Study: More Harassment Seen In LGBT Online Dating

While social distancing directives make it all the more challenging to establish romantic connections, online dating apps like Match Group Inc's MTCH Tinder and Facebook, Inc. FB are helping power romance globally during the coronavirus pandemic.

Pew Research Center recently reported surveyed trends in online dating, finding that LGBT community members are more frequently subjected to harassment when online dating versus straight dating app users.

With the coronavirus pandemic freezing in-person dating, can people looking for love feel safe online? 

Expect Respect

Among the notable facts and figures from the Pew study, 48% of LGBT dating app users revealed that someone has continued to contact them after they said they weren’t interested. Only 35% of straight dating app users said the same behaviors were exhibited toward them.

About one out of every three straight dating app users, 32% to be precise, report receiving a sexually explicit picture or message they did not request. On the flip side, 56% of LGBT online dating app users report receiving the same unwanted advances.

Seventeen percent of LGBT dating app users said that someone on a dating site or app had threatened to physically abuse them, while 7% of straight dating app users say they’ve been subjected to the same sort of behavior.