Data Collection, Gender, and the Hive

The most recent form of technological development in the private sphere has been its effects on dating behaviours through mobile dating apps. Innovative app Tinder paved the way for singles to meet other people in their area, swiping on eligible people based on their first impression of appearance. Home screens in the apps have an endless ‘photo deck’ that the user can mindlessly swipe on, left being ‘no’ and right being ‘yes’, and the app will notify the user when they receive a ‘match’, meaning both users swiped right on each other and opening the gate for two-way communication. Whitney Wolfe-Herd, a previous executive at Tinder, has revolutionized the world of dating apps by creating a platform called Bumble. This app has differentiated itself on the basis that gives female users the upper-hand in an area of life where they have previously been disadvantaged or oppressed. However, this niche focus has excluded users from participating and the company’s data collection behaviours are problematic at best.

Whitney Wolfe-Herd left Tinder due to sexual harassment claims against her male counterparts and pursued her desire to launch a competitor dating app. The brand name Bumble was chosen due to its marketability, the app represents the hive and the users represent the bees. Bumble’s brand even has campus ambassadors, who go to events and promote to students with yellow colour merchandise. Wolfe-Herd used the problems she faced in her experience in the dating scene as a straight white woman to shape the app she believed would offer the solutions. The infrastructure of Bumble is very similar to that of Tinder’s; a photo-deck of faces and their profiles make-up the home screen, and users are to swipe left and right for no and yes to profiles. However, the main differences are that 1) when there is a match, only the woman can message first, and 2), the matches expire after 24 hours if no contact occurs. When setting up a profile, the user must choose between 1 and 6 photos to add to their profile, and select a main photo that will appear in the photo decks of other users. The user is encouraged to write their own personal bios, and in the text box, Bumble’s default filler text is “no one likes a blank space”. Users can also select ‘tags’ that best describe them, including their star sign, political ideals, the relationship they are seeking, and whether or not they want children in the future. Users can use these tags to filter through other users; for example, one can search for only those who have the ‘liberal’ tag in their profile. The most contested step to the profile set-up, however, is the gender selection options. Users can select their gender identity from the list that Bumble offers (this list is inclusive of trans and non-binary identities), which also includes an option to suggest an identity for Bumble’s future consideration. The user can then choose whether or not they would like their gender to be visible to other users. When searching for matches, the user can only choose between men, women, or both.

Nowadays, the general masses know about the data collection that goes on in all of their apps, browser searching, and so on. Bumble is no exception to this behaviour – in their terms and conditions, they openly admit to taking data from users’ profiles, swiping behaviours, and even their messaging. Bumble discloses that users can expect their data collected from the app’s self-proclaimed “super cool electronic messaging function”. The app also collects data from Facebook while they are logged in to Bumble simultaneously, and other accounts linked to their Bumble profile, such as Spotify and Instagram. What happens to this information is unknown – Bumble does reference the term ‘third-party organizations’ several times throughout their terms and conditions, so the reader can only imagine what institutions are buying this data. Every once in a while, Bumble will include a targeted advertisement directed at the user in the photo deck while they are swiping. The user can either choose to engage in the advertisement and learn more by swiping right, or remove the advertisement by swiping left. Another important note is that citizens of the European Union and those of the United States have vastly different rights to their data. While those in the EU have the right to all data collected from them from every company, those in the U.S have no such privilege. As reported by Duportail, when she demanded her data from, Tinder (as an example), they handed over 800 pages worth of data. This included her swiping behaviour (demographics of profiles, hours when she was most active, etc.), how other users engaged with her profile (which demographics were most swiping right on her, for example), and every single match and message she had over the years her account was active. This is very valuable and new information in terms of dating behaviours, and platforms like Bumble are not disclosing to whom they are selling this data to. As ­­­Zuboff highlights, a characteristics of companies who participate in the extraction of ‘big data’ comes from an “absence of dialogue or consent” (Zuboff, 2015). While the user is technically consenting to these exploitative behaviours that Bumble is engaging in, they have no outlet to pursue a dialogue or even to understand the full extent of what happens once the data is collected. Perhaps it would make a difference to a user on Bumble whether their data was being sold to a company with different ideals than them.

Another critique of the platform goes back to the idea of the platform being centred around the problems experienced by women in the world of dating. Wolfe-Herd has a very particular life-experience that she has projected onto Bumble in the hopes of solving the issues she faced, however, in the process of focusing on one life-experience she has effectively excluded others from also participating. For example, the user can only change their gender once. The reasoning for this is to prevent users from creating false identities and entering spaces that they do not belong to, such as a man changing his Bumble profile to a woman and proceeding to engage in conversations with other women under this false identity. This is a very real concern: as Rheingold points out, some of those with darker intentions can in fact “carry their deceptions far enough to turn an entire virtual community inside out” (Rheingold, 1993). The platform needs the users to trust them and their ability to create a safe environment for such an intimate and private area of life, so it makes sense that Bumble would take every precaution to prevent these things from occurring. However, this prevention can lead those who may be transitioning to face unnecessary obstacles when signing up or continuing their profile on Bumble. There is also the factor that the user can only choose between viewing ‘men, women, or both’ in their photo-deck; this is simply a heteronormative perspective on what dating should be and who should be viewing who.

Bumble is a revolutionary app designed to give autonomy to women when choosing who to date and when. Whitney Wolfe-Herd created an innovative platform that allows women to message first and have the upper-hand in online dating relationships, however, she has also enforced a heteronormative dynamic onto the users and excluded ‘others’ from participating. Bumble also engages in shady data collection behaviours which are never fully disclosed to the user, and when they are, the practice is sugar coated as ‘cool’ and highlights the best functions of the platform to distract the user from the exploitative mechanisms at work. Mobile dating apps are the modern standard for meeting and relationships, however, they need to be seriously re-examined and to ensure all people have access to the communities in a safe, secure, and open way.

References

Duportail, J. (2017, September 26). I asked Tinder for my data. It sent me 800 pages of my deepest, darkest secrets. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/26/tinder-personal-data-dating-app-messages-hacked-sold

O’Connor, C. (2017, November 17). Billion-Dollar Bumble: How Whitney Wolfe Herd Built America’s Fastest-Growing Dating App. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2017/11/14/billion-dollar-bumble-how-whitney-wolfe-herd-built-americas-fastest-growing-dating-app/#6e7e4f0248b3

Rheingold, H. (1993). Multi-user dungeons and alternate identities. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier.

Zuboff, S. (2015). Big other: surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization. Journal of Information Technology, 30(1), 75-89.