Left on read: Ghosting and dating apps

Ghosting is a major concern for those advocating for more ethical dating apps. It is often cited as an example of bad dating app behaviour, and some public commentators even consider it a form of abuse. In this chapter, I develop an ethics of ghosting that does not overstate the harms involved while provided with well-defined individual duties with respect to ghosting. I start by defining ghosting as the unilateral ending of interaction without an explicit communication that the interaction is to end. Then, I give an account of why ghosting is wrongful in the case of committed relationships: because it deliberately worsens constitutional vulnerabilities concerning people's sense of meaningfulness. In the context of online dating, users are also constitutionally vulnerable, albeit on different grounds: with regards to their hopes and with regards to their status as social beings. I argue that users have a positive duty to an active exit when they foreseeably contribute to vulnerability, and a negative duty with respect to the essentially aggregative harms which constitutionally arise in dating apps. In this way, I conclude that users of dating apps must refrain from ghosting not only when they directly contribute to vulnerability, but also when a user is a likely victim of frequent interactional harm. In other cases, users are bound by a duty to collectively work towards more ethical dating apps, which should remove mechanisms conducive to ghosting.