Dating apps are now banning white supremacists
Dating apps are taking a stand.
In the wake of last weekend's events in Charlottesville and the ongoing fallout, several popular matchmaking platforms are taking steps to ensure their users feel they're in a safe space by banning hate speech and white supremacists.
OKCupid took the unusual step today of announcing that they'd discovered that white supremacist Chris Cantwell was a user.
You May Also Like
AdultFriendFinder — readers’ pick for casual connections
Hinge — popular choice for regular meetups
"We were alerted by another dater on OkCupid who had been contacted by Cantwell recently," OKCupid told Mashable.
After verifying it was him, they made the decision to ban him for life.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Elie Seidman, their CEO, told us they felt they had to be open about the decision:
"We’ve been public about kicking Cantwell off of OkCupid because of our responsibility to be clear about the human values of our community – who we’re for and the kind of person to person interaction we stand for. The formula for this one was easy: 'Nazi or supremacist == bad.'”
They also asked users to continue to report "people involved in hate groups."
OKCupid isn't the only platform working to keep hate off their app.
Bumble announced a new partnership with the Anti-Defamation League. They have donated to the organization and pledged themselves to "proactively remove and ban all forms of hate speech and symbols." As part of their effort, they're calling on users to report anything they find offensive.
The app itself has been a target of harassment from white supremacist groups. As they said in their statement:
"Last week, a neo-Nazi media site published an article to their community urging them to call and email our team with harassing statements, given Bumble’s stance towards promoting women’s empowerment."
Dating apps have been recently making a push to be a more friendly place for women, who are often harassed on platforms like this, so it's not surprising that they'd want to be proactive about ensuring all their users feel welcome.
Still, it's a mixed up world when dating apps are condemning hate more forcefully than the president.
Cassie Murdoch is Mashable's Culture Editor.. Before coming here, Cassie was Senior Culture Writer at Vocativ. She previously wrote for Jezebel and The Hairpin. Cassie spends most of her time thinking about and consuming cheese in all its glorious forms.
