An assault—especially one ending in murder—is a bad thing to have connected to your social-media app. Which explains why Grindr is distancing itself from a fatal attack connected to a gay social-media app.
After a Vancouver sexual assault involving a 15-year-old boy and a 54-year-old man, who police say met using Grindr, comes word that Mark Woodland, a 54-year-old Phoenix man, was beaten and stabbed to death, allegedly by suspect Tommy Reed, 19, after meeting “on an unknown social network.”
That’s how AZFamily.com phrased its report (which has been edited since it originally was posted). Though it didn’t mention Grindr by name, the blogosphere jumped to its own conclusions and fingered Grindr.
Not kosher, says Team Grindr, which has been firing off notices to multiple blogs, including this one.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
After Queerty posted the Vancouver story, Grindr founder Joel Simkhai wrote us to say, “Grindr has a very strict 18 years -and-over terms-of-use policy that all users of our service must agree to. Additionally we actively monitor for potential violations of this policy and bar anyone who violates its terms. We voluntarily have this policy in place to help protect the safety of minors.”
But the beloved app has been even more aggressive about the Arizona murder: Multiple blogs report they’ve received notices (like the one shown here) asking all reports to scrub references to Grindr.
GorgeousBoys.com removed any mention of the app from its item, as did the Phoenix New Times, in all likelihood to avoid accusations of libel.
image via
delurker
How come every story about gridr always features the pic of this toothy Joel fellow?
Riley
the funnier thing is that’s actually a really GOOD picture of him!
PopCultureQueer
Isn’t it because Joel is the founder? I would imagine presumably he allows that image to be used for publicity.
Or maybe the Queerty team just finds him attractive, who knows 😛
delurker again
oh ok. i keep thinking terrible things are happening to him when i see these stories.
PopSnap
Am I the only one who thought the guy in the photo was the killer?
He’s awfully creepy looking. :/
Roman
From March 12 up to now 4 gay men have been killed on the dates through Grindr in Moscow