Written by Amy Beecham
In BBC Three’s latest documentary, reporter Linda Adey investigates what happens when online dating goes wrong.
Content warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual violence and suicide.
The internet has undoubtedly changed the way we date. Thanks to a wider pool of potential suitors, a third of relationships between 2015 and 2019 started online. However, the increase in people meeting via dating apps brings new dangers too, particularly for women.
Data from the National Crime Agency suggests that sexual offences linked to online dating have increased over the past four years, with 83% of victims being women.
Despite this, fewer than 16% of sexual assaults are actually reported to the police.
In BBC Three’s latest documentary, reporter Linda Adey investigates what happens when online dating goes wrong. Spurred by the BBC’s research that found 25% people using apps have reported sexual assault on a date, Dating’s Dangerous Secrets explores what happens when users try and report sexual assault to a dating app.
Shockingly, the BBC found that of the 37% of dating app users who reported the inappropriate behaviour they experienced, 47% said they were dissatisfied with the action the platform took.
The film meets Bex, a 27-year-old from East Anglia, who was sexually assaulted while on a Tinder date in 2020.
Bex describes inviting a man she’d been talking to via the app to her house, where they ended up having sex. While she had originally consented, after the intercourse began to hurt, she repeatedly asked the individual to stop, which he ignored. She shares how he continued despite her telling him no and trying to push him off, before he eventually stopped and went home.
Bex chose not to report it to the police, as she’d previously reported an assault and said they “did nothing”. Instead, she reported the user’s profile to Tinder. However, days later her own profile was blocked for “violating terms and conditions” and she never received a response from the app over her claim.
“It’s a slap in the face when all you get is an automated message,” Bex tells Stylist. “It wasn’t even sensitively written. I had no support and it was made even worse by the fact Tinder immediately banned my account without explanation.
“Two days after the incident, I actually wrote a suicide note on my Facebook,” she shares. “I was in a really dark place. It basically said: if you care about me, please come and help me. My aunt ended up coming to me and helping me back into a better state of mind, but it took months to start healing.”
Match Group Holdings, which owns Tinder and Plenty of Fish, told the BBC: “We are very concerned that it took nine months for a response. We want to investigate this. We aim to respond to these types of reports as soon as possible.”
“I think they need to have actual human beings dealing with this and they need to be really proactive and take steps,” Bex continues. “If you report something that’s happened, I think that they should be banned straight away. There’s the issue that there might be some false reports, but I think that’s a risk worth taking to protect people.”
But what responsibilities do the apps themselves hold for keeping their users safe and taking action against inappropriate behaviour?
In January 2021, Tinder announced that every member of its customer care team had participated in training to help them better understand how survivors process and report instances of serious abuse or harassment, how to recognise serious reports that may use vague language, and how to appropriately respond to these types of reports.
“Our members are trusting us with an incredibly sensitive and vulnerable part of their lives, and we believe we have a responsibility to support them through every part of this journey, including when they have bad experiences on and off the app,” said Tracey Breeden, VP of safety and social advocacy for Tinder and Match Group in a statement.
“Working with sexual violence charity RAINN has allowed us to take a trauma-informed approach to member support for those impacted by harassment and assault.”
However, not everyone believes this action is enough.
“Tech companies need to be doing more, responding quickly and appropriately and acting to improve the situation for survivors,” agrees Rebecca Hitchen, head of policy for the End Violence Against Women And Girls Coalition.
Elsewhere in the programme, Debbie Smith, the mother of Katherine, who was murdered in 2017 by a man she met online with over 140 previous convictions, says that background identity checks should be mandatory for all dating apps.
“Not all dating apps are bad,” she said, “but the ones you don’t pay for and don’t do the checks, they’re who I hold responsible.” Speaking about the dating site Plenty Of Fish, where her daughter met her killer, she added: “They’re as culpable as he is.”
To protect users of dating apps in future, 70% of those polled by the BBC said they would support the requirement for all users to undergo basic background checks before signing up for dating apps. Additionally, 67% would still use a dating app if a payment was required.
However, as Adey hears in the film, background checks alone don’t provide a full solution to make online dating safer. Instead, she hears calls from many campaigners who believe government legislation to improve and protect those dating apps is essential.
Bex says that through therapy she has begun to heal from her experience, but shares that two years on from the attack, she’s still not been able to meet anyone online.
“Even when I’ve wanted to meet someone I’m chatting to, I’ve kind of had a sick feeling in my stomach and not gone. I haven’t had the confidence to meet anybody.
“And if I know my friends have gone to meet someone from an app, I’m the first to say: ‘Let me know where you’re going,’ ‘Let me know when you’re home’.”
Bex says she hopes the documentary will put pressure on dating apps to put better safety procedures in place and improve their response to assault claims.
“If other victims can hear my story and know that they’re not on their own, I’m glad I shared my experience.”
Dating’s Dangerous Secrets airs tonight on BBC Three at 10pm, and will be available to catch up on iPlayer.
Sexual assault referral centres provide a safe space and dedicated care for people who have been raped, sexually assaulted, or abused. If you have been raped, sexually assaulted or abused and don’t know where to turn, search “sexual assault referral centres” to find out more or visit www.nhs.uk/SARCs to find your nearest service.
Images: BBC/Getty
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