Building Healthy Online Communities (BHOC), a consortium of national and local HIV and STD prevention agencies, has teamed up with nine LGBTQ dating apps to conduct the 2021 ‘NiceAF’ survey.
Adam4Adam, Daddyhunt, dudesnude, Grindr, GROWLr, Jack’d, Manhunt, POZ Personals, and SCRUFF were all involved in the project. They joined together in the cross-industry effort to reduce stigma for their gay, bi, and trans users.
The survey found a number of results, from more than 5,500 platform users, looking into areas that users want to take action on.
Some of the key challenges that were highlighted include giving users more options for customisation, expand filtering functionality, facilitate clear communications between users, supporting emotional and physical safety, and prioritising the needs of users who experience stigma in feature development and implementation.
One key area of note was discrimination and hate online towards users. Many users reported experiencing stigma based on other attributes: body size, weight, HIV status, disabilities, and age.
While the survey did not ask NiceAF participants to disclose their body size, weight, HIV status, disabilities, or age in the surveys, they heard from many users that they experienced high rates of rejection and stigma based on these attributes. Many anti-stigma features will be useful to them as well and should be adapted to meet their needs.
The ‘NiceAf’ campaign was first launched in June 2020 and was a collection of videos from users who talked about their experiences of dating online.
Read the full report here.