The Platform Question: Power, Accountability and Global South The Platform Question: Power, Accountability and Global South in its Community Guidelines and Safety section nestled within the Terms of Service. Quack Quack goes a little further and prohibits racism, religious discrimination and bigotry.96 While broad categories of “discriminatory” and “bigoted” content should include casteist abuse, the lack of explicit prohibition is likely to discourage users from reporting harmful content. From an analysis of the community guidelines of these two major dating platforms, it appears that although Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi constitute the majority of the country’s population, platforms are designed by and targeted towards only the upper-caste elite. Safety Women often self-censor their online behaviour, and may eventually withdraw from online dating after repeated experiences of sexual abuse and intrusive messages. 48 Dating platforms pose complex safety risks, including those that go beyond in-app interactions, due to factors like conversations between users transitioning to other platforms or offline interactions. Recently, systemic failures in Match Group’s102 management of sexual assault reports on its dating platforms in the US have come to light.103 The investigation revealed that repeat offenders, including those who were reported for rape and violence, continued to operate on the group’s platforms, easily creating new accounts when older profiles got banned. Another study cautioned against groomers and pedophiles using dating platforms to target single mothers to carry out child sexual abuse.104 In India, too, concerns about the safety of women and gender minorities on dating platforms are increasingly coming into focus. Women have reported experiencing cyberstalking, doxxing, gendered hate speech, and the unsolicited sharing of explicit images on dating platforms.105 Users have expressed concerns regarding the practice of ‘catfishing’,106 and being misled into engaging in casual encounters while intending to pursue a serious relationship on the platform.107 Women participants in a study reported that men who faced rejection on dating platforms often tracked them down on other social media platforms like Facebook, and harassed them with Platform Accountability in Online Dating repeated friend requests.108 Reports of sexual harassment and violence during in-person dates arranged through dating platforms have also come to light.109 It is likely that many incidents of online and physical sexual harassment go unreported. Studies have reported that women in India often choose not to report instances of sexual violence.110 This is exacerbated by social taboos against dating in Indian society, which can further preclude women and gender minorities from reporting sexual violence, specifically stemming from interactions on dating platforms, to law enforcement.111 Women often self-censor their online behaviour, and may eventually withdraw from online dating after repeated experiences of sexual abuse and intrusive messages.112 While gender-based online harms stem from broader social contexts, it is important to investigate how the design and operation of dating platforms are often inadequate to both prevent and respond to safety incidents. Many platforms provide safety guides, and some, more than others, place the onus of safety on the users.113 Some platforms have started crisis text lines for users in select jurisdictions,114 and partnered with counselling and support organisations.115 However, these are not uniformly available across all platforms and jurisdictions. Further, reporting mechanisms and content moderation practices of platforms have proven to be insufficient to address safety concerns. Platforms need to streamline reporting mechanisms, reduce response time, and provide more transparency to users on the action taken in response to user complaints.116 Further platforms must be more transparent on how they design their community guidelines and safety guides, and create spaces for more consultation and feedback from users and civil society. Case Study: Reporting Mechanisms on Aisle and Quack Quack Quack Quack allows users to report a profile or a conversation on multiple grounds, including inappropriate profile photos or profile content, indecent behaviour via personalised messages, false information (fake age, profile), using multiple accounts or scamming and spamming. Apart from this, Quack Platform Accountability in Online Dating Platforms must be more transparent on how they design their community guidelines and safety guides, and create spaces for more consultation and feedback from users and civil society. 49