The Platform Question: Power, Accountability and Global South The Platform Question: Power, Accountability and Global South 66. For instance, Carlson highlights the experiences of Indigenous Australians in navigating online dating, where they routinely encountered racial abuse and violence. See Bronwyn Carlson, ‘Love and Hate at the Cultural Interface: Indigenous Australians and Dating Apps’ (2020) 56 Journal of Sociology 133 <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1440783319833181> accessed 17 August 2025. 67. See, for instance, Chris Stokel-Walker, ‘Why Is It OK for Online Daters to Block Whole Ethnic Groups?’ The Observer (29 September 2018) <https://www. theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/29/wltm-colour-blind-dating-app-racial-discrimination-grindr-tinder-algorithm-racism> accessed 10 July 2024; ‘Grindr Removes “Ethnicity Filter” after Complaints’ (1 June 2020) <https://www. bbc.com/news/technology-52886167> accessed 18 August 2025; Amy Thomson, Olivia Carville and Nate Lanxon, ‘Match Opts to Keep Race Filter for Dating as Other Sites Drop It’ Bloomberg.com (8 June 2020) <https://www.bloomberg. com/news/articles/2020-06-08/dating-apps-debate-race-filters-as-empowering-or-discriminating> accessed 18 August 2025. 68. Collaborative Filtering is used for personalised recommendations where users are recommended items (in this case, potential partners) based on the opinion or behaviour of a community of users who share similar preferences. See J Ben Schafer and others, ‘Collaborative Filtering Recommender Systems’ in Peter Brusilovsky, Alfred Kobsa and Wolfgang Nejdl (eds), The Adaptive Web: Methods and Strategies of Web Personalization (Springer 2007) <https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-540-72079-9_9> . 69. Liesel L Sharabi, ‘Finding Love on a First Data: Matching Algorithms in Online Dating’ [2022] Harvard Data Science Review <https://hdsr.mitpress.mit. edu/pub/i4eb4e8b> accessed 31 July 2025; Karim Nader, ‘Dating through the Filters ’ (2020) 37 Social Philosophy and Policy 237 <https://www.cambridge.org/ core/product/identifier/S0265052521000133/type/journal_article> accessed 7 August 2025; Williams (n 60); ‘Dating App Algorithms.’ (MonsterMatch) <https:// monstermatch.hiddenswitch.com/algorithms> accessed 18 August 2025. 70. Nader (n 69). 71. B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development’ (1917). 72. A study examining inter-caste marriages from 1951-2012, using data from the India Human Development Survey 2011-12 (IHDS) notes an inconsequential rise in inter-caste marriage during the time period, with only 4.5% of the women surveyed in the sample having married outside their caste during 201112. See Pralip Kumar Narzary and Laishram Ladusingh, ‘Discovering the Saga of Inter-Caste Marriage in India’ (2019) 54 Journal of Asian and African Studies 588 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0021909619829896> accessed 22 April 2025. 73. A study examining the data from the National Family Health Survey (NHFS 64 Platform Accountability in Online Dating III 2005-2006), found that only 2.1% of marriages were interreligious. See Kumudin Das and others, ‘Dynamics of Inter-Religious and Inter-Caste Marriages in India’ [2011] Population Association of America, Washington DC, USA ; As per a survey by Pew Research Centre, nearly all (99%) of respondents stated that they shared the same religion as their spouse. See Pew Research Center, ‘Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation’ (June 29, 2021) <https://www. pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/06/PF_06.29.21_India.full_. report.pdf>. 74. See Shruti Tomar, ‘Dalit Man Beaten to Death for Inter-Caste Marriage in Madhya Pradesh Village’ (Hindustan Times, 25 August 2025) <https://www. hindustantimes.com/cities/noida-news/dalit-man-beaten-to-death-for-inter-caste-marriage-in-madhya-pradesh-village-101756125601181.html>; The Hindu Bureau, ‘Tirunelveli “Honour” Killing Case: Victim Kavin’s Mother, Teachers Express Shock’ The Hindu (28 July 2025) <https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/sc-man-murder-in-tirunelveli-activists-demand-law-to-prevent-honour-killing/article69864758.ece> accessed 11 October 2025; Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Ahmer Khan, ‘“They Cut Him into Pieces”: India’s “Love Jihad” Conspiracy Theory Turns Lethal’ The Guardian (21 January 2022) <https://www. theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/21/they-cut-him-into-pieces-indias-love-jihad-conspiracy-theory-turns-lethal> accessed 11 October 2025. 75. See for instance, Charu Gupta, Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and the Hindu Public in Colonial India (Orient Blackswan 2001); David James Strohl, ‘Love Jihad in India’s Moral Imaginaries: Religion, Kinship, and Citizenship in Late Liberalism’ (2019) 27 Contemporary South Asia 27; Shewli Kumar and Iswarya Subbiah, ‘Crimes in the Name of Honour: A National Shame’ (DHRDNet 2022) <https://www.dhrdnet.org/honour-crimes-research-report/>. 76. See for instance, Nitya Kuthiala and Keegan McBride, ‘How Silicon Valley Developed Digital Dating Platforms Are Transforming Love and Relationship Culture in India’ (Social Science Research Network, 15 January 2025) <https:// papers.ssrn.com/abstract=5097768> accessed 22 January 2025. 77. Kuthiala and McBride (n 76); Kavita Dattani, ‘Data-Bility: Endogamous Social Intimacies on Dating Apps in Mumbai’ (2025) 50 Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers e12687 <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ tran.12687> accessed 9 July 2025 ; Benson Rajan, ‘“It Follows You Home”: Emotional and Psychological Impacts of Dating-App Harassment on Indian Women’ (2025) 112 Women’s Studies International Forum 103129 <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539525000780> accessed 11 August 2025. 78. The study interviewed 18 participants using Tinder, Bumble or Hinge to understand how Indian users navigate Silicon Valley built digital dating platforms given the conflict between the platform’s embedded values and those of their society. See Kuthulia and McBride (n 76). 79. It is thus pertinent to pay attention to Kang’s problematisation of intercaste love as a site of power, where intercaste love is seen as a “temporary Platform Accountability in Online Dating 65