GREEN BAY (NBC26) — Bumble's initial response to a user's question about whether they recycle blocked profiles on user feeds garnered viral online attention. But, the app now says it was all a misunderstanding.
- Meet Jennie Young, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay famous for her Burned Haystack dating method for swiping smarter online
- Young's method, which she unpacks in a book coming out early next year, seeks to weed out as many options as possible to find people worth making a date with
- "Block to Burn" is part of Young's strategy, where users block anyone they aren't interested in to avoid seeing profiles again
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
I'm Pari Apostolakos at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay where a professor, famous for her online dating method, asked for answers from a popular dating app when some of its users came to her with a concern about the ability to block people's profiles.
Watch Pari Apostolakos' full broadcast story here:
The app's initial response garnered viral online attention but spokespeople now say it was all a misunderstanding.
Rhetoric professor Jennie Young's Burned Haystack dating method has garnered hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. When one of young's Facebook group members reached out to her with an email screenshot where a Bumble team member said blocked profiles are sometimes shown to users again "In case you've changed your mind," Young wanted answers.
"It's a violation of consent, it's, you know, just blatantly ignoring women who've said 'I don't want to see this person again,'" Young said.
Calling the practice of recycling blocked profiles a "boundary violation" she shared Bumble's responses to her questions on social media. The app first offered technical advice, like restarting your phone, for people seeing blocked profiles. Then, they said the app "restricts access" to anyone users block.
Finally, they told Young the email about blocked profiles reappearing was sent in error.
"Bumble does not recycle blocked or hidden profiles. The safety and well-being of our community is our top priority, so once a member is blocked or hidden, they will no longer appear to you, and you will no longer appear to them," a Bumble spokesperson said in a statement to our newsroom. "If a previously blocked member appears again, it is likely due to this member creating a new profile."
Some users say they don't trust Bumble's word.
"I don't believe anything they say," Bumble user Elyse Wertheim said over Zoom Wednesday. "Initially it was supposed to be a very user-friendly, woman-oriented app and it is not that way anymore."
"We've had experiences with men where they maybe say one thing and do another and I can't help but draw the parallel that Bumble is doing that," Bumble user Lesley Butterfield said over Zoom Wednesday. "You know, it feels very much like a toxic relationship."
Young holds out hope that the conversation sparked by her post will help create change not just for Bumble, but online dating overall.
"Dating apps are the number one way that people meet right now, and that's only the beginning because when people meet they get married and they have children," Young said. "Human pairing is literally the fabric of how society is built."
In their statement to our newsroom, Bumble asks any users who see a profile they've previously blocked to once again block and report the new profile so their team can take action.
