A woman has hit back at the dating app Bumble after they refused to let her upload a photo of herself wearing a bra... because it was taken indoors.
Cali Rockowitz, 31, has hit back at Bumble after they claimed she violated the app's community guidelines.
The LA-based artist was first taken aback earlier this month after she uploaded a photo to her Bumble profile showing her wearing a black bralette and sweatpants.
However, Rockowitz told Buzzfeed News, that the image was "immediately taken down" - despite her trying to upload it several times.
She told Buzzfeed that she thought it was just "a mistake", and so emailed Bumble asking why the image kept being removed.
"They sent me a generic email saying I couldn’t post photos in my underwear," Rockowitz said. "I couldn’t believe it that after looking at this image they thought this was offensive to users."
She received the email from a customer service representative on December 9, which informed her that "photos in lingerie/underwear are removed from the app".
And despite being surprised by their company policy, Rockowitz thought nothing more of it and left it at that...
That was until December 21, when she decided to upload another image from the same photo shoot that she believed to be "less revealing". This time, her hair is covering most of her bralette top.
However, when this second photo was flagged, Rockowitz once again contacted Bumble - only to received more specific information regarding their policy on underwear shots.
"On Bumble, you are totally allowed to have a bikini or shirtless photo, but we ask that these photos are taken outside," the email stated. "If you're indoors, it looks too much like underwear."
Rockowitz said that she found the company's reasoning "asinine".
Speaking to Buzzfeed, a spokesperson from Bumble not only confirmed the policy, but also revealed that it was established in 2016 after the app received complaints from other users.
"We banned shirtless bathroom mirror selfies in response to feedback from our Bumble community — and after our research showed that profiles including those kinds of photos were the most swiped left on," Bumble said in a statement. "As part of that overall policy, our photo guidelines prohibit photos of people indoors wearing swimsuits or underwear."
"Swimsuit photos are acceptable if you're outside by the pool or on the beach as you're in a natural setting to be wearing a swimsuit."
In addition, to this, Rockowitz said another picture had been removed from her profile - despite being live for months.
In this photo, she's seen in another black bralette top with a black blazer over it.
By this point, Rockowitz was unsure if Bumble were simply doing it "to make an example" out of her, or if she genuinely was breaking the app's rules. But a spokesperson later confirmed to Buzzfeed that the third image also violated "Bumble’s Photo Rules or Terms/Community Guidelines."
Poking fun at the app, Rockowitz then decided to photoshop the image to show her sitting in her bra and blazer at outside locations such as Mount Rushmore and the Egyptian pyramids.
But when she presented Bumble with the images, officials responded to her on Twitter stating that they did not meet the company's guidelines as they were not "originally taken outside".
However, for Rockowitz, she found that the company's guidelines are counterintuitive for the company, which became popular among women because it is a dating app that allows them make the first move.
"I couldn't fathom why [the photos] wouldn't be allowed on a dating profile. Their stance is to empower women. [The app] is made for dating and intimacy. It just makes me never want to use the app again," she said.
In the future, she hopes that she can assess each profile as a "case by case" basis, rather than employ a "blanket algorithm".
