Online dating software has to ignore a problem – racism

In today’s society, with the development of technology and the accelerated pace of life, people no longer rely on traditional ways of making friends in life.

Some people prefer to make friends online because social networking software can be programmed with algorithms that allow the holder to get a date that interests her, including different races, colors, social identities, and classes.

Inevitably, then, there is the race issue that no one wants to talk about.

This article will discuss the impact of race on online friendships, or simply the presence of racial discrimination in online friendships.

The data from the  Dating App report shows that people are becoming more accepting of the dating app model.

The number of new accounts has been growing steadily in recent years, with the most popular ones being Tinder，Bumble，Hinge， Badoo，Happn，Grindr，Tantan，Plenty of Fish.

Grindr

As an influential online LGBT social dating software worldwide.

For quite some time in the past allowed users, in the process of starting the program to match people, can be filtered according to age, height, weight, and race.

The core of the application is built into the operating system to operating, or you can pay a separate fee to become a member and get a search by race.

According to a survey in a 2015 paper , up to 90% of users have been exposed to profiles that contain racial slurs, and 50% of people consider themselves victims of racial slurs.

About 4 years ago, when I first came to the UK to study, I met my first black classmate.

His name is Tony, Tony had discussed the issue with me, and he said that it all made him feel frustrated and he originally thought that he would not be hurt by coming to a country that is very gender inclusive. But what he didn’t expect was; to be hurt by racial discrimination, look Douchebags of Grindr and hashtags like #grindrwhileblack.

The Dating Divide: Race And Desire In The Era Of Online Romance also discusses that black skin is the most racially discriminated group of people in online dating apps.

Which can be interpreted as measuring a person’s quality by the color of their skin. Some believe that Grindr’s program is set up to promote racism to a certain extent have argued.

Grindr Announces  remove the “ethnicity filter”

In June 2020, Grindr  announced the remove the “ethnicity filter” feature in tribute to Black Lives Matter and said that it would never launch racial preferences in its apps again which is a very positive sign.

However, I think this is just the beginning, and it won’t solve the problem of racial discrimination in all online friendships, and there may be all kinds of racial discrimination-related apps in the future.

Personal recommendation

Technicians are developing programs to avoid racialize algorithms.

We hope that the government will establish a policy to review applications to avoid racial discrimination on the Internet.

Those who use the application should establish managing risk and safety, to prevent themselves from encountering it when using it.