Users and Usage: Empowered or Constrained?

In Van Dijck’s book The Culture of Connectivity, he poses the question “To what extent are users empowered or constrained by platforms to fashion their unique identity and stylize their self-presentation?” (p.32-33). In other words in what ways do social media platforms such as Tinder do to either empower self creation or restrain users from being able to express themselves. We can look at this through the implicit participation, which refers to the usage inscribed by the design of the app and the coding used as well as the explicit participation, which refers to how the actual users interact and maneuver around these mechanisms.

First, its protocols require pre-setting a limited geographical perimeter, age frame, choosing of images and device geo-localization for possible matches to appear. The users are able to set their own parameters quickly and efficiently and are able to change them at any point in time, however although these options might seem to give users optimal freedom the design of these options are actually somewhat restricting. Options such as setting your geographical perimeter only allows you to set it to a certain distance away from you unless you wish to pay for the app. As well, you are only allowed to have a maximum 6 pictures and a 500 word maximum description. Remedies created by Tinder for some of these issues are the paid options such as Tinder Plus which gives access to features such as the rewind option for a swipe mistake, the premium option which allows unlimited swipes, as well as the passport feature which allows users to set their geo-localization to anywhere in the world. In their article “Screened Intimacies: The Swipe Logic” by Gaby David and Carolina Cambre, they discuss the issues that arise in the free model of the app when paid upgrades are introduced. They stated that “after Tinder developers provided privileges based on subscriptions, the standard free model began to limit matches” (p.4). The app’s algorithms function began to decrease the number of viewable profiles as its use increases, unless paid for the free model only gives users 20 consecutive right swipes and if you run out of right swipes you become temporarily locked out of swiping. However Tinder users have managed to creatively get past this by changing the settings from “searching men and women” to “searching only men” or “searching only women,” a new cache of profiles became available.

One of the constraints of Tinder on its users has now been updated. Tinder now allows transgenders to identify themselves rather than just the standard male or female options. It now allows its users to choose transgender or gender-nonconforming identities in order to remedy the persistent harassment against trans people on the service. The abuse came from transgender users being reported as abusive on the site from others based on who they are not what they were saying or doing, these abuse reports meant that trans people were blocked from using the service by its algorithms. The Movement has now taken form in a hashtag #alltypesallswypes to bring awareness to this issue and created a video that is posted below.

https://youtu.be/XP90QAnmaA4

Work Cited:

David, Gaby, and Carolina Cambre. "Screened Intimacies: Tinder and the Swipe Logic." Social                  Media & Society, vol. 2, no. 2, 2016, pp. 1-11.

Stack, Liam. "Transgender on Tinder: Now You Can Identify Yourself That Way." New York Times15          Nov. 2016. Accessed 12 Dec. 2016.

Van Dijck, J. (2013). The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.