A quarter of Brits have been body shamed online

Bumble, the women-first dating and networking app, has today announced that it will ban body shaming. The popular app is updating its terms and conditions to explicitly ban unsolicited and derogatory comments made about someone’s appearance, body shape, size or health. This includes language that can be deemed fat-phobic, ableist, racist, colourist, homophobic or transphobic.

This change makes Bumble one of the first dating apps to explicitly moderate for body shaming language and images.

Bumble is also encouraging their community to report bad behaviour through their in-app reporting to enforce this specific set of guidelines.

Research from Bumble reveals that 1 in 4 (23%) Brits have been body shamed online on dating apps and social media. This is particularly important in dating, where 87% feel you are more physically judged than other areas of life.

Aston spoke to Naomi Walkland from Bumble to offer advice to anyone who has experienced body shaming, to discuss the impacts it can have and highlight why Bumble is making this step.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash