Dating App Bumble Bans Guns In Profile Photos

Nearly three weeks after the Parkland high school shooting that killed 17, another American business has distanced itself from guns.

Bumble, the dating app where only women are allowed to initiate contact in heterosexual matches, announced Monday it would systematically delete photos on users’ profiles that feature guns, with the exception of military or law enforcement members in uniform.

“As mass shootings continue to devastate communities across the country, it’s time to state unequivocally that gun violence is not in line with our values, nor do these weapons belong on Bumble,” the company said in a statement on its website.

The company also announced it would donate $100,000 to the March For Our Lives movement.

Bumble will rely on users of the app to flag gun photos with the report button, which now counts visible guns as an offense. Guns will be categorized as “inappropriate content” in the app’s report function, alongside things like racism and pornography. Again, photos featuring users in police or military uniforms while brandishing guns will not be subject to deletion, according to Bumble.

Bumble was one of many companies that denounced gun violence after the Parkland shooting. Several car rental services, banks and airlines that had partnerships with the NRA severed those ties over the past few weeks. Meanwhile, major retailers like Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods raised the minimum age requirement to purchase firearms, with Dick’s suspending sales of assault rifles altogether.

In February, a Quinnipiac poll found that 66 percent of Americans favor stricter gun control laws, the highest number ever recorded by the poll, while 97 percent favored universal background checks and 67 percent favored a ban on assault weapons.