SACRAMENTO – State Senator Ling Ling Chang (R – Diamond Bar) announced Thursday she will be working with one of the world’s most popular social networking apps, Bumble, and its founder and CEO, Whitney Wolfe Herd, to combat indecent exposure online.
In January, Senator Chang will introduce legislation to go after sexual predators who send unsolicited lewd photos to women online. Senator Chang’s legislation will make it a crime punishable by a fine. Pew Research states that over half of young women say they received an unwanted explicit photo while online.
“We’re in a digital world, and it is critical we protect online users,” said Senator Chang. “I’ve heard the horrific stories of women who have been victimized and digitally harassed. This is absolutely unacceptable. We need to send a message that this culture of online harassment must go.”
Bumble CEO Wolfe Herd said, “So much of people’s live are spent online, yet the digital world has fallen short of protecting us there. What is illegal in the real world needs to be illegal in the digital world. Bumble is committed to working with Senator Chang to making that a reality in California.”
Senator Chang’s legislation comes on the heels of the Texas State Legislature passing the first-in-the-nation law to fine and criminalize the sending of unsolicited nude photos. Bumble successfully pushed this legislation in 2019 and Senator Chang is now bringing that momentum to the Golden State.
Bumble has taken a proactive approach to fighting bad behavior in both the digital and real world. Bumble invests a great deal into the safety and security of its users and recently launched the Private Detector which leverages AI to identify and block unsolicited nude images before they are sent between users.
As a member of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus, and a founding member of both the Millennial Caucus and the California Legislative Technology & Innovation Caucus, Senator Chang is uniquely positioned to bring this important online safety measure to California. She has leveraged her expertise in technology to pass legislation to combat cyberbullying and allow state workers to use sharing-economy services during business travel.
