerful, and tough (Kenway and Fitzclarence 1997; Murnen et al. 2002) may have affected how participants understood their experiences. At the same time, participants’ experiences of receiving sexualised messages and ‘dick pics’ from other men may have further entrenched the idea that Tinder users were seeking casual sex. But while my findings cannot provide evidence of men’s feelings of entitlement to sex, it is important to note that interviewees still experienced men’s behaviour on dates as pressuring. Significantly, Keira’s account also describes the severity of the behaviour. Keira reported that the obligation to engage in sexual activity with Tinder matches was ‘major’ and a ‘really bad’ experience. Given Keira’s categorisation of such experiences, she highlights how non-
151 physical forms of intrusion may be just as important as physical violence. As she indicates, Keira’s experience of feeling pressured to engage in sexual activity is particularly troubling for her.
6.3 Digital Omnipresence The majority of the interviewees described Tinder users’ possessive and controlling behaviour. They often described the sense of digital omnipresence that Tinder users created through their use of persistent communication through the app and the other mediums they had connected through. For Stark (2012, 25), stalking ‘falls on a continuum with a range of surveillance tactics whose aim is to convey the abuser’s omnipotence and omnipresence.’ Other scholars have long-recognised the significance of surveillance and control in abusive intimate relationships (Dobash and Dobash 1979). Prior research in this area has primarily explored these behaviours concerning intimate partners (Dobash et al. 2007). Building on this literature, my findings demonstrate how digital omnipresence can occur between people who have not formed intimate relationships.
At times, participants experienced digital omnipresence shortly after matching with Tinder users through the app. Penelope discussed her experience with a man who exhibited this behaviour:
So, he asked for my number and I thought okay, fine, he seemed really nice, so I did give him my number and we started talking, but at first it was fine, it was more like he was caring and he was texting all the time and I thought it was sweet. But after a while his texts got really long, like, really lengthy texts and all the time. Like, he [was] asking me to come over to his place and like, he’s cooked me dinner and like, making me feel bad for not going, cause I didn’t really wanna go to his place cause after a while I did feel a little weirded out. Like, the fact that he was texting really long messages over and over and I’m just replying short sentences. And it got to a point where he started calling me and it was really just there, just kept calling, calling, texting “why aren’t you coming?” and things like that. And I was quite worried as well, cause I’m living here by myself, I’m an international student and I did tell him that. I felt like I maybe shouldn’t have told him that. Maybe he thought that was something he can take to advantage and kept saying “oh, you know, I can show you around since you’re new here and I’m…” things like that. I felt really pressured to go to his place, I would say. Cause he made me feel bad for not going. And yeah, it got to a point where it was just like, even though I’ve never met him, it felt like he’s just been there and I owe him, kind of thing, to go to his place. Cause he just kept texting, calling and after a while
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I didn’t pick up his calls cause I just felt really freaked out. And yeah, and I stopped texting all together, but even then he wouldn’t stop, he kept sending a lot of really long messages. Yeah and it was really creepy (Penelope). She further explained:
[…] that guy who was messaging and calling a lot, he did end up calling once I blocked him from the app, he ended up calling me and texting me a lot as well. And because of the phone number, he can add me on Snapchat as well. So, he added me on Snapchat and things like that as well, so it was definitely uncomfortable, you know, removed him from my Snapchat, but he still had my phone number, like, I don’t know how to block phone numbers, to be honest (Penelope). Penelope’s account highlights how she initially considered the man’s behaviour to be romantic, since he was offering to cook her dinner and appeared especially interested in meeting her. She highlights this initial impression through: ‘it was more like he was caring and he was texting all the time and I thought it was sweet’ (Penelope). But the man’s relentless communication and failing to respect her decision not to meet with him leads her to interpret his behaviour as intrusive. Penelope further highlighted the obligation she felt to engage with the man through: ‘even though I’ve never met him, it felt like he’s just been there and I owe him’ (Penelope). Significantly, Penelope’s Tinder match highlights how the platform can facilitate digital omnipresence. Woodlock’s (2016) study of technology-facilitated stalking and other forms of abuse in the context of domestic violence can provide support for this finding. Of the 152 domestic violence sector workers and 46 victims surveyed, Woodlock (2016) found that perpetrators most commonly constantly text messaged or called their victims to create a sense of omnipresence.
But while digital omnipresence was experienced as intrusive by participants, this form of intrusion was not always immediately apparent to them. Penelope, for instance, initially considered her Tinder matches who engaged in this behaviour as ‘really sweet’, or ‘nice.’ Similarly, Hannah recalled one man who appeared to be ‘really genuine.’ At the same time, though, Penelope and Hannah explained how the men’s ongoing behaviour made them feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe. Penelope and Hannah’s understandings are also reflective of the mixed messages ‘promulgated about love’ (Fraser 2005, 15). As Fraser (2005, 15) points out, ‘it can take time for women to figure out that so-called jealous behaviors are not passionate but scary and
153 disabling.’ Tinder users also created a sense of digital omnipresence in subtle ways. In their analysis of discourse generated by men who have been recently violent towards women, Adams et al. (1995, 391) note how ‘[s]ome men employ ambiguity with strategic effects in what they do and say towards women’, and refer to this concept as reference ambiguity. Reference ambiguity can help us to understand women’s competing ways of understanding experiences of intrusion. As Adams et al. (1995, 393) further point out: ‘[…] ambiguity serves both to increase the woman’s sense of isolation and to limit her ability to respond by camouflaging to outside observers the threatening message.’ This ambiguity may have contributed to Penelope’s friends’ trivialisation of her experiences, which I discuss in more detail below.
This finding also sheds light on attitudinal support for non-physical forms of intrusion. As noted earlier, the national representatively sampled study Young Australians’ Attitudes to Violence against Women (Harris et al. 2015) shows us that while 82-85% of young people recognise harassment via phone calls, text messages, and emails as VAW, 86% also scored moderate to high on the ‘violence-supportive attitudes construct’, in other words, having a high level of attitudinal support for VAW. These findings show us that although most young people understand non-physical forms of abuse as violent or abusive, young people still hold violence supportive attitudes. Building on this research, participants’ experiences of digital omnipresence emphasise how non-physical intrusive behaviours can be further supported under the veil of romance or care.
6.3.1 Technology-Facilitated Stalking: ‘Oh My God, This Guy’s Obsessed with Me’ Several of the women I interviewed described their experiences of being stalked in physical settings. Hannah recalled an experience with a man she had just begun communicating with:
There was one guy who seemed really genuine and we were talking on and off for a little while. We actually had mutual friends as it turned out, so we did meet briefly in a group, but he would just be texting me things all time. […] And he’d tell me lines from the Notebook and things like that, that I deserved to be called gorgeous a hundred times a day, it was way just too much and I told him, I said “maybe, like, okay, I’m really flattered, but it’s too much, you hardly know me” and it just seemed like I couldn’t turn him off (Hannah).
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In the above account, Hannah describes the man’s sense of omnipresence he created by continuously text-messaging her. Similar to Penelope’s match described in the previous section, the man sought to naturalise this omnipresence by cloaking his controlling behaviour through what could be considered romance and care. Hannah further explained:
And he didn’t actually live in Brisbane, I knew that he lived on the Gold Coast and one day I actually saw him outside my work place in Brisbane, which I hadn’t really, I hadn’t said what my workplace was, I’d said the centre it was and he must’ve tracked it down. Just, I don’t know why he needed to be at a shopping centre when there’s loads of shopping centres at the Gold Coast, things like that. I did have him on Facebook for a short time, because initially he just seemed like a really nice guy and honestly, a friend could tag me in a photo and he’d like it within, it hasn’t even been up for a minute. It was just too much. And yeah, that sort of thing. I saw him, yeah. It just seemed odd. It might’ve been coincidental, but… (Hannah). Hannah’s questioning of the man’s intentions demonstrates how ambiguity can camouflage intrusive behaviour. For Hannah, this experience was confusing because he had appeared to be ‘really nice’ and ‘genuine.’ Since the man routinely described Hannah’s beauty and his expressions of romantic interest, his intrusive behaviour is camouflaged. But in the context of the man’s controlling behaviour, Hannah experiences the behaviours as intrusive. Hannah’s confusion about this incident and the man’s behaviour shows how she blurs ordinary and aberrant experiences of intrusion. Such a blurring importantly demonstrates how there are no clear and discrete categories into which men’s intrusive behaviour can be placed (Kelly 1988).
Similar uses of reference ambiguity (Adams et al. 1995) were visible in more of the interviewees’ experiences. Further describing her ‘nice guy’ match who sent lengthy messages, Francesca described her experience of being stalked. She explained:
And the other reason I pulled the pin is because the day that I was feeling sick and all of this happening, he was like messaging me constantly, he lives about half an hour or 45 minutes from here, he drove all the way from wherever he lives to the park down the road from my house. And I’ve been out for a walk that afternoon and, after feeling sick, and he said to me, he phoned me to see how I was and he said that he was at the park, just having, he needed some down time. And he was like “oh, I’m just at the park down the road from yours.” And then I started to think oh my God, this guy’s obsessed with me (Francesca).
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As discussed in Chapter Five, Francesca began to question her use of Snapchat, given its location-sharing affordance ‘Snap Map.’ Francesca’s experience of technology-facilitated stalking highlights how Tinder facilitates different forms of intimate intrusions compared with other forms of dating. Although abusers can stalk their victims without location-aware technology, Tinder and other social media apps’ GPS functionality makes this easier to carry out. As Southworth et al. (2005) point out in their research on intimate partner stalking, using GPS technology, perpetrators can track their victims’ location with extraordinary accuracy. This finding shows how established forms of abuse can be enacted through digital media. But this also reflects how location-sharing affordances, such as those offered by Snapchat and Tinder, may further develop avenues for intrusive interactions.
Significantly, while the women I interviewed did not describe physical violence in relation to these incidents, their recollections demonstrate how they experienced these forms of intrusion as threatening and disturbing. At the same time, the Tinder matches’ relentless communication highlights the ways they sought to create and maintain a sense of control over participants. As the continuum of sexual violence shows us, women’s experiences of non-physical violence can be just as important to consider as physical violence. For the interviewees described here, although their experiences of men’s intrusion were facilitated by Tinder, ‘the continuum of fear and threat extended ‘from being limited to particular times, areas or individuals, through to affecting all aspects of women’s daily lives’ (Kelly 1988, 97-98). A common myth is that online abuse is confined to online space and is therefore unimportant. However, these findings further demonstrate how online and offline intrusion has the potential to ‘cross over’ (Salter 2016a, 13).
6.4 Invalidating Intimate Intrusions on Tinder Interviewees’ experiences of intrusion were commonly invalidated. Emanating from Linehan’s (1993) research on child sexual abuse and implications for adult mental health, her concept of invalidation explores how the tendency to invalidate affective experiences may exacerbate the impact of abuse. The interviewees’ experiences of invalidation were often vague and difficult for them to identify and discuss. Despite this, the theme was evidenced in various ways throughout the interviews. Throughout the following sections, I discuss the invalidation of interviewees’ experiences evidenced by Tinder matches’ and family members’ behaviours.
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6.4.1 Men’s Invalidation Strategies: ‘You call it Abuse, but You Love it’ Invalidation of intimate intrusions emerged through men’s efforts to victim blame participants. This finding was most obviously demonstrated by one of Rachael’s Tinder matches. The man blamed her for his lengthy vitriolic outburst, given she had failed to respond to his messages when he had expected her to. As noted in Chapter Four, Rachael received around 50 abusive messages over a 12-hour period from one Tinder user. He began messaging her when they matched, which was late at night. For the purposes of this thesis, I have consolidated some of his messages into the following extract:
You look normal by your photos. When are you gonna type back? Boring. Just leave the app. No one wants to meet you. No one wants to meet you cause you have no social skills. You look sexy, but you have the mind of a child. Just another time wasting cunt on Tinder. […] You’re so beautiful in your pictures and by your bio, I’d love to be your man and cuddle up with you. I wouldn’t have sent those messages if I didn’t like you. I was frustrated. I’m sorry. I’ve had three DVOs. All of those were put on women that abused me. […] I can tell you would’ve been a cunt in real life. Take a 12-inch dildo and shove that up your arse. I’m over being nice to you. […] Don’t tell your mum these messages or your friends, they will know how dirty you are. You call it abuse, but you love it. You want to be dominated. […] I’m getting bored, talk to me. Stop being abusive. I’m sure you aren’t perfect either. I need to get my meds sorted, I feel bad for having a go at you. Why can’t I have a beautiful girl to go out with for a change? Why do the ugly losers get your first? It’s not fucking fair. I’m a good person, at least I was a good person until I got rejected and humiliated too many times by girls like you. I should’ve just reported you from the start for being rude. Message me back (Rachael quoting a Tinder user). Rachael’s Tinder match employs various strategies to redefine his behaviour and invalidate her experience. In an effort to absolve his responsibility, he calls her abusive for failing to quickly respond. At the same time, he minimises the incident by claiming she is enjoying it. This language enables the man to diffuse his responsibility and justify his behaviour, while also lessening Rachael’s likelihood of reporting the incident (Salter 2012).
The invalidation of intimate intrusions was further evidenced through the undermining of sexual and physical assault. Some Tinder matches pursued this tactic by casting doubt on events which took place. Following Lara’s experience of sexual assault, the perpetrator used invalidation strategies in an effort redefine the incident. Following the
157 assault, he messaged her to presumably make the assault appear as though it was a consensual act. Lara explained: ‘I try to avoid talking to the [perpetrator]. I’ve blocked him from messaging me on Facebook because he always asks me “so when are we gonna have another night like that again?”’ (Lara). The man’s behaviours highlight his efforts to invalidate the assault to further control her and cast doubt surrounding the incident. This finding supports Clark and Quadara’s (2010, 33) study of sexual assault victim/survivors’ knowledge of offending tactics. Their research found that perpetrators of sexual assault work to reinterpret sexual assault as consensual through similar tactics.
6.4.2 A Continuum of Invalidation Several of the interview participants described their experiences of invalidation by friends and family. For instance, when Penelope described a frightening experience of intrusion to her friends, she recalled: ‘[…] they just thought it was funny as well, they took it as a laugh. But, for me, I felt like it was a bit more serious’ (Penelope). Penelope’s experience exhibits what Salter (2012, 6), in his research on the manifestation of invalidation of gender-based violence, terms a ‘continuum of invalidation.’ He describes this continuum as ‘the reproduction of invalidation in familial, cultural and institutional environments.’ Indeed, since Penelope’s friends laughed when she told them of her experience, they trivialised the incident, and invalidated the concern she felt. Penelope’s friends’ reaction highlights their attitudinal support for non-physical forms of VAW. It is easy to see, then, how attitudes can shape how people respond to women’s victimisation (Flood and Pease 2009).
Participants’ experiences of intimate intrusions were further invalidated through putatively biological arguments that men’s aggressive and sexual behaviour can be explained by their genes or biological makeup (Daly and Wilson 1983; Smuts 1992). Indeed, through the ‘[…] assumption of normality, many characterise male physical and/or sexual aggression as linked to biological make-up, sparked by an innate, at times uncontrollable, sexual drive’ (Stanko 1985, 9). Lara, for instance, recounted her friends’ exoneration of men’s intrusive behaviour when she disclosed the assault described in the previous section:
[…] so there has been, you know, a bit of blaming for me as well, like, people have asked me, you know, “what were you wearing? Were you leading them on?” You know, all that really stupid stuff (Lara).
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The victim-blaming Lara’s friends’ exhibit echoes the socially-constructed idea that boys and men are not in control of their actions and are expected to be sexually demanding. Such ideology excuses men’s abusive behaviour (Klein 2006) and positions women as gatekeepers to male sexuality (Boyle and Walker 2016; Jordan 1987). As a result of this construction, if women are unsuccessful in avoiding men’s intrusive, yet expected advances, they may be blamed for provoking the behaviour (Gordon and Collins 2013; Shute et al. 2007), and are therefore responsible for violence done to them (Hlavka 2014; Worthington 2008). As Vera-Gray (2018, 79) puts it: ‘[…] at its core the lesson girls receive about sexual violence is that it’s us, not them: either we’ve got it wrong or we’ve brought it on ourselves.’ Indeed, this sentiment is reflected by Lara’s friends questioning her about her attire and behaviour while she was with the man.
The undervaluation of women’s experiences serves to reinforce the normalisation of abuse (Kelly 1988; Lundgren et al. 2001: 18; Vera-Gray 2018). Gordon and Collins (2013, 102) point out the pervasiveness of invalidation in their study of how female residence students at a South African university understand and experience gender- based violence. For them:
The social invalidation that women receive when they disclose their experiences of gender-based violence creates a cycle of underreporting and sends the message that women’s experiences and identities are not valued. Fortunately for Lara, she recognised the problem with this questioning. However, given it took her more than a month to seek support after the assault, and she never reported the incident to law enforcement, it is possible that she was affected by her friends’ invalidation of her experience.
6.5 Minimising Men’s Behaviour and Intimate Intrusions The interviewees themselves also minimised men’s intrusive behaviour and their experiences of intrusion. It is unclear why they did this; however, some researchers have found that minimisation of harassment and abuse can be a coping mechanism (Fileborn 2014; Vera-Gray 2014). As Fileborn (2014, 38) points out in her work on street harassment: ‘[…] minimisation of street harassment may variably function as a coping mechanism for women, and as a means of normalising and downplaying the otherwise harmful behaviours of men.’ Regardless of the reasons participants
159 minimised their experiences of intrusion, the downplaying of men’s coercive behaviour serves to further normalise it (Berman et al. 2000; McCarry 2007). The following sections demonstrate how participants minimised, which subsequently served to normalise, Tinder users’ intrusive behaviour.
6.5.1 Men’s Normal Behaviour: ‘Just Typical Guy Stuff’ The research participants normalised men’s intrusive behaviour by constructing it as ‘just typical guy stuff’ (Becky). Becky, for instance, expressed the view that boys who engage in harassing behaviours are acting out in normal and harmless ways. When considering her Tinder matches’ behaviour, she explained:
[…] maybe they were drunk and maybe with some, some friends and they’re like “oh well, I have this girl on Tinder, let’s see if there’s something going on tonight”, you know? Just typical guy stuff (Becky). For Becky, the experiences that made her feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe are indicative of normal male behaviour. At the same time, she minimised her Tinder matches’ behaviour through the idea that they might have been drunk. In their study of Swedish female university students’ experiences of sexual harassment, Mellgren et al. (2017) found that their survey participants commonly justified sexual harassment perpetrators’ behaviour in pubs and clubs by explaining alcohol had likely influenced the men’s behaviour. This explanation absolves men’s accountability and labels it as unproblematic. These constructions mean that it is women’s responsibility to avoid men’s violent behaviour (Stanko 1985). Indeed, Samantha described her responsibility for a frightening in-person experience by explaining: ‘[…] it was a bit of my misjudgement’ (Samantha). Becky reflected her understanding of needing to mitigate men’s intrusive behaviour by describing the steps she took to avoid intrusion:
[…] what I tried to do is not to be, don’t wear a mini skirt and high heels and like, almost invisible top or whatever, just dress appropriate and then they might see, okay, she’s not giving me all opportunities at the beginning, or not the wrong signals, or whatever. But yeah, as I said, I try to be kind of careful before I meet them at all, so I didn’t have any bad experiences in meeting them (Becky). Similar to Lara’s friends’ victim-blaming described above, implicit in Becky’s recollection is the construction that men’s behaviour is natural. This means that it is therefore her responsibility to avoid intimate intrusions by dressing conservatively. Mellgren et al.’s (2017) participants highlighted similar explanations of male behaviour
160 and forms of self-blame. Because of this, they also adopted conservative dress when they visited nightclubs.
The majority of the interview participants also normalised their experiences of intrusion because they believed their matches had different motivations for using the app. Participants often believed their Tinder matches were acting intrusively because they were looking for immediate casual hook-ups. As Georgia noted: ‘they’re all revved up because they’ve got like hormones racing through their body and they have all these expectations around like what’s gonna be happening’ (Georgia). And as noted earlier, Ariel thought: ‘maybe some males, again to generalise, but cause I’ve only had interactions with males, they are, they really are just looking for sex’ (Ariel). The majority of participants, however, explained that they were using the app for dating purposes. Sasha said:
I think they’re super common and I think there isn’t that much that can be done to stop it because of it is a dating app, but it is also a hook- like, depends what you’re on there for largely it gets used as a hook- up app, so there’s always gonna be unwanted interactions even if you are really picky about who you match with (Sasha). While it may be the case that their matches were using the app to find casual sex, this conceptualisation normalises men’s behaviour, because it suggests the behaviour is reasonable when people are seeking casual sex. Similar to my findings, although several of Duguay et al.’s (2018) interview participants considered sexually explicit messages unwanted, they also justified the behaviour because they thought that some Tinder users might think it is appropriate. Because of this pervasive understanding, one of Duguay et al.’s (2018) participants felt as though she would either need to conform to the behaviour, or leave the app. Of the interview participants, however, Jade noted the problem with this behaviour, explaining: ‘…even if I was on the app for whatever reason I wanted, even if it a hook-up, that’s just not how you even start a hook-up anyway’ (Jade).
In addition to this, participants normalised men’s intrusive behaviour because they expected it. This finding supports Klein’s (2006) study of everyday violence against girls in school, where he found that the construction of everyday violence effectively exonerates boys and men who engage in violent, yet expected, behaviours. The interviewees, for instance, expected men’s intrusive behaviour on Tinder, given they had had similar experiences in offline settings. Francesca justified the intrusive
161 messages she received on Tinder because they were similar to what she had experienced in public space:
I guess they make you feel a little bit uncomfortable, because you’re like gross, like, someone actually thinks it’s okay to speak to you like that. But then you kind of justify with, well, you know, I guess it’s the same as walking into a bar and you walk up to, you know, you order a drink and you’re standing at the bar and a guy turns around to you and says, you know, like “oh, you’re hot” or says something like “oh, great tits” or, you know, something like that. Or “you’ve got a great bum”; it’s the same. That’s how I justify, I guess, getting those messages is because, you know, yeah, it can happen in a bar as well (Francesca). She further explained: So, to validate that behaviour, it’s like, well that’s what you do when you’re on Tinder. So, from their point of view, you know, in my opinion, probably treating girls or, you know, acting certain ways, where they can probably feel like they can get away it, it’s just because well it’s an online dating app and, you know, the assumption is that you’re gonna hook-up or whatever. […] So yeah, that’s why I validate, because the app almost gives you a reason, you know, behind that kind of behaviour (Francesca). Francesca minimises Tinder users’ intrusive behaviour, precisely because she expects it. Despite Francesca explaining that the behaviour makes her feel uncomfortable, and acknowledging the intrusiveness of the messages, she minimises the behaviour by relating it to what she has experienced offline. Her construction of the behaviour aligns with an established body of research that highlights how men’s coercive and controlling behaviour is frequently trivialised, since it is so common (Berman et al. 2000; McCarry 2007), and a part of ‘ordinary life rather than something exceptional’ (Hearn 1998, 202). Fileborn’s (2016, 143) interviewees described similar expectations in nightclubs: ‘[t]hese people felt that in order to be able to use venues themselves to engage in sexual encounters they had to accept that they would also be on the receiving end of such advances and that they may occasionally be unwanted.’
It is also interesting to note Francesca’s downplaying of the behaviour, since it was facilitated through Tinder. Francesca’s comment highlights what could be the permissiveness of Tinder’s culture in supporting and mediating intimate intrusions. Similar to Keira’s recollection of feeling expected to have sex with Tinder users: ‘I did feel pressure when going on dates with these guys to have sex with them. Cause I
162 was like well, I met him on Tinder, this is what they expect’ (Keira), Francesca normalises her experiences of intrusion because she believes that intrusive behaviour on Tinder is inevitable. This finding further demonstrates how Tinder might create a toxic technoculture that enables and reinforces intrusive behaviour, since Francesca explains, ‘the app almost gives you a reason, you know, behind that kind of behaviour’ (Francesca). Francesca’s explanation highlights how Tinder’s culture may contribute to and amplify women’s experiences of intrusion on the app. But it also shows us how the pervasiveness of Tinder’s culture can lead women to minimise and excuse men’s behaviour in mobile dating contexts.
6.5.2 Pathologising Aberrant Behaviour: ‘I Think He Obviously Had Some Mental Issues’ When the interviewees’ experiences of intrusion exceeded the bounds of expectedness, they interpreted their matches’ behaviour as aberrant. But while the behaviour was considered aberrant, the interview participants further minimised men’s intrusive behaviour by attributing their actions to an underlying pathology. For instance, when I asked participants why they thought men behaved in ways that made them feel uneasy, uncomfortable, or unsafe, some expressed the view that variables out of their control were affecting men’s behaviour. As described earlier, Becky questioned whether her matches had been drinking alcohol when they messaged her. She said:
I think it might just be their personality. Or like, kind of drugs, alcohol kind of pushing this kind of personality. Maybe they are kind of okay and normal in normal life, but when they get too much of whatever they are pushing the limits a bit (Becky). Similarly, Rachael speculated that one of her Tinder matches suffered from a mental illness: ‘I think he obviously had some mental issues’ (Rachael). Rachael’s understanding supports gender-based violence scholars who argue that it is only when focusing on extreme forms of violence that the acts are disconnected from ‘normal’ male behaviour (Kelly 1988; Stanko 1985). This disconnection shifts focus to the pathological individual, rather than the social interaction that led to the event (Stoudt 2006). But researchers have debunked the myth that men are violent toward women because they are mentally disturbed (DeKeseredy et al. 2017). Indeed, in his study of batterers, Gondolf (1999, 1) found that participants were ‘less “pathological” than expected.’ Rather, McOrmond-Plummer (2016, 109) argues that entitlement is ‘the
163 underlying and far more dangerous “disease.”’ This research shows us that violence is not the product of men’s individual pathologies, but rather cultural norms and attitudes that support violence against women (Thapar-Björkert and Morgan 2010). Nonetheless, participants frequently attributed men's intrusive behaviour on Tinder to an underlying pathology.
6.5.3 Ordinary Aberrations: ‘He Seemed Normal’ Given influential media portrayals of abusive men, it is unsurprising that some interviewees considered their matches to be mentally disturbed. In his popular media article, Tom Meagher (2014), husband of the murdered Gillian ‘Jill’ Meagher, described the ‘monster myth’, which constructs violent men as archetypal monsters. Inflammatory media references described Meagher’s killer Adrian Bayley as a ‘thug, animal, beast, maggot, monster and an evil or sick predator who was lurking and skulking in our streets’ (Powell et al. 2018, 419). O’Hara (2012) argues that through such sensationalised depictions, perpetrators of violence are constructed as the ‘other.’ It is not hard to see, then, how perpetrators can be positioned as aberrations rather than ordinary men.
Characterising men in this way serves to decontexualise the behaviour by focusing on ‘abnormal’ men (Stanko 1985). This is problematic because pathologising individual men draws our attention away from pervasive everyday abuse and the normative values that engender them toward abnormal man and most serious incidents of abuse. As Stanko (1993, 132) notes, ‘[…] many abusers are strikingly ordinary, 'regular guys,' whether previously known or total strangers to abused women.’ But a focus on the abnormal man may further normalise ‘regular guys’’ ‘minor’ intrusive behaviour. As Kelly (1988) argued, a hierarchy of abuse means that more typical incidents are depicted as unworthy of attention. A dichotomy of abusive and normal men and incidents may further serve to obscure women’s understanding of their experiences (Kelly and Radford 1990). This understanding may have contributed to the interviewees’ minimisation of their experiences.
Of course, the interviewees’ Tinder matches did not appear to be archetypal monsters. Since participants swiped right on their profiles, it is likely they were not entirely expecting the intrusive behaviour they experienced. Perhaps because of this, when the behaviour exceeded the bounds of ‘normal’ behaviour, the interviewees, at times,
164 were confused. Because of the pervasive ‘monster myth’, which constructed Jill Meagher’s killer as an aberration, Meagher’s husband (2014) explained ‘[o]ne of the most disturbing moments of the past 18 months of my life was hearing my wife's killer form a coherent sentence in court.’ Similarly, Ashely, a reality show contestant who briefly dated Paul Lambert described her shock when she learned of his attempted murder of Angela Jay. Given Ashley thought Lambert was ‘normal’, she explained:
“The scariest thing would be I never got any red flags,” she said. “None. I didn’t get any sick feeling in my stomach — he was a normal guy. And even a normal guy can lose it and do that. In dates, texts, phone calls, [he was] like every other guy” (Weir 2018). Similar to Ashely’s response, the women I interviewed described their concern, since their matches looked ordinary, or they had initially engaged in what they considered to be normal conversation. As Rachael explained, a man who said: ‘I’ll give you $300 for a blowjob’, had ‘seemed normal’ prior to his proposition. Similarly, Keira was surprised when a lawyer sent her intrusive messages. She explained this when describing the mitigation strategies she adopted:
I would go for people that looked nice and, I guess, more in my socio economic status, like, educated. But I don’t think that, I honestly don’t think that has anything to do with- because that man that sent me that message, where I was like “cool”, was a lawyer. And all of his photos were him in a suit (Keira). Keira’s insight demonstrates her understanding of men who behave intrusively. She highlights her surprise that a well-educated man behaved in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. However, following an intrusion, she began to question ‘normal’ men’s behaviour, because her profile selection criteria had failed to stop intrusive behaviour.
6.5.4 ‘And Nothing Happened, it was Just a Very Creepy Walk’ The women I interviewed also minimised their experiences of intrusion. This was demonstrated by some participants who downplayed incidents and the impact they had on them. This form of minimisation was commonly expressed for participants who had experienced a form of physical intrusion. This minimisation is conceptualised by Kelly and Radford (1990) who, in their research on the invalidation of women’s experiences of sexual violence, argue that the normalisation of abuse means that women downplay the effects intrusive behaviour may have (Kelly and Radford 1990). Indeed, Kelly and Radford (1990, 42) found that: ‘[w]hen women say ‘nothing really happened’—a frequent remark which prefaces accounts of things which did indeed 165 happen – they are minimising or denying experiences.’ Although most participants did not explicitly say ‘nothing really happened’, they employed similar competing descriptions and language that minimised their experiences.
Even women who did not participate in the study minimised their experiences of intrusion when they expressed interest in the research. For instance, some women were unsure if their experiences were ‘serious’ enough for me to document. Although I do not know the impact this had on my research population, it is possible that this framing of the behaviour discouraged some women from being interviewed. Of the women who did participate in an interview, they minimised their experiences in a number of ways. First, some of interviewees expressed doubt in the severity of their experiences, while simultaneously expressing their interest in participating in the study and describing the experiences that had made them feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe. The women I communicated with and interviewed highlighted how they negotiated the competing ways in which they understand their experiences.
During the interviews, perhaps the most obvious example of this form of minimisation was illustrated by Samantha. She described her experience of meeting with a man who had claimed to be having a house party with guests. Samantha became hesitant when she realised the man had unknowingly shared an incorrect location for her to meet him at. Not knowing where to go, she waited for the man to meet her. When he arrived, Samantha became increasingly distressed, given the man looked dissimilar to the photographs on his Tinder profile. She explained the walk with him to his house:
He was like “okay, let’s take this shortcut” and it was an empty field, totally empty field and I was like “what? How about no?” He was like “well, I’m going. Either you go with me or you’re not going.” So I was like “okay.” So I had my keys in my hand, I was like ready to wedge them, you know? Between the fingers. And nothing happened, it was just a very creepy walk, I was very uncomfortable and I told him, like, this is really uncomfortable and he just laughed off about it. And then he started to make sexual advances towards me there, like, “oh”, you know, “I’m having a pretty girl come over” you know, “things might happen.” And I’m like “what? What?” (Samantha). After an uncomfortable and lengthy walk to the man’s house, Samantha realised there was no party, and no guests. Although Samantha highlighted her discomfort, her account illustrates how she negotiated competing understandings in the retelling of her experience. While she claimed ‘nothing happened’, at the same time, she
166 described the walk as ‘very creepy’ and explained that she felt ‘very uncomfortable.’ And finally, while ‘nothing happened’, she was frightened enough to prepare herself for an attack by holding her keys between her fingers. Samantha then explained how this experience had informed her future experiences with men she met on Tinder. This is important to consider because Samantha’s account shows that her experience of ‘nothing’ had a lasting impact on her Tinder use.
Like Samantha’s account implies, some of the interviewees’ experiences of intimate intrusions in physical settings were linked to the possibility of rape. But when a legally- defined sexual assault, or what they considered to be sexual assault, did not occur, the interviewees often minimised their experiences. For instance, following Francesca’s experience where her Tinder date aggressively kissed her and pulled her hair, she explained:
I had my hair back in a ponytail and then he pulled my hair. So, we’re mid kiss and he pulls my hair and my head was going further back, further back as he’s pulling my hair. So much so that I’m trying to kiss him and he’s pushing me back into the corner of the couch. And my mind straight away went to, alright shit’s going south quick, I’m in a bad situation here. Cause he was taller than me, way stronger than me, and I’m thinking to myself, I mean, straight away your head goes to, well what if he tries to do something to me? I’m screwed (Francesca). Francesca’s experience demonstrates the heightened vulnerability and need to quickly assess the situation she felt. Her words highlights her fear that the incident could escalate to rape. However, she minimises the incident by saying ‘what if he tries to do something to me?’ This experience aligns with Kelly and Radford’s (1990, 41) argument that ‘[t]he law plays the central role in constructing ‘what counts’ as crime, and in the case of sexual violence (unlike, for example, public order offences) it focuses almost entirely on extremes, thereby discounting many women’s experiences.’ The law has constructed what counts as crime. This construction, often based on ‘extreme’ instances of physical violence, means that those which do not meet this threshold may be discounted.
But of the interviewees who experienced legally-defined sexual and physical assault, at times, they minimised their experiences in similar ways. Throughout my interview with Lara, for instance, she recounted two experiences of physical and sexual violence with her Tinder matches. She minimised her experience of physical violence, because,
167 for her, it wasn’t ‘that bad’ in comparison to the sexual assault (as discussed in Chapter Four), which she considered to be more serious. Lara explained:
I have met up with a few guys from Tinder that, in general, have made me feel, you know, very, very uncomfortable. And two of them actually happened this year, so the first one isn’t that bad, like, I got physically injured, but it wasn’t as bad as the second story (Lara). The experience was not ‘that bad’, despite it making her feel ‘very, very uncomfortable.’ Lara explained how her Tinder date who had used his friend’s photographs on his Tinder profile had become angry when she said she did not want to go back to his house. He pushed her against his motorbike upon leaving the restaurant where they had met for dinner. As a result, her leg was burnt by the motorbike’s exhaust pipe. Months later, during our interview, she showed me her leg where it bore a visible scar. The man then stalked her when she was on a date with another man. Still, the experience with this man was not ‘that bad.’
In light of the interviewees’ minimisation of physical intrusions, it is not surprising that they also minimised online abuse. Like some of the interviewees, Rachael made a distinction between experiences that were facilitated through the app and those which occurred in physical spaces. Despite Rachael receiving around 50 abusive messages from one of her matches, she explained: ‘[b]ut yeah, I haven’t met up with someone…and had a really bad experience, so I haven’t had any in real life, I guess.’ One interpretation of this finding lies within the physical barrier Tinder introductions provide. For Rachael, the online barrier suggests that the messages she received were not ‘real life.’ Indeed, ‘Malestream thinking is full of clichés about women making a ‘fuss about nothing’, so it’s not surprising that sometimes as women we silence our experiential knowledge’ (Kelly and Radford 1990, 46). But online gender-based violence can cause harm just like offline forms of violence (Henry and Powell 2015; Jane 2017). As my findings outlined in Chapter Four emphasise, online intimate intrusions had a cumulative impact on the interview participants.
6.5.5 Ongoing Concerns: ‘I Don’t Worry About Myself, I Just Worry About the Rest of the Women’ While the interviewees minimised their experiences of intrusion, many described their concern for other women who might be subjected to similar behaviours. As my findings and previous research has found, experiences of intrusion are relatively common (Fileborn 2016; Stanko 1985). Because of this, their concern is not unfounded. 168
However, it is interesting that while participants expressed concern for other women, they simultaneously downplayed the impact the behaviour had on them. This theme was primarily expressed through the interviewees’ apparent ability to cope with men’s intrusive behaviour. Josie, for example, expressed this concern when describing her experience of sexual assault. She explained: ‘[…] I just think about the other women who have probably had the exact same experiences as me that are probably way more traumatised because they don’t understand anything’ (Josie). Josie highlights the potentially traumatising impact that the ‘exact same experience’ could have on other women. But as she claims to understand why men engage in intimate intrusions, she escapes the impact. Before this discussion, however, she explained that the experience made her feel ‘uncomfortable’, ‘quite upset’, and ‘really scared.’ Similarly, Jade expressed her concern for other women on Tinder, given some experiences could be ‘extremely detrimental’ for women with ‘not so much confidence.’ Rachael described the impact of the 50 intrusive messages she received:
I guess I do have thick skin, so, it doesn’t bother me as much, but I know that there are people out there that it would really effect, some girls and even boys could not take that, so, for me, it was like, obviously I was very uncomfortable and I didn’t appreciate it whatsoever, but yeah. While it was going on I was like, obviously there’s something going on in his head. And when he kept, when he, like that, mainly the end part when he just kept going on about- saying some really horrible stuff about me being abusive and stuff, it did affect me, I guess. But, I mean, I just unmatched him and I was like, it’s done (Rachael). It is interesting to note that Rachael’s ‘thick skin’ is her protection here. Her account illustrates the potential impact of the behaviour for those who may not be as ‘thick skinned’ as herself. She therefore minimises her experience because it did not affect her as much as it would other people.
For several of the interviewees, their concern for other women was often their reasoning for reporting their matches’ behaviour. Reflecting on her experience of being ‘catfished’ by the underage boy posing as a man, Mia explained:
I was pretty concerned…more for, not, my worry was if he’s not, if there’s no intervention now, if someone doesn’t scare the shit out of him now for what he’s doing, and make him realise it’s inappropriate, obviously I don’t know the psychology behind a lot of abusive people, but my thoughts at the time was he could definitely be a person to
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grow up and do some real harm to someone if he just thinks it’s okay to manipulate women like this (Mia). As Mia’s insight shows, she recognises the boy’s behaviour as abusive and manipulative; however, she minimises his behaviour toward her through the acknowledgment that ‘he could grow up and do some real harm.’ At the same time, she illustrates the potential impact of his behaviour through her perceived responsibility to intervene. And it was for this reason that she reported him to Tinder. Similarly, Miranda challenged Tinder users on their ‘creepy’ behaviour as she felt a ‘social responsibility to the other women of Brisbane.’
Reflecting on the accounts given by the interviewees here, it becomes clear that while they appeared to negate the impact of their experiences, or noted their ability to deal with the impacts, by minimising their experiences in this way, they were able to illustrate the potential harm of intimate intrusions on Tinder. However, the fact that the interviewees made these justifications is a reminder of pervasive cultural norms, which might contribute to women’s downplaying of their experiences to ensure they avoid making a ‘fuss about nothing’ (Kelly and Radford 1990).
6.6 Conclusion On Tinder, intimate intrusions were normalised in a number of ways. To begin the chapter, I demonstrated how the interview participants often felt obligated and pressured to engage with Tinder users, and in ways that their matches preferred. Such pressure meant that several of the interviewees remained on dates and engaged in sexual activity with Tinder users, despite not always wanting to. Tinder users’ use of the app’s instant messaging service and other digital mediums functioned to create a sense of digital omnipresence for the interviewees. But Tinder users camouflaged their coercive and controlling behaviour as romance and care. Cloaking the behaviours in this way contributed to interviewees’ confusion, and functioned to normalise the behaviour.
This chapter also explored the ways that participants’ experiences of intrusion were invalidated and minimised. Like Salter’s (2012) continuum of invalidation, participants’ experienced devaluation of their experiences of intrusion from friends and family. The interviewees, however, also minimised their own experiences. At times, participants normalised men’s behaviour because they expected it. For several of the women I spoke to, they connected intimate intrusions facilitated via Tinder to offline
170 experiences, which contributed to their justification that the behaviour is ‘normal.’ Interviewees further justified men’s behaviour through inhibiting factors, such as alcohol impairment and mental illness. Attributing men’s behaviour to an underlying pathology shifted focus to the characteristics of a deviant individual, rather than the cultural assumptions that led to the event. Finally, this chapter demonstrated how women downplay their own experiences of intrusion and the impact they had on them. At the same time, however, they reflected the impact of the behaviour through their concern for other women who may experience similar intrusions.
By discussing the normalisation of abuse on Tinder, this chapter has shed further light on women’s experiences of intrusion; how they understand such experiences; and what they do to deter them. While the interviewees spoke freely about their experiences, many of the forms of intrusion presented throughout this chapter were not immediately discussed by participants. When I asked them to recall the experiences that made them feel uneasy, uncomfortable, or unsafe, most of the interviewees recounted the online and physical forms of intrusion documented in Chapter Four. This chapter, however, reflects those which were often expressed at later points throughout the interviews.
Significantly, the interviewees’ attribution and justification of their experiences to Tinder’s culture might expose the pervasiveness of the app’s culture. Indeed, several participants minimised and normalised their experiences, because they considered the behaviour appropriate on Tinder. Of course, the attitudes that underpin abuse are the same in all settings (Kelly 1988); however, this chapter has highlighted how Tinder and similar dating apps’ cultures may facilitate and amplify women’s experiences of intrusion in mobile dating contexts. Further to this, how Tinder users engage with the location-sharing technology afforded by Tinder, and the social media platforms it is connected to, reflected how these services can provide new avenues for established forms of abuse, such as stalking.
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CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION
7.1 Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to synthesise the study’s findings, present opportunities for improved platform governance, outline the study’s limitations, and propose future research directions. To synthesise the study’s findings, I first revisit the aims and research questions which guided this thesis. I then outline how the interviewees’ experiences fit within the continuum of sexual violence, which shows us that women’s experience of intrusion are: (1) relatively common; (2) routinely normalised and; (3) have a cumulative impact. In light of these findings, I present avenues for improved platform governance, which include technical and social opportunities. Broadly, these avenues consist of improving the app’s responses to intimate intrusions and engaging with stakeholders to better understand women’s experiences. This chapter concludes by presenting future research directions, which will provide a better understanding of intimate intrusions on Tinder and similar apps. Significantly, the research findings summarised here depict the significant and original contribution my thesis makes to the burgeoning research landscape on dating apps and users’ experiences of them.
7.2 Findings The primary aim of this thesis was to better understand women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder. To address this aim, my research investigated the following research questions:
1. What are women’s experiences of intimate intrusions in the context of Tinder use? 2. How do women understand these intrusions? 3. How do women respond to intimate intrusions when they happen? And what measures, if any, do they use to mitigate future intimate intrusions?
Findings from this research (1) identified the commonness of women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder; (2) demonstrated how intimate intrusions on Tinder are routinely normalised as part of digital dating cultures; and (3) highlighted the cumulative impact everyday intimate intrusions can have for women who experience such behaviour.
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In Chapter Four, I explored the interview participants’ experiences of intimate intrusions facilitated through Tinder. Significantly, the women who participated in my research described a range of intimate intrusions, which occurred in online and offline settings. The intrusive messages participants received often comprised of immediate demands for sex, attacks on gendered and sexual identities, possessive and controlling messages, and unsolicited ‘dick pics.’ While the women I interviewed experienced these forms of intrusion directly through Tinder’s instant messaging service, often these messages were facilitated through other social media platforms. Tinder operated as the initial discovery space for the interviewees and the users they spoke to; however, these relationships often moved into other spaces. Importantly, participants’ cross-platform convergence cast other platforms into an equally important role in facilitating women’s experiences of intrusion. Indeed, experiences such as receiving ‘dick pics’ through Snapchat sheds light on how digital spaces can overlap. This finding emphasises how Tinder does not exist on its own. Tinder is only one platform, which is part of a broader social media system.
The interviewees also recounted their experiences of intrusion in physical settings. My interview questions were designed to elicit responses related to women’s ‘everyday’ intimate intrusions on Tinder. While I collected many accounts that echoed dynamics that were well-documented in popular and social media, I was surprised to hear about experiences that are widely-recognised as abusive. Several of the women I spoke to described their experiences of conduct that would constitute legally-defined sexual assault and physical violence. Another unexpected finding I learned from the interviews was the extent to which the interviewees experienced user misrepresentation through Tinder. This finding is one of the forms of intrusion that is actually made possible by dating apps and the internet.
Significantly, the interviewees’ experiences of intrusion were relatively common. Participants often explicitly described the commonness of intrusive experiences. At the same time, however, they had difficulties remembering specific incidents. Because of this, interviewees often recalled their experiences during the later stages of the interviews, and not when I had initially asked them to describe their experiences on Tinder which made them feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe. This finding suggests that participants considered the incidents to be ordinary, given that they could not remember the explicit details of their experiences.
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The interview participants’ recounting of their experiences of intrusion demonstrated how they understood these as both ‘typical’ and ‘aberrant.’ For physical experiences of intrusion, their descriptions made clear that they understood these as ‘aberrant’ rather than ‘typical’ behaviours. Participants demonstrated this understanding through their more detailed recollections of physically intrusive experiences and their willingness to define the behaviour as inappropriate. It is possible that the interviewees recalled the experiences they considered likely to be validated as abusive, since women’s accounts of abuse are often met with distrust (Kelly 1988), and physical abuse is more easily recognised as a form of VAW than non-physical forms (Harris et al. 2015). At the same time, however, several of the interviewees described men’s intrusive behaviour as typical. This understanding demonstrated their perception that they were responsible for avoiding men’s intrusive behaviour facilitated through the platform.
My findings highlight how women can understand their experiences of intrusion in competing ways. The women I spoke to frequently minimised the severity of online intimate intrusions, sometimes describing them as both humorous and abusive at the same time. Francesca emphasised this simultaneous understanding with her comment: ‘[s]o, this one was probably, like, when I think back on it, it was probably, like, the silliest of experiences and maybe, like, maybe the scariest’ (Francesca). The competing views illustrate how intrusive incidents are common and minimised as to be ordinary, yet are still harmful and upsetting. At the same time, this finding demonstrates how women may not understand intimate intrusions in binary terms, for example, as ‘aberrant’ or ‘typical’ behaviour. This understanding demonstrates how women’s experiences of intrusion can shade into one another and cannot be readily distinguished, as Kelly (1988) argued.
Chapter Four also highlighted the cumulative impact of intimate intrusions. Similar to recent findings in digital media and gender-based violence scholarship (Chan 2018; Jane 2017; Vitak et al. 2017), this thesis demonstrates how women may retreat from online spaces to mitigate harm. The majority of participants described either temporarily or permanently circumscribing their Tinder use as a result of their intrusive experiences. The cumulative impact of such experiences also prompted several participants to change their offline behaviour. These behaviours were often extensions of the safety work (Kelly 2012 cited in Vera-Gray 2018) they were already employing.
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For instance, the women took extra precaution when meeting with men on dates. Finally, interviewees emphasised the cumulative impact of intimate intrusions through changes to their offline world views and perspectives. The interview participants’ wariness of men as a result of their Tinder interactions provided evidence of the ways in which women connect ‘typical’ to ‘aberrant’ intrusions.
In Chapter Five, I presented my findings from the technical walkthrough of Tinder and explored how the interviewees experienced safety on the platform. In doing so, this chapter highlighted participants’ online intrusion mitigation strategies. The Tinder walkthrough shed light on the platform’s affordances and safety features for preventing abuse. My analysis of Tinder’s Terms of Use and accompanying Community Guidelines emphasised how Tinder holds users themselves solely responsible for interactions occurring either on or off the service as a result of Tinder use. The platform’s Menprovement Initiative and the accompanying ‘Reactions’ feature demonstrated how users are being tasked with responding to men’s ‘douchey’ behaviour (Tinder Inc. 2017). Other safety mechanisms include the opportunity to unmatch and report users. While Tinder does not position the ability to unmatch users as a safety feature, participants’ use of this feature emphasise how it can effectively prevent contact between users. The interviewees’ limited use of Tinder’s reporting mechanism, however, illuminated the ineffectiveness of this affordance in preventing intrusions.
Interviewees’ use of Tinder’s cross-platform linking affordance highlighted how it can facilitate intimate intrusions. While this feature is supposed to allay authenticity concerns by linking to users’ ‘real’ social media networks, the interviewees often removed their linked Instagram accounts from their Tinder profiles. Removing their links to other platforms gave them more control over their online privacy. Even without official links to Instagram and Facebook, for instance, Tinder users found the interviewees on other social media platforms. Accordingly, cross-platform convergence complicated participants’ mitigation strategies and required them to consider their privacy on platforms other than Tinder. Francesca’s experience of GPS facilitated stalking through Snapchat, for instance, demonstrated how location-aware technologies can facilitate intrusions. At the same time, the women I spoke to highlighted how Facebook-verification can render users more easily searchable on
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Facebook, due to the biographical data it imports and simultaneously displays on both profiles.
Importantly, interviewees adopted innovative mitigation strategies that Tinder does not endorse, such as analysing user profiles. This finding highlighted the women’s understanding that men may conceal their true motivations for using Tinder. Participants’ understandings and their efforts to analyse user profiles created a paradoxical situation for them. While they were looking for caring men, their assumptions led them to dismiss users who presented in these ways on their Tinder profiles. For these participants, they thought these men had crafted profiles that deceptively depicted themselves in these ways. This finding highlights how participants’ needed to be vigilant and protective of themselves, or at least they thought they needed to be, which may have prevented them from having what could be positive experiences.
Chapter Six investigated the mainstream cultural values that normalise abuse, informing men's intrusive behaviour and women's minimisation of their own experiences. In doing so, this chapter highlighted the more ambiguous behaviours participants experienced as intrusive. For instance, the interviewees described the pressure and obligation they felt to interact with Tinder users, and in ways that these men preferred. This finding emphasised participants’ experiences of what (Kelly 1988) terms ‘pressurised sex.’ For several participants, they felt obligated to engage in sexual activity with Tinder users because that is what they thought was expected of them. This finding importantly highlights the pervasive impact that dating apps can have on dating practices. At the same time, the pressure and obligation to engage in sexual activity the interviewees described highlights how Tinder may propagate a toxic technoculture.
The interview participants’ experiences further emphasised Tinder users’ possessive and controlling behaviours. Several of the interviewees recalled their experiences of ‘digital omnipresence’, whereby Tinder users would relentlessly communicate with them through Tinder or other digital mediums. Given Tinder users cloaked these behaviours in what could be considered romance and care, the interviewees were often confused by these experiences. This finding shed light on Tinder users’ ability to stay connected and create and maintain a sense of control via digital media regardless
176 of the physical distance between them and the interviewees. At the same time, while the women I spoke to did not describe physical violence in relation to these experiences, their recollections demonstrate how they understood these behaviours as threatening and disturbing.
Following this discussion, the second part of Chapter Six illustrated how Tinder users and persons known to participants invalidated their experiences of intrusion. Participants experienced a continuum of invalidation (Salter 2012), since their intimate intrusions were downplayed by their friends and family. Tinder users also highlighted their efforts to invalidate their intrusive behaviours by blaming the interviewees for their actions and attempting to redefine sexual violence as consensual. My findings also highlight how women can minimise their own experiences of intrusion and men’s behaviour. This theme was evidenced through participants’ downplaying of men’s ‘normal’ behaviour and the incidents which took place, as Kelly and Radford (1990) found in their research. At the same time, however, the interviewees showed their concern for other women who might be subjected to similar behaviours.
7.3 Recommendations
In light of my empirical findings, the following sections present platform governance strategies to improve women’s experiences on Tinder and similar dating apps. Despite Tinder’s Terms of Use and Community Guidelines, which outline what behaviour is prohibited on the platform, my findings show that these policies do not do enough to prevent such behaviour online and offline between service users. An added failing of Tinder stems from the normalisation of intimate intrusions on the platform. Particularly since my findings show that intimate intrusions on Tinder are routinely normalised and often fail to meet thresholds of criminal behaviour, addressing the problem will require platform participation.
Findings from this research indicate a range of strategies Tinder and similar dating apps could adopt to improve the user experience. Most broadly, I suggest that Tinder will need to improve its culture, which shapes how users behave on the platform (Duguay et al. 2018). The recommendations I discuss throughout this section are the most pressing things that I found in my research that Tinder could address in order to improve its culture. To do this, there are five major areas that Tinder should pay attention to: (1) enforce the rules; (2) engage with anti-VAW experts; (3) provide better
177 information resources and mechanisms for women to get help; (4) design opportunities to help women manage who they interact with and; (5) engage with women. Tinder is one example of a platform that is used for dating and experiences of intrusion are likely to occur in similar mobile dating contexts. Especially considering participants’ experiences of cross-platform convergence, women will likely experience intimate intrusions on other social media platforms. Accordingly, these recommendations will likely benefit other dating apps.
Of course, these recommendations are resource-intensive. To date, platforms have been reluctant to invest in forms of governance that do not easily scale – their business model depends on it (Gillespie 2018a). Unfortunately, there is no simple fix and these problems cannot be dealt with rapidly and efficiently. Platforms might have to change the way they think about how they respond to intimate intrusions and come to the recognition that there are some categories of complaints that are not going to scale well. But if Tinder’s executives are interested in creating a safer platform and retaining users, then they might have to eventually invest. Indeed, there is a risk that without meaningful commitment to user experience, women will leave the platform. My findings show that the majority of the interviewees temporarily or permanently disconnected from Tinder due to the intrusive behaviour they experienced. This finding demonstrates the cumulative impact of intimate intrusions on Tinder for the women who experience the behaviours, but also the cumulative impact on Tinder, which is losing its customer base. But intimate intrusions can have an even broader impact. Failing to respond to intimate intrusions on Tinder could serve to reinforce a culture that supports violence against women. In light of this, it will be in Tinder and similar platforms’ interest to invest in improving women’s experiences on their services. At the same time, we (as a society) should expect this of the social media platforms that we use. Particularly given Tinder’s dominance of the mobile dating app market (Hess and Flores 2016), it will inevitably have an important part to play in shaping digital dating contexts.
Tinder’s executive team will also need to consider the way people want to communicate through their service. While changes in Tinder’s culture and affordances can affect what happens on the platform, my findings demonstrate how a lot of communication moves off the platform into other digital and physical spaces. Despite this, Tinder has a role as the central hub where people discover one another. Indeed,
178 emphasising its role in bringing people together, Tinder Inc. (2019) explains: ‘Tinder empowers users around the world to create new connections that otherwise might never have been possible.’ The walkthrough highlighted that Tinder encourages users to remain on the platform. The Community Guidelines explain that bad actors will try to move communication to other spaces. But while Tinder tries to create a safe space by keeping people on the service, its efforts are ineffective. The limitations of the app, such as the inability to send photographs, led participants to move communication into other digital spaces. This meant that users who were interacting in unmediated spaces were then unable to use Tinder’s safety features. When Tinder users interact with others through different digital mediums this undoubtedly limits Tinder’s control. But this also sheds important light on how some of these limits are self-imposed. Its limited instant-messaging service is presumably supposed to protect users from receiving unwanted photographs; however, this functions to push users off the platform. Tinder will need to consider its instant-messaging service to better protect its users. And more broadly, it will need to consider its responsibility as people move further away from the platform.
The recommendations presented throughout this chapter do not form an exhaustive list. These recommendations are based on the walkthrough and interview data of women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder, which may help to make women feel safe on the platform. Ongoing efforts to produce cultural and technological reform will be needed. One area that Tinder will need to pay particular attention to is holding those who engage in intrusive behaviours accountable. The interviews revealed how there are real problems with how men behave on Tinder. At this stage, however, Tinder primarily holds women responsible for avoiding male violence. Interview participants Keira and Kimberly both noted that Tinder’s current safety advice is primarily victim- centred—it stresses that users must alter their behaviour in order to stay safe. While this advice might be useful to users, there is a real risk of reinforcing the idea women are responsible for navigating and preventing male violence. Certainly, dating apps will need to do more to address men’s behaviour. Investigating men’s engagement in intrusive behaviours on dating apps could provide some insight on strategies to hold them to account. If Tinder implements the recommendations discussed below to effect cultural change, however, these could serve to deter men from behaving intrusively on the service.
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7.3.1 Tinder’s Culture Findings from the interviews and the walkthrough of Tinder I conducted highlight the real risk that Tinder is enabling and reinforcing a toxic technoculture that facilitates, amplifies, and propagates a range of intimate intrusions on the service. Of course, harassing and abusive behaviours are not a problem specific to social media (Gillespie 2018a). Rather, they are symptomatic of a broader societal culture (Gillett 2018). Findings from this research, however, demonstrate how both Tinder’s affordances and users may be creating a culture where intrusive behaviours can thrive. One of the women I interviewed, Francesca, for instance, emphasised the pervasiveness of Tinder’s culture in her comment: ‘because the app almost gives you a reason, you know, behind that kind of behaviour’ (Francesca).
Changing a platform’s culture is not an easy task. It is likely that Tinder will require a combination of strategies to effect real change. As Duguay et al. (2018, 3) put it:
While it is not possible to say in advance exactly how platforms can effectively shift their cultures, it is clear that the ad hoc patchwork of responses to discrete sets of issues that they have historically taken is not likely to be sufficient. For this reason, carefully planned strategies will be essential to improve women’s experiences on Tinder and similar dating apps. In order to respond to increasing public pressure and effect cultural change, it is likely that Tinder will need to adopt a variety of strategies that address the platform’s affordances, governance, and users’ behaviour. I suggest that Tinder should consider how its affordances, governance, and user behaviour work in tandem to shape its culture. As a useful starting point for Tinder and other similar dating platforms, the following sections outline some major areas that they could begin to address.
7.3.2 Engage with Anti-VAW Experts To improve platform culture and women’s experiences on the platform, Tinder will need to engage with anti-VAW experts. As my research demonstrates, women run into problems that are complex and Tinder’s moderation system is not nuanced enough to deal with the kind of complex problems faced by its users. Tinder could improve this by engaging with anti-VAW groups to help design reporting systems that work better for such problems, and to ensure protocols are in place to better respond
180 to women’s experiences. Anti-VAW groups’ expertise could provide Tinder’s executive team and trust and safety analysts with a better understanding of less-overt types of intrusion, and effective ways to combat the behaviour. Tinder’s engagement with anti- VAW experts would also enable them to think of ways to encourage men to behave better on the platform.
Other, non-dating platforms, are beginning to engage with anti-VAW experts. In 2014, Twitter commissioned Women, Action, and the Media (WAM!), a non-profit organisation dedicated to gender justice in media, to participate in a three-week pilot. During this time, WAM! was awarded ‘authorized reporter’ status, which enabled them to assess, escalate and send reports on behalf of individual users (Matias et al. 2015). WAM!’s involvement in Twitter’s reporting process benefited users and the platform in various ways. For instance, WAM!’s expertise and further engagement with reports allowed them to provide Twitter with context surrounding the reported incidents. This meant that they could escalate the reports to Twitter, who often took subsequent action. Significantly, for some reports which were ambiguous or incomplete, WAM! reviewers worked with the reporters to better understand the harassment they were experiencing. At the same time, WAM!’s involvement allowed the organisation to advocate for Twitter users, provide emotional support, and direct reporters to resources outside of Twitter (Geiger 2016; Matias et al. 2015). As Geiger (2016, 792) pointed out: ‘many targets of harassment needed different kinds of support in making sense of harassment, particularly given how harassers can use sophisticated techniques to overwhelm their targets and mask their own identity.’ While WAM!’s pilot was only temporary, it demonstrated the potential for significant social benefits from engaging with anti-VAW groups on social media.
Tinder could engage with anti-VAW organisations in similar ways. While this action is presumably not in Tinder’s plan, funding organisations to provide regular support in this way could deliver similar benefits. WAM!’s three-week authorised reporter status at Twitter allowed them to better-engage with reporters through multiple messages. As Matias et al. (2015, n.p.) point out: ‘[p]eople experiencing harassment often have complex situations with needs that only become clear through multiple exchanges.’ Using Tinder’s online ‘write to us’ form, experts could report incidents on behalf of users. Alternatively, users could engage with support organisations, who could make reports on their behalf. This strategy could be helpful, since the range of behaviours
181 the interviewees experienced would be familiar to anti-VAW organisations. The interviewees’ inadequate responses from Tinder when they used the platform’s reporting mechanism demonstrates that its trust and safety analysts are unlikely to understand the range of behaviours that make women feel uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe. Engaging with organisations that are familiar with the ‘normalisation of abuse’ (Lundgren et al. 2001, 18), would give Tinder the opportunity to effectively respond to user reports. And given WAM!’s success and the high volume of reports they received, it is likely that Tinder users would engage with similar services.
7.3.2 Enforce the Rules Tinder’s unresponsiveness to user reports and violations of the Terms does nothing to deter, and potentially reinforces, intrusive behaviour. Tinder’s Terms of Use and Community Guidelines explain that the platform will not accept any offensive behaviour. As Tinder’s Vice President of Communications and Brand (Pambakian 2017) explained in her blog post on prohibited user behaviour:
Tinder has a zero-tolerance policy on disrespect. No racist rants. No sexist pigs. No trolling. No jerks who can’t get over their own inadequacies long enough to have a decent conversation with another person on Tinder. The Community Guidelines (Tinder Inc. 2018b) further provide: ‘If you’re honest, kind and respectful to others, you’ll always be welcome here. If you choose not to be, you may not last.’ Despite Tinder’s warning to users, my findings indicate that behaviour violating the Terms of Use was continuously facilitated and inadequately addressed on the platform. While it is unclear what steps Tinder took to address user reports, the interviewees’ ability to continue to see and interact with reported users on the app suggests that the app failed to enforce the Terms. As noted earlier, Rachael recalled seeing reported and unmatched users in Tinder’s Discovery section. While Rachael and I do not know what action Tinder took following her reports, it might be the case that Tinder’s trust and safety analysts did not consider the behaviour to violate the Terms of Use. This is problematic because this lack of recognition sends a message that the behaviour does not amount to what is listed in the Terms and Community Guidelines, despite Pambakian’s (2017) blog post and Tinder’s rules suggesting that a broad range of behaviour is prohibited.
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Tinder’s failure to consider participants’ experiences as violations of the Terms may serve to legitimise and normalise intimate intrusions. This is because it sends a message to reporting users that their experiences do not warrant reports. At the same time, the platform’s inaction to proactively enforce the rules sends a message to users who engage in intrusive behaviour that their conduct is acceptable. Accordingly, Tinder’s failure to enforce the rules could have wide-reaching impacts. Sexual harassment research has found that people who consider discrimination acceptable online are more likely to engage in the behaviour in offline contexts as well (Ritter 2014). Similarly, research on sexual harassment in the workplace has found that if perpetrators believe that the organisation will not enforce harassment policies, they will not follow the rules (Williams et al. 1999).
Transparent enforcement of the rules will be important. Research demonstrates how transparent platform decision-making can help users to understand which behaviours are unacceptable (Binns et al. 2017; Citron and Norton 2011). Indeed, users may continue to engage in behaviour that violates platforms’ rules if they do not know what behaviours are prohibited (Suzor et al. forthcoming; West 2018). Despite this, findings from my research demonstrate that Tinder provides users with limited information around their decision-making processes. Although Rachael was my only interviewee who described her experience of being temporarily banned from Tinder, since she received limited information about the process, her experience highlights the limited information Tinder provides to users. If Tinder and other dating apps are going to improve women’s experiences on their platforms and seek to deter and prevent intimate intrusions, transparent content moderation and enforcement of the rules will be an important step.
Transparent enforcement of the rules would also benefit users who report behaviours that violate platforms’ Terms of Use. Findings from my research demonstrate that regardless of whether or not participants’ reports were acted upon, Tinder did not provide details on the outcome of their reports. Because participants were unaware of how their reports were dealt with, they questioned the platform’s efforts to take action. As Georgia asked: ‘[…] what’s involved? The police? What do they actually do with those reports?’ (Georgia). Georgia’s questioning indicates how Tinder’s lack of transparency around the processes for responding to reports elicits doubt around the enforcement of the Terms of Use. It is therefore likely that the doubt Tinder’s opaque
183 decision-making processes elicited contributed to participants limited reporting. Tinder’s opaque decision-making and perceived inaction of user reports also sends a message that the behaviour is acceptable and the women’s reports are unwarranted. Particularly for women who are socialised not to make a ‘fuss about nothing’ (Kelly and Radford 1990), transparent moderation could help to justify their reports. Without this, there is a good argument that this inaction further normalises intimate intrusions on the app and might serve to create a toxic technoculture.
7.3.3 Provide Better Information Resources and Mechanisms for Women to get Help Tinder’s safety features fail users. Several of the women I interviewed were unaware of Tinder’s reporting mechanism and dating safety advice. Digital media researchers have pointed out the platform’s shortcomings. As Duguay et al. (2018, 12) argue, ‘the obscure flagging button and the dominance of a sexually aggressive toxic technoculture appeared to support a norm of not reporting sexually explicit or deceptive behavior.’ Indeed, when I conducted the walkthrough of Tinder, the reporting mechanism was hidden behind three red dots in the corner of the screen. However, it should be noted that Tinder has taken steps to improve the reporting mechanism, by changing the icon to a flag. It is likely that this change makes the mechanism more obvious to users, which could encourage users to engage with the feature.
But despite this improvement, in its current state, the mechanism encourages users to provide limited information about the report. Reporters can use the mechanism to report: inappropriate messages and photographs; bad offline behavior; spam; and other content which warrants a report. While users can describe the reason for reporting a user in the ‘other content’ section, this suggests that the previous sections do not warrant further context. Users can visit the platform’s website and fill out the ‘write to us’ form; however, since the interviewees were unaware of the app’s Dating Safety page, it is unlikely that they knew this mechanism existed.
Tinder could improve its current reporting mechanism by giving users the opportunity to provide more details about their experiences. Gender-based violence researchers have consistently argued that to better understand violence against women, we must understand the context and meaning surrounding these experiences (Ackerman 2016; Dragiewicz and DeKeseredy 2012). Given this thesis investigated women’s everyday experiences of intrusion, context and meaning is paramount to better understand
184 intimate intrusions which might not be as easily recognised as abusive. Women need to be able to provide further information around their experiences. Without this, Tinder’s trust and safety analysts will likely fail to understand and take action on user reports.
Tinder should also provide users better information on resources to get help. The accessibility of and support presented on Tinder’s Dating Safety page is manifestly inadequate. While Tinder encourages users to read the Dating Safety page prior to using the app, all but two of the interviewees had not engaged with the advice. After informing the interviewees on the positioning of this information, the majority noted that it needed to be better positioned. As Samantha explained: ‘I had no idea any of that existed and that’s such a stupid place to put it’ (Samantha). A more visible placement of Tinder’s advice would provide easier access to the support that is available to users. However, further limiting Tinder’s safety advice, as the walkthrough of Tinder demonstrated, is the United States based focus of the listed support services. No support services are listed for Australian and other international users, despite the platform operating in over 190 countries (Tinder Inc. 2019). The platform’s website could easily be adjusted to include country-specific hotlines and other accessible support services.
7.3.4 Design Opportunities to Help Women Manage Who They Interact With The women I interviewed spent considerable time scrutinising profiles to determine user authenticity and motivations for using Tinder. Due to social media platforms’ inadequate efforts to tackle online harassment and abuse, users are developing new and innovative ways to address the problem. Tinder could implement design opportunities to help women manage who they interact with. Using Twitter’s application programming interface (API), for example, individuals have created third- party blocking mechanisms, or ‘blockbots’, to ‘extend the affordances of the site to make the work of responding to harassment more efficient and more communal’ (Geiger 2016, 788). Blocklists are a way to give users more control about who they interact with, leveraging the experiences of their peers. Blocklists use individuals’ incremental efforts to accumulate lists of harassers on platforms (Gillespie 2018b). This form of user-generated moderation enables blocklist subscribers to block abusive accounts en masse (Geiger 2016; Jhaver et al. 2018). While adding a user to a
185 blocklist is likely to be in reaction to an experience, users could replicate the ‘blocks’ of others (Citron and Wittes 2017). In this way, subscribers can proactively curate a more positive online experience (Poland 2016).
To give women more control over who they interact with on the platform, Tinder and similar dating apps could allow users to curate and subscribe to blocklists. While Tinder uses a double opt-in, meaning that only users who show reciprocal interest can communicate through the service, this barrier did not stop participants experiencing a range of intrusions. Indeed, the innovative mitigation strategies the interviewees employed, such as profile analysis, were not always effective. Since Tinder’s biographies are limited, and it is not possible to see people’s prior interactions with other users, blocklists could better protect women from matching with users who have engaged in intrusive behaviour with other users previously. Accumulating the efforts of other users could prevent blocklist subscribers from viewing intrusive users in Tinder’s Discovery section. Blocklists could empower users to provide immediate protection from those who others have been identified by other users as engaging in intrusive behaviour. And since users can choose to subscribe to a blocklist, this empowers users to take steps to improve their experiences on platforms (Gillespie 2018b). A notable risk arising from user-generated blocklists is that abusers could add users who do not legitimately warrant such action. While this is a limitation of the design, user-generated blocklists could help women to feel safe on Tinder, and they could help to prevent users who behave intrusively from communicating with women on the service. This mechanism is therefore a strategy Tinder and other dating apps should consider implementing.
7.3.5 Engage with Women One of the key problems is that women do not feel like they are being heard. From talking with the research participants, there is no real way for them to share their experiences. This is another challenge that platforms like Tinder need to address. For Tinder to take meaningful steps to combat intrusive behaviour facilitated through the platform, it will need to engage with users. Taken together, the recommendations I have described in this chapter will need to be informed by users. As Poland (2016, 214) argues: ‘[f]inding ways to combat online abuse requires working with those who experience it if we are to create true solutions.’ Since social media platforms’ executives are overwhelmingly a privileged group, with limited understanding of
186 diverse experiences, they are ill-equipped to combat abuse (Gillespie 2018b). As Gillespie (2018b, xvi) puts it, ‘[p]latform management cannot see what the world, or even its platforms, look like from the perspective of someone who has endured structural inequity or blatant hatred.’ To address such limited understanding means that appropriate steps to combat women’s actual lived experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder must be informed by user accounts.
Concerted efforts to engage with Tinder users could also contribute to women’s comfort on the app. Indeed, as Josie explained: ‘[…] it’s not just about safety, it’s also about making the women feel comfortable and they clearly don’t care about that bit’ (Josie). As Josie highlights, some of the interviewees felt overlooked by Tinder. Giving a voice to women could be empowering. Domestic violence research has shown that women want to talk about their experiences and contribute to service and policy development (Aris et al. 2003; Davis 2015; Mullender and Gague 2005). Since some of participants described their wariness of Tinder’s efforts to prevent and respond to intrusions, engaging with women could allow them to feel listened to.
Engaging with women could give online dating platforms’ trust and safety analysts a collective understanding of user experiences, while also provide an avenue to respond to users. This step could allow users to describe ways to implement more effective reporting mechanisms, for instance. User engagement in this way would also enable users to give feedback on other affordances, such as Reactions. Such user-led contributions would also benefit the platform, since the feedback would demonstrate what features Tinder users like and dislike. Alternatively, in their efforts to partner with anti-VAW experts, as described above, Tinder could commission ongoing empirical studies. For instance, this could include implementing a user walkthrough, and more specifically, a ‘go-along’ (Light et al. 2016) to gain valuable insight into user engagement with the app and its affordances. As these suggestions highlight, engaging with users could provide further opportunities to inform policy decisions, improve user experiences, and retain users. For women’s engagement and participation to be valuable, however, Tinder will need to implement practical solutions.
7.4 Limitations and Future Research Being the first study to investigate women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder, more empirical studies are needed to provide a better understanding of the
187 problem. Particularly since my findings demonstrate how intimate intrusions on Tinder are routinely normalised, researchers should conduct studies which recognise this. As noted earlier, some women I communicated with decided not to participate in a research interview, since they thought their experiences were not ‘serious’ enough to be documented. To help mitigate this concern and ensure women report all of their experiences, researchers should pay particular attention to the terminologies they use to define intrusion. Alternatively, researchers could interview women about their dating app experiences more generally to better identify experiences that women may not disclose in studies focused on violence and abuse. In light of my empirical findings, the continuum of sexual violence (Kelly 1988) will continue to be useful in providing an effective conceptual framework through which to study women’s experiences of intrusion.
As noted earlier, to help ensure the confidentiality and comfort of the interview participants, I chose not to collect their demographic information. To better understand women’s experiences of intrusion on Tinder and other similar dating apps, future work should investigate other intersections. More specifically, since the research population for this study included women between the ages 18 – 30, it will be important to explore the experiences of women outside of this age range. It may be the case that women in different age groups experience different forms of intrusion. Additionally, the interview participants were women seeking men on Tinder and it is likely that there will be different dynamics between same-sex attracted women. Accordingly, the experiences of same-sex attracted women also warrants specific attention. Future research should also consider including women residing in different locations. Several of the interviewees described diverse experiences when they used Tinder in different cities. For these women, they thought that where they were swiping impacted on their experiences. Location-based studies could shed important light on such potential differences.
Researchers will also need to investigate a range of dating apps to determine the similarities and differences in women’s experiences in similar mobile dating contexts. As this thesis has demonstrated, Tinder is one app in a social media ecosystem. Indeed, one of the interviewees described her experience of cross-platform convergence whereby a Tinder user contacted her on a similar dating platform Plenty of Fish. It is therefore likely that users on other dating apps experience intimate
188 intrusions. At the same time, because there may be differences in platform affordances and user behaviour, this points to the need for empirical research in diverse mobile dating contexts.
Future research should also seek to better understand Tinder’s responses to intimate intrusions facilitated through the platform. The walkthrough of Tinder shed some light on Tinder’s responses to behaviour that violates the Terms of Use. Importantly, however, my investigation was limited, given that I was using Tinder’s instant messaging service from my research study accounts on the same mobile phone. Because of this, Tinder may have known that the accounts were not ‘real’ and that I had created them from the same IP address. Despite this limitation, the interviewees’ experiences also demonstrated how they were largely unaware of how their user reports were moderated. Future research could further explore Tinder and similar dating apps’ decision-making processes and responses to intrusive behaviour. This research could highlight the effectiveness of dating apps’ safety mechanisms, and demonstrate areas where such platforms could improve.
Of course, this thesis can only shed light on the interview participants’ experiences. While important, if we are to develop ways to prevent intimate intrusions on dating apps, an additional task for future research will be to better understand men’s motivations for engaging in the behaviours. An area for future consideration, for instance, could be the ambiguity between using Tinder as a dating or hook-up app. As noted earlier, the women I interviewed primarily used Tinder to date; however, they believed that many male Tinder users were using the service to engage in casual hook-ups. Future research could explore such differences to better understand how Tinder might reproduce some of the ways in which women have been positioned. Investigating these areas could help us to draw further conclusions about the culture and architecture that engenders intimate intrusions on dating apps.
7.5 Conclusion This thesis investigated women’s experiences of intimate intrusions on Tinder. While gender-based violence research has often focused on physical experiences of abuse, this thesis demonstrates that women’s everyday experiences of intrusion on Tinder are relatively common; they have a cumulative impact; and are routinely normalised in digital dating contexts. At this stage, however, women’s everyday experiences of
189 intrusion are largely missing from gender-based violence scholarship. If we are to better understand the range and impact of behaviours women themselves experience as intrusive, it will be important to further empirically investigate their experiences in contemporary dating contexts. Especially since dating has largely moved online, this is an area that requires more scholarly attention.
Significantly, my findings highlight how the platform’s use of GPS technology; cross- platform linking to other social media platforms; Facebook-verification; and what could be described as a toxic technoculture contributed to the interview participants’ experiences of intrusion. Tinder’s cross-platform linking affordance can enable users to more easily locate other people on their personal social networks. Similarly, Tinder’s inbuilt links with Facebook means that Tinder users can more easily access other users’ personal social networks and inner social circles. Tinder and location-aware apps more broadly offer unique dynamics that are specific to these technologies. Tinder’s use of GPS technology can heighten women’s experiences of intrusion because they know other users are nearby. At the same time, Tinder users can take advantage of location-data afforded by a variety of social media platforms to facilitate stalking. Taken together, this thesis demonstrates how Tinder’s unique characteristics enable forms of intrusion that are actually made possible by the platform.
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Appendix A
Semi-Structured Interview Schedule
1. How would you describe Tinder? (dating/hook-up app) 2. How have your experiences been using Tinder overall? 3. This study is about unwanted interactions on Tinder that make women uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsafe. How often have you had interactions like these while using Tinder? 4. I am interested in learning about a range of experiences, from those that you may consider minor to those that are more upsetting. Can you tell me what these look like? 5. Can you describe some of your experiences that have made you uncomfortable using Tinder? 6. What did you think when they happened? 7. Did you do anything in response to them? For example, did you raise it with the person, or with Tinder, or block or report them or anything else? 8. What happened then? (How did that work out?) 9. How have these experiences affected you? 10. Why do you think people do [the things that made you uncomfortable] on dating apps? 11. What are the strategies you use to minimise unwanted interactions on Tinder? 12. Have these experiences changed the way you use Tinder at all? 13. If something like this was to happen again, what would you do? 14. Have you seen any of the advice or tools that Tinder provides about safety? Do you think these are helpful? Why or why not? 15. If you were giving someone advice to minimise unwanted interactions on Tinder, what would you tell them?
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