Personal Relationships and Intimacy in the Age of Social Media by Cristina Miguel

Author:Cristina Miguel
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9783030020620
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

4.4 Dating/Hook-up Sites: The Badoo Case

As stated on its “About” section (Badoo 2018a), Badoo was launched in 2006 by a small international group of young, forward-thinking programmers and is owned by the Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev. It is managed from London, Moscow, and Malta, but the company is registered in Cyprus. Badoo is a social media platform where users look for interaction with strangers primarily for hook-ups or dates, although on its website the company claims that “[w]e bring social networking to life by allowing you to chat, make new friends, share photos, maybe even date” (Badoo 2018a). Badoo (ibid.) asserts to be the largest social network for meeting new people locally in the world, with more than 390 million users, located mainly in Italy, France, Spain, Brazil, and Poland (Alexa 2018b). On average, Badoo users spend ten hours a week in the app (Badoo 2018b).

In Badoo, user profiles include a number of pictures; a field to specify whether the user is in the platform to make new friends, chat, or date (the default setting); a description; interests; personal info (including sexual orientation, relationship status, and drinking habits, among other); and languages. Badoo allows users to contact people who live in different locations (through a searcher) or people nearby (if the GPS feature is activated), where users can select the number of miles to search around. Also, users can filter among all, new, or “online now” profiles. The communication happens through the chat feature. User profiles can be added to favourites and users can play to “Encounters”, where they can click the heart symbol if they like the user or the “X” if they do not. There is also a crush bottom (a heart with an arrow) to show special interest in another user. It is possible to connect with Facebook to find existing contacts on Badoo. The basic service is free, although there are also premium paid options, which I address extensively in Chap. 5.

When users buy any of the premium services, their accounts appear as verified (since their identity has been checked through their credit card number). Also, users can verify their accounts with their phone number or other social media such as Facebook or Twitter. In this study, only a few participants were verified, mainly through their phone number, Google+, or Facebook. If the name provided on Badoo is different to the one in the social platform used to verify the account, Badoo suggests the user to use the same name in order to not be perceived as fake. Nevertheless, the ease with which one can create other false social media accounts makes this system ineffective as a verification tool. Despite social media platforms increasingly implementing real name policies, there are still some users who prefer to use nicknames. Ana (35, UK) uses her middle name on Badoo, which works as a nickname. In this way, the anonymity facilitated by the use of a nickname led her to communicate intimate details about her life, whilst not disclosing information that could identify her.

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