Grindr has changed the privacy settings for people using the app in the Olympic Village in Beijing. Users in the Village can still find one another, but their profiles are not visible to people outside the Village.
Bloomberg reports that the change “is designed to protect the world’s top athletes from persecution or harassment.”
“We want Grindr to be a space where all queer athletes, regardless of where they’re from, feel confident connecting with one another while they’re in the Olympic Village,” said Grindr for Equality head Jack Harrison-Quintan.
The shift keeps nosy outsiders from using the app’s “Explore” feature to see who’s online in the Village. That created big problems at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio, when a straight journalist created a fake profile on the dating app to see just how many male athletes were cruising for sex between events.
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.
Related: Out, skater Eric Radford strips down to show off Olympic tattoo
The resulting article, titled “The Other Olympic Sport In Rio: Swiping,” appeared on The Daily Beast. While the author didn’t call out any of the men by name, he did share quite a bit of identifying information about them, including what sports they played and what countries they were from.
Naturally, a lot of people weren’t pleased with the stunt, calling it homophobic, irresponsible, disrespectful, and dishonest.
The Daily Beast has since removed the article and posted an apology.
Grindr clearly wanted to avoid a repeat during the 2022 Games.
“During the 2022 Olympics, Grindr users in and near the Olympic bubble will receive an on-screen alert that says: ‘Your privacy is important to us. Our Explore feature has been disabled in the Olympic Village so that people outside your immediate area can’t browse here,'” Bloomberg reports.
“It’s still possible to find users ‘nearby’ or searching recently added profiles,” the article notes.
It adds that while this is “the first time the company has done this for an Olympic games, Grindr has disabled the ‘Explore’ function for certain countries and regions where being gay is illegal or considered risky.”
In the weeks leading up to the start of the Games, Grindr disappeared from app stores in China. Blued, the country’s biggest dating app for gay men, is still available.
D P
Grindr, if you’re watching, props to you for doing this.
BigJohnSF
Athletes don’t have to be closeted in order to want privacy when cruising online. And Grindr shouldn’t assume all gay athletes want to be identified by the hate speech term “queer.”
DefiantOne
Boomer queens who can’t move on from being bullied in high school shouldn’t assume Grindr must cater to their adjustment issues. Go talk to a therapist and stop trying to force all queer men to cater to your decades-old trauma.
barryaksarben
Im 65 and growing up got called ALL the horrible names but in my 20s I realised it was their problem not mine so you can call me anything you want and is you are gay owned or at least an ally I dont even notice how you refer to me. If you are an enemy I expect you to try to push my buttons but I ripped those buttons out years ago so go ahead and waste your breath. SImilar to when trolls come onto gay sites thinking we are as stupid as the right wing or religious deplorables too stupid to figure it out. Makes me laugh at them because they are wasting their time which is always a good thing for us
winemaker
God bless America! For those out there who think china’s so damned great with all their censorship, let ’em move there. One more thing they’ll need to renounce their US citizenship and turn in their passports and buy a one way ticket as they’ll no longer be welcome here. Really why the USA is still dealing with these worthless subhuman no good for anyone commie bastards is beyond me and a lot more people here. After all the filth they’ve released into the world the latest Coronavirus all the way back to the bubonic plague BTW china is no friend of the USA, never was a friend of the USA and never ever will be friends of the USA and world freedom and decency and the sooner people here realize this fact, the better we here in the USA will be.
1898
do you feel better now that you’ve taken that enormous dump?
ZzBomb
I’m no China fan either but you need to calm down and get some wider perspectives on life other than black and white, good and bad. B/c let me tell you, America isn’t a bastion of human rights either and we have our things to work on and improve as well.
Insta_DudeKembro
Commie bastards? You mean Tucker Carlson, Josh Hawley, and Fox News, who are spreading Russia’s anti-Europe propaganda? Or you mean the China Communist Party to whom Treason Trump paid $200,000 while evading US taxes? Or the North Korean commie tyrant that Dementia Donald wrote love letters to before saluting NK’s commie generals?
Or you referring to Moscow Mitch and Putin-puppet Trump themselves, who gave trillions in socialist welfare to greedy billionaires, war contractors, big banks, rich megachurches, right wing corporations, and corporate farms hurt by Drama Queen Donnie’s anti-capitalist trade war? #VoteBlue #BidenBoomNotGQPDoom #StayWoke
quantum
There are still Native Americans alive today who were forced as children into state-run boarding schools for cultural re-education. There are more similiarities than differences in the human rights records of The PRC and The US. One can criticize both without being defamed as a hater of democracy or a lover of communism.
nm4047
Commie bastards, is this the 50’s. Keep in mind the country you are promoting, Stole the land from the indigenous occupants, used slave labour to develop the wealth and interned the Asian community once they had served their purpose to build a rail network and persecuted and under paid the immigrants that were encouraged to come, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of etc etc” (Emma Lazarus). Get back to once you have climbed down off that well engineered high horse you sit upon.
CurtisIsTheOne
Hey Winemaker! Your statement calling Chinese “worthless subhuman no good for anyone commie bastards” is xenophobic, racist, insulting and just plain stupid. When talking about “worthless subhumans” you must have been looking into a mirror. Plus, I think you drank one bottle of wine too much! ARSEHOLE! !!
SDR94103
owned by repuglicans.
Marsh Parker
So you’ve waited and trained your entire life for your moment in the spotlight,
traveled thousands of miles,
in the middle of a pandemic lockdown,
where anyone can get sent home at any time,
To the most oppressive nation on earth,
on an app with gameboy level security…
to swap dick pics?
YOU DESERVE TO GET CAUGHT!
acpp
Whoa! I can’t believe anyone would actually WISH for a gay athlete (or any gay person at all) to get arrested in China and maybe sentenced to prison, for just doing what anybody anywhere in the world should be able to do as free human beings. So you’re outraged because a guy might wanna send something to another guy that you don’t approve of? Tough shit. I don’t know how you know who’s sending dick pics, but unless they’re sending them to you without your okay, then it’s none of your business. Wish I had half the courage they do, that they’re willing to take the risk of what might happen to them, in order to uphold the spirit that the Olympics stand for.
Invader7
Low life. Wishing that someone get arrested in China. You’re HORRIBLE… Be careful what YOU wish for. As KARMA is a real BITCH and WILL bite YOU in your skanky,wonky ass and that YOU’LL be the one in trouble… You’re disgusting and repulsive… Maybe you’re not getting ANY dick. With a poisonous ,toxic attitude you’re displayed.No wonder you ain’t getting laid… @ttm9: A Agolf Twitterler supporter: Drumpf is a Neo-NAZI dictatorial FASCIST wanna be. Biden is cleaning up the DISASTROUS messes Drumpf spewed all over the country.. You’re a TRUE fool brown nosing Drumpf. He’s the most CORRUPT /CROOKED president ever. He & his stool pigeons like yourself almost turned this country into a NAZI nighmare. You & your ilk deserve scorn and ridicule for being so naive and lame !!! Move to Iran North Korea,China or Russia since you think Bidens America is awful. You’re moronic and ill informed.
Downunder
So it didn’t matter that it happened again at the Tokyo Olympics after RIO but, Grindr made sure it didn’t happen at the China Olympics?
Hmmm ?
inoroutdoor
I ask why the special treatment for athletes. There are countries all around the world where gays are persecuted. What does grinder do for them? Wonder if grindr will do the same for 2022 world cup in Qatar?
ttm9
InstavDude, you really do sound like a dumb POS. The current administration is by far the WORST EVER in history. Our country is being destroyed and we’re the laughing stock around the world. Russia, China, Ukrainian and who knows how many other countries, have Biden in their pocket. Both Joe and his crack smoking POS son, Hunter, have taken from everyone offering. This is what you call better than President Trump? You really need SERIOUS help!!!!
Rivcuban
And to ttm9. Trump started the war with China. Trump cozied up to Putin who is one of the most brutal dictators in the world. Try being openly gay in Russia. You will get mobs of people kicking your ass. Trump met with Kim Jong Un who has killed and imprisoned tens of thousands. Gays in North Korea get put in hard labor prison camps for life. Trump would welcome Russia invading the sovereign country of Ukraine. Trump was the biggest embarrassment in US history. Biden has restored decency to the white house. You are really delusional.
acpp
Biden isn’t any more responsible for what any of his adult children do, than Trump is for his. However, Biden hasn’t been taking frequent golf trips instead of working for the benefit of the country – he knows what his constitutional responsibilities are. He doesn’t have to speculate on whether he can pardon himself for crimes that he worries he might be convicted of. He hasn’t licked Putin’s ass so many times that has a brown tongue. He is helping to do something about human-caused climate change again by restoring our participation in the Paris Accord. Oh, he can talk like an educated person without having to use a teleprompter. He doesn’t have to throw out 6th-grader swear words in his public appearances, to show people who haven’t a clue of what critical thinking is that he ‘speaks his mind.’ He isn’t making us the laughing stock of the world any more. That legacy of dear Donald fortunately ended on January 20. Whew!
Rivcuban
Are you kidding me? These athletes train for years on end to get in the Olympics. This is their pinnacle of all pinnacles. And they are looking for sex on Grindr during the Olympics? Wow. The gay “fantasy land” is beyond ridiculous.
acpp
The ‘fantasyland’ is a place where you have to leave your sex life behind when you go somewhere to compete in the Olympics. I think athletes are able to participate in Olympic events and still be a sexual person. If you’ve seen valid evidence that any athlete’s performance was less than his or her best because of a Grindr search or sending/receiving dick pics, or any kind of sexual activity, please show it.