Bumble changes its policy to crack down on bots, ghosting and doxing

Dating app company Bumble has released its updated community guidelines with an aim to crack down on bots, spam, ghosting and doxing. The new policy will apply to its dating app Badoo along with Bumble.

The platform is revamping its rules to weed out bots by banning actions like artificially influencing “connections, matching, conversations, or engagement through the use of automation or scripting.” Bumble specified that it has blocked over 8.2 million accounts this year across its properties — a majority of them through the company’s AI to detect fake and spam accounts.

Bumble has been investing in various efforts to develop machine-learning models to make its platform safer. Last year, the company open-sourced its algorithm to detect unsolicited nudes.

The dating app is also adding clauses to prohibit adult content on its apps, including content in profiles or attempts to buy, sell or promote sexual content.

In addition, the company is cracking down on ghosting and will now count a “no-show” on dates — when two people agree to meet and one of them doesn’t show up with any intimation — under “bullying and abusive conduct.”

In a previously published help page about ghosting, the company had simply asked users to see it as the other person’s loss.

“Bumble believes in being real about the imperfect nature of dating. We fully get that ghosting can be disappointing or frustrating, but sometimes it happens,” the page had said. “If someone suddenly stops messaging you, see it as their loss and an opportunity to find someone better for you.”

Bumble said that it is also updating its guidelines to include acts like doxing and victim-blaming as rule-breaking offenses of its service under the “Bullying and Abusive Conduct policies” policy. This will apply to all company properties — Bumble, Badoo and the newly released Bumble For Friends (BFF) app.

The company hasn’t provided details on whether it also plans to update its reporting options and flow to reflect the changes in community guidelines. Additionally, it will face challenges in tackling off-platform violations of some of these rules.