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Dating's Dangerous Secrets

Duration: 1 x 41'

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This insightful film investigates the safety of some of the world’s most popular dating apps, and asks whether providing background checks for all users might be one way to begin improving their safety.

While dating apps like Tinder, Bumble and Hinge now play a major role in many young people’s love lives, an alarming rise in numbers of sexual assault cases have also been reported as a result of meeting someone on an app.

Speaking with a multitude of women who claim to have been sexually assaulted by people they met online, the film explores what happened when these users tried to report their sexual assault cases to the apps.

We meet 26-year-old Bex, who tried to report her Tinder date, who she claims sexually assaulted her during their date. Shockingly, it was Bex who was subsequently banned by dating giant Tinder, who took months to respond to her initial complaint.

Sasha, another young woman, claims she was raped twice after meeting a date. Explaining how she initially couldn't report the incident, because her Tinder date blocked her, Sasha explains how all records of their connection on the app were deleted. She added further: “He blocked me which meant that if I wanted to report him or even block him from adding me back again in future, I actually couldn't access his profile to do so. It completely disappears. There's no backlog of people you previously matched with.”

In very rare cases, a date ends tragically, we meet the mum of 26-year-old Katherine who met her new partner on Plenty of Fish. Tragically, she was stabbed 33 times by someone who turned out to be a dangerous and violent offender. How could someone with over 140 previous convictions be a user of a dating app?

Leaning in to the tough questions, as well as the ones that are repeatedly going unanswered, this documentary joins the conversation about women’s safety in a vastly growing digital landscape.

 

For BBC 3

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