Online dating sites are designed to bring together people from various backgrounds who share the same interests and hobbies. Online dating sites such as craigslist, plenty of fish, eHarmony and Match.com have become very popular in western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. The high penetration of these online dating sites has seen over 66 % of romantic relationships in the United States being initiated through an online dating platform (Smith & Duggan, 2013). However, the people who use these online dating sites are exposed to issues such as self- misrepresentation, sexual predators and identity theft.
Online dating sites allow single people to access a larger pool of potential mates compared to traditional dating techniques that involve meeting people within a small geographic area. These online relationships transition quickly into deeper levels of intimacy through self-disclosure that occur between the participants. Offline meetings are arranged as a strategy for verifying the accuracy of the information disclosed online. By 2013 approximately 23% of people who met through online dating platforms developed into long-term relationships or even marriage (Smith & Duggan, 2013, 2). However, approximately 17% of these members have broken up with their partners through email, text or an online message (Smith & Duggan, 2013, 37). This has led to various crimes such as ‘upskirting.’ This is when one partner sends too much information online through sexting platforms and explicit photographs. These victims are left vulnerable to cyberbullying, revenge porn or even physical violence (Hall & Hearn, 2018). Some women have experienced psychological torture using nonstop calls at wee hours of the day, unwanted gifts and the surprise visits at their places of work. This unwarranted attention has led to the physical or sexual assault of certain victims.
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Online dating sites also allow individuals to dictate the timing of how much information they are willing to disclose to their online partners. Creating profiles that are socially acceptable makes it easy for a person to be easily approached based on their physical attractiveness and other personal traits they state online. The lack of physical interaction during the online dating process takes away the crucial nonverbal cues that further complicate the process of forming romantic relationships. This means that most of these individuals end up misrepresenting themselves under pseudo names and fake photographs to attract a perfect mate. According to Sannon, Bazarova and Cosley (2018) over 40% of online users have reported having lied or included false information on their social profiles. This becomes more prevalent during online interactions with strangers. Some of the misrepresentations include physical attributes such as age, weight or even economic status. This form of self-misrepresentation often leads to idealized partners who end up attracting a false image of a perfect partner. The process of ‘catfishing’ is also used for stalking ex-partners into new relationships for revenge purposes.
Online dating sites have made it easy for people struggling with social anxiety and limited social skills to create long-term and meaningful relationships in a non-threatening environment. These socially awkward individuals can freely express themselves by focusing more on their charm and seductive prowess rather than their physical appearances. However, some of these cyber criminals initiate romantic relationships within these online dating sites with the intention of defrauding their victims. According to the public scam list portal called scamdigger.com, there are over 5,400 profiles of romance scam personalities listed on the site for public awareness (Edwards, Suarez-Tangil, Peersman, Stringhini, Rashid & Whitty, 2018). The process of defrauding online victims involves creating strong romantic relationships that can last for over eight months. This form of crime is difficult to report because the victims are often requested to send cash using false tragic stories such as the death of a close family member, theft or even the need for personal travel documents. In the year 2016 alone the United Kingdom reported £39 million worth of financial losses through online romance crimes (Jones & Moncur, 2018). These criminals use fake social profiles from foreign countries including proxy IP addresses and photographs that have been downloaded from the internet. This makes it difficult to identify or even prosecute some of these offenders.
References
Edwards, M., Suarez-Tangil, G., Peersman, C., Stringhini, G., Rashid, A., & Whitty, M. (2018, May). The Geography of Online Dating Fraud. In Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection . IEEE.
Hall, M., & Hearn, J. (2018). Written evidence submitted to the House of Commons select committee: The Women and Equalities Committee'Sexual harassment of women and girls in public places inquiry' . Parliament UK.
Jones, H. S., & Moncur, W. (2018). The Role of Psychology in Understanding Online Trust. In Psychological and Behavioral Examinations in Cyber Security (pp. 109-132). IGI Global.
Sannon, S., Bazarova, N. N., & Cosley, D. (2018, April). Privacy lies: Understanding how, when, and why people lie to protect their privacy in multiple online contexts. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (p. 52). ACM.
Smith, A. W., & Duggan, M. (2013). Online Dating & Relationship . Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.
